Benchmarking

[cakadu]

Truth of the matter is cowman, I drive a car that is now almost 5 years old (according to the model year) and I bought it second hand. My house is almost 80 years old, so it is without all the fancy doodads that modern houses come with. We don't take regular vacations especially down south where it costs too much money thanks to our Canadian peso. I don't have a lot of money, nor do I care to. Money can't buy me what is important to me.

Those same people that you are talking about going hungry every day cannot afford to buy our beef etc., so we are growing it only for those who can afford to buy it.

I'm not saying that we can't have the feedlot alleys of the world, I just want there to be some accountability. How can we say with any certainty that there hasn't been some harm done when we don't know where we started from? To keep saying that there hasn't been anything bad happen so far (how do we know) and that with the new rules any potential problems should be taken care of is shortsighted to say the least.

To have the regulations set by the government and then have the policing of it done by the government is not quite cricket in my books and is more or less akin to the fox guarding the hen house, especially in this province where the only thing that seems to matter is more and more money. What is wrong with taking some precautions upfront instead of throwing money reactively at a crisis? If God forbid something happens in these bigger feedlots, who is going to be responsible or are we going to see a lot of buck-passing? If we start being accountable now, then we won't have problems in the future.

[cowman]

I am not totally unsympathetic to your whole attitude. I would hope there is a happy medium somewhere. Completely unchecked growth can be a problem. I don't think any of us wants things like they are in Holland and parts of the U.K. where the ground water is polluted with nitrates etc.
Hopefully technology can solve some of these problems. And yes Linda, sometimes I advocate the whole idea of stepping back and becoming a more sustainable type of industry.I suppose that is the idealist in me coming out! But the realist, in me, knows that isn't the nature of man!
I believe this old world will last just as long as it was supposed to and not one second longer. But I also believe we are here to tend the garden. These conflicting ideas are hard to reconcile at times.

[ianben]

I have problems with this idea of fixing a right level for natural values.
We have know real idea of what they should be. The nitrates in water issues over here are supposedly based on data where someone made a mistake with the decimal point and the evidence present levels are harmful is suspect. Also are levels rising because of todays methods or ploughing up pastures during world war2.
Changing lifestyles must have greater impact on the enviroment than anything we do as farmers.
Burning fossil fuels, radio activity, sitting in front of a computer screen using a mobile phone, flying, air conditioning but don't think people are going to give any of them up.
Isnt the real problem that there are just too many people.
Isnt antibiotic resistance enevitable or some other natural or unnatural way to get us back into balance.

[countryguy]

Ianben I don't think that the problem is that there are too many people.Instead there are just too many people living too close to each other in the big cities these days.It is very easy for little problems to become epidemics.

I also don't feel that antibiotic resistance is inevitable.We have to start treating antibiotics as a last resort and use them only after all other precautionary methods have failed.I see no reason other than economics that we have to put tens of thousands of animals together in one spot to raise them.If we spread these animals out in smaller numbers on larger parcels of land we wouldn't have near the illnesses we have now therefore decreasing the need for antibiotics.

I see alot of antibiotics being used in both people and animals these days as a preventative measure against sickness.Building natural immunity is a thing of the past.Wouldn't it be easier for us to identify and treat the cause of medical and veterinary problems instead of just treating the symptom of the problems when they occur?

[rodbradshaw]

Cakadu
Cowman is right on the fact that farmers are no longer willing to work hard and live poor. We have been to the bright lights and enjoyed it. That is not to say that we want to **** and pillage the countryside to do it.
Cor Van Ray has been mentioned, take an opportunity to go visit one of his new lots. It probably is more enviromentally friendlly than some lots that are twenty or thirty years old and one tenth the size.
The genie is out of the bottle for large scale CFO's. With the cheap food policy, farmers have been driven to what we have today. Organic or natural production will take a certain portion of the market,but not every one can afford the prices that are presently being charged and if the producers don't receive those prices they will not be in business either.
Rod

[Deb]

I don't think food is cheap because of any cheap food policy. Food is cheap because it is being industrially produced on large farms where the profit margin is tiny, and because of vertical integration, and because the only real farmers are the ones that liked the lifestyle of being on their own farm and running the show themselves and they've been squeezed out by the large corporate farms. There are mega-hog-barn janitors now but I wouldn't call them farmers.

Nowadays, the rural area is evolving into an industrial zone with food processing as the main industry. The farmers that are left, and the corporate-owned land grows the raw material for the factories and little else. The Alberta government just slashed another 40 plus% of the agr. budget and now only have specialists that must cater to the food processing industry.

[cakadu]

Rod, I agree that the genie is out of the bottle and we will never get it back in. I keep wondering where on earth this cheap food policy is written and where it actually exists. Sure the lots of today are likely more environmentally friendly than they were 20 years ago, but does that make them okay? Hopefully everything improves with age and time!

Ianben, I also agree with you that we can't fight nature, nor should we predict how the grand old lady is going to act and/or react - because as you've pointed out, we're sure to be wrong. There is nothing natural about the feedlots down in feedlot alley, which you cannot get a full appreciation for unless you see them. Putting 50,000 animals in a space meant for 1/20 of that is not natura no matter how you try and define it. Deb can probably give you a better idea of lot size because she lives down in that neck of the woods. She certainly gave a pretty good description of the day-to-day goings on down there.

I just wonder if at the end of the day, it will all be worth it.

[cowman]

I sometimes wonder how much food would cost if we didn't raise it the modern way? Are the organic prices a reflection of what it costs? For example the organic eggs are $5.49 doz. while the conventional eggs are $1.89.
Now if we raised cattle and pigs in an "organic" way would our pork chop or steak cost three times as much? would we get $3.24/lb. for a fat steer instead of $1.08? Or $450 for a pig instead of $150?
And this sounds pretty good to me but we must remember who could afford to buy meat? If you go to say the Keg and have a $20 steak now would it go up to $60? No problem for the wealthy but I would suggest the Keg might find the clientele a little slim at times. And how about young families? Some of the wages are pretty poor here. $8/hr. doesn't buy a lot of steak or even hamburger...now triple the price...and we have created another vegetarian!!!
Meat isn't necessary for a healthy lifestyle. My daughter and her husband are vegetarians. My grandson is about a year and a half and has never had meat or eggs. He is one going little concern; walked three days after he turned six months! Can't keep him off the tractor!
They don't eat meat because they can't afford it but because of religious or political reasons(he's a damned Zen/green party Englishman!)

[Deb]

Lucky you, cowman, to have a blessed (not damned) Zen-Green Party Englishman in the family!! I've been thinking of running for the green Party next time around except I'm too lazy to walk around knocking on all those doors.

Consider what price the raw material for food processing brings in. Consider the price paid for finished beef or wheat or peas or lentils. Would the consumer afford that? Of course! Because it is the processors and the advertisers and the retailers that make all the money! If we could connect the consumer with the farmer directly, food would be cheaper for them to buy and if it was organic (which contrary to popular belief is not always more expensive) it would still be cheaper than it would be after the processors, advertisers and retailers took their cut.

[cowman]

My son in law tries to give me the little lectures about how I am involved in two of the evilest industries on earth...raising cattle and the oil business. I told him don't even go there!
I also notice he never cared too much about where the money came from when I lent him money to buy a new car. Or when I signed a loan guarantee for him! No talk about that evil cow or oil money then!!
And Deb, you should run for the Green Party or better yet those morons who bounce up and down! Every political riding needs some comic relief!!! Without it we might realize that the clowns we vote in are just about as crazy!

[Deb]

Cowman, are you a gemini, by any chance?

[countryguy]

Deb you hit the nail right on the head!I have been trying to get this across for some time now.If we could eliminate the middle men and keep all profits for ourselves we wouldn't need any premium for our products.Consumers would be getting organic/natural foods at the same price they are paying for food now.At the same time we could be creating our own imputs on the farm thus decreasing our input costs.It's a win win situation all around and I am really starting to wonder why people are not seeing this.

[cowman]

I read an article on pasture pigs. The writer said this was the coming thing. Then he went on to basically explain what a complete joke this was even though he thought he had discovered the solution to every problem known to man.
He said pigs could graze alphalfa and have their babies outside in the straw! Wonderful stuff!!Of course they had to be a fat breed, so they couldn't be sold on the commodity market. And it took a long time to get them heavy enough for market. And they could only have their babes in the summer! One litter/yr. Like do the arithmetic? It doesn't pay? Like duh!
When I was a boy my dad had a whole slug of pigs. Basically they were pasture pigs like this guy talked about only they had these little colony huts to live in. They ran in about a 5 acre field that was sown to oats and barley. With another smaller field in barley and turnips(mostly one hell of a weed patch). They had access to self feeders of barley chop. Well one day he bought this brand new International 3 ton truck. He was just proud as punch (he had a strange liking for Internationals which caused me all kinds of problems as a teenager because a corn binder pickup was definitely not cool!). Anyway one day he was unloading feed into the self feeders with this new truck. A salesman came along and the truck got left in the pig pasture while they shot the bull, had coffee etc. When my dad got back a couple of hours later those damned pigs had ate all the wiring under the truck and chewed up the brake lines!! The next day a couple of livestock trucks pulled in and we loaded the whole damn works up...little ones, mid sized, and big ones. And my Dad would never own another pig as long as he lived!
And Deb, I am Tauras the bull.

[rodbradshaw]

Slow down there guys. Do you realize the effort needed for every one to start marketing their own product to the consumer. First off their isn't enough UPS -Federal Express people out their to get you product to market and then we get to the number one rule of business, Location,location,location.We along with 4 other neighbours do a bit of direct marketing through farmers markets and it is quite satisfying to see the results of your effort. It is a lot of work and requires a significant investment in labour, capital and gray matter. You have to set your self apart from what they can get at Safeway. Whether that be organic, natural, or fresher and better tasting in their minds or just added convience such as home delivery. If you thing your busy now producing wait till you had that sales component on top. It is rewarding but you have to be dedicated or the customer will just move on to the next supplier or back to Safeways.
Rod

[countryguy]

Rod,my way of thinking is that we could set up farmer owned stores to process and market our products.I agree that everyone cannot be a direct marketer.Do you think the idea of stores like this has any merit?