selling to the rich or sell to the poor?

[nakodo]

I was reading a few of the dialogues and getting more and more concerned.

Seems we like to cloak what we do inside a false illusion of serving some public good.

Cdn. Farmers are in business to sell things for a profit not "to feed a hungry world".

If we want to help countries we should help them grow their own food instead of destroying their local ag economies by dumping in our products for free as food aid.

We need to teach people to fish, don't destroy their nets and give them free fish! and then wonder why they develop a
culture of entitlement.

We are in the selling business and if 25 % of todays households spend 75 % of the $ spent on food I want those people as my customers, not the ones who cannot pay or will not pay because they would rather eat granola.

I want hungry meat eaters with too much money to buy my products and I can donate a portion of my earnings to the food banks or to help combat world hunger for the less fortunate rather than becoming one myself by selling cereal grains to the lowest paying customers.

Last time I looked cows did a pretty good job of turning grass into something edible. (I know you can smoke some kinds of grass but otherwise it is a wasted resource as far as human food goes).

[cakadu]

If we need to go out and find the people who are willing to pay - these hungry meat eaters - then why do we keep trying to sell what we want to sell instead of what someone wants to buy?

I recall a very angry man sitting in a hotel in Tokyo because he couldn't bring beef buyers and sellers together. What do we need to do in order to get this mindset changed?

There is continual talk about how we are increasing beef sales worldwide, for example, but are we doing it by selling the whole carcass to someone or are we doing it by selling people the cuts that they want in the portion sizes they need?

We do ourselves a disservice by growing some of the best products around and then selling them as commodities to the lowest bidder, as you have stated. What do we need to change so that everyone is putting more money in their pockets?

[ianben]

Farmers produce commodities. You need the whole animal to get fillet steak. Most of us cannot guarentee quality from one year to the next; grade one soon becomes feed with a little help from the weather.
If farmers want to add value the best way to do it is stop farming buy the quality you want in the market; brand it or what ever and compete like everyone else. Trying to sell your own substandard product when you have bad luck wont work.I've tried too often the temptation is too big but always a mistake.
Knowing the value of our commodities is a different matter
Wheat production is forcast at 598Mt consumption at 600Mt and the price is falling?
Most customers just add a percentage or fixed charge to our price so their income is not affected by our price.
So where is this guy who is willing to sell his commodities below cost of production.
I heard he was in Canada or Brazil. You say he is in US or EU because of subsidies. Australia because of weak currency. FSU because they need dollars.
Why do we do this?
The 25% can afford to pay. The middlemen dont care so long as they all pay the same.
Lets do some price monitoring and get some commonsence back in the system.
We could ALL make a little if we checked out each others prices like our suppliers do.
If one country is making too much I am sure JDand other suppliers will level the playing field

[rodbradshaw]

Nakodo
I agree with you that we are here to make a profit but we must also conserve the resource for the next generation.
I had a story related to me one time about 15% of the Mexican population did not want to eat food that had been grown or prepared by Mexicans. You might think well thats not a big deal but at that time it would have been about 20 million. Almost the same as the population of Canada. These people are all middle class or higher with large disposable incomes. If we could get rid of the trade barriers it would be possible to develop a good trade relations as there are many products that they are more efficient at producing.

[cowman]

The problem with selling to the rich is there are a limited number of rich customers! We can't all grow beef. Say we took all the grain land converted it to hay,silage,and pasture...increased the cow herd say 5 times. Now instead of marketing 10 million calves we market 50 million! Where to? I'm sure the U.S. would be glad to take them...or maybe the EU? Or we could try to squeeze the U.S. out of the Asian market?
The free market will ALWAYS straighten things out IF we keep government meddling to a minimum. Consider this: If the EU allowed Canadian and U.S. beef into their market there would not be any cattle raised in Europe. And likewise if Canada and the U.S. allowed unrestricted imports of Argentine, Brazilian, and Oceania beef in there would be no more cattle here. Lets not forget that at one time our major export market was the U.K.!
If it is a noble thing to feed the poor(and I beieve it is and I think the majority of Canadians would agree)then all of our society must pay the cost. Very simple...the government buys the grain from the farmer and donates it to the poor country(maybe a small food tax on every item sold in Canada?). It doesn't make much sense just sending money as we all know where that will end up. And also when they send the food there should be "conditions" on that food aid. And is this so wrong? Why would we send aid to a country like Zimbabwe when their leader is a notorious communist butcher who is slaughtering our English brothers?
Where our governments fail is they don't subscribe to the old saying "He who pays the piper calls the tune"!

[countryguy]

Nakodo,teaching other counties to farm is exactly why grain farmers are in the shape they are in.The Ukrainians and Russians didn't know how to farm.They were seeding half a bushel of wheat an acre 4 to 6 inches deep until we heros from this country went there and taught them to farm.Now instead of having counties that used to import from us we have more competition in the export markets;a double whammy against us!!

[rodbradshaw]

Countryguy
The Ukraine and Russia used to be the breadbasket of the world before WW1. What we need is for the FSU countries to increase their standard of living so that they eat more meat and use more oil and other high value things in their diet. If we could get each Citizen of china to drink a 6 pack of beer per year we could not produce enough malt to sstisfy that demand. The answer is not in wheat or barley but the value added products derived from these products. We need to develop their society to the same level as ours so that the average consumer can afford to eat meat and have a higher standard of living. This is the simple argument, it is a lot more complicated than this as they have to develop other industries to create wealth as agriculture can not do it alone.

[cowman]

Russia was not only an agricultural powerhouse before the war but quite advanced in many things such as the arts and science. They were rapidly industrializing. Then what happened? The communists took over and even though they industrialized at a rapid pace the toll in terms of the human spirit was immense. After the WWII their industrial capacity began to rapidly shrink compared to the strides made by the west. Today they are a basket case,BUT once again free! Russia and the former soviets have vast resources. The Ukaranian people in this country are some of the best farmers in the world. It won't be long until they dominate world grain production...if they can get their infrastructure up and running.
The evils of the communist system become very apparent in the Russian experiment.

[countryguy]

I guess I should state that I have some Ukrainsky blood in me so it doesn't seem like I was slamming them!

[nakodo]

teaching people to farm, seems we forgot a lesson taught to us by the Japanese car manufacturers, build cars, constantly improve them, teach people in other countries to build cars, then sell then your nicer ones (versus Kia, Lada, Hyundai, Pontiac -opps) to them for even more money. Add free options you have to pay for in other cars, like power locks, AC, power windows and keep making better and better products.

We got stuck with growing red spring wheat and stayed there.....for a century or so while others learned how to do what we do...

If an old dog refuses to learn a new trick soon the young dogs will run circles around him.

[rodbradshaw]

So true, So true.