Farmer organizations

[cowman]

I believe Wild Rose is dead. Probably because the leadership is dead. What we need is a radical group with a leader who captures the farmers attention. A modern messiah if you will who will lead us out of the desert!!
When you go back in history and look at other times when things were tough you will see how the people can rise up and embrace a vision. Classic example: William Aberhart and the Social Credit movement. Or Tommy Douglas and the CCF. Both arose out of rural discontent with the status quoe. Now you could say both of these movements ultimately failed, but did they? A lot of changes happened.
Now I'm not advocating a new political party. What we need is a radical action oriented union or association if the word union offends you. One not afraid to challenge the government with more than words. Because the fact of the matter is if we don't get a group like this ,things will just continue down the path we are on. And that means fewer farmers and the death of the family farm. Once again I ask you to look around at your neighbors? Lot of young people? In ten years who will be farming the land in your area?

[cakadu]

Cowman, and others, what would this organization look like and what would you like it to do? It's not that hard to set up and get people working together with a common goal. What do you envision? What sorts of actions would you like it to take?

[ianben]

I would like it to be international

You seem to be agreeing with me Linda that farmers round the world have the same problems.Low prices for their produce and governments no matter how they try able to make things better.

I would like this organization to educate and guide us on price and demand. The equivalent of the pricing department in a big multi-national. The price they ask for their product is not fixed on a futures market, auction, best offer on the day; but by price monitoring, ability to pay,and an attempt at just suppling demand.

Our existing farmer organisations are just like yours.Lost credibility and support.
Most farmers are just too busy with off farm jobs and diversifications to support our farming hobby to get involved in these groups today.

I am not sure there is much hope. As we get more and more desparate instead of seeing a solution we just tend to want to blame someone else.
Logic seems to fly out the window as we become sure it is the governments, CWB, supermarkets, merchants, suppliers fault.

The fact is we all want to sell all we produce and are willing to sell at any price.
Unless we ourselves come up with a solution to that fact we farm till we can no longer afford the hobby.

[cowman]

I think it should be a "super-organization"! By that I mean an organization that embraces all of agriculture. Doesn't get hung up on the little petty differences but keeps focussed on the big picture...namely more money. Now for public consumption you could have some drivel about environment, food safety etc., sort of like the teachers babbling about class sizes and quality of education. But the bottom line is MONEY!
To get a majority of farmer support you would need action and results. Consider how a union gets into a factory...they tell the workers what they can get them in terms of wages and benefits. If they can get 50% signed up then they are legitimate. Now they had better be able to deliver on their promises or they are soon going to be out. Of course they need the participation and support of their members.
If the employer won't come to terms they strike. When a union first breaks into an industry these strikes are often not pretty. The employer brings in replacements...just like how our government and the food giants would bring in imports. So how do you fight that? Boycotts, getting the public on side, civil disobedience. And yes, violent confrontation! That is the history of every union that ever achieved anything! And that might include such niceties as union goons!!
An example: How would a tractor blockade on major highways work in July? Or a few hundred slurry wagons emptying liquid hog manure in downtown Ottawa? Or when the RCMP swat team arrests some farmer for selling his grain, a couple of thousand show up at the jail and let him out?
Of course this all sounds pretty radical and almost sounds like sedition. And it probably is. It won't happen because in Canada we are meek and mild. We need to observe the French farmer...the government tries to jerk him around and he riots! And guess what? The government(and the public) cave in and give him what he wants.
The only solution is revolution!

[ValueChainFX]

Well, at least the discussion is alive. I have tried to organize groups of producers for years on one issue or another. I finally figured it out that when you look at one issue they all have a hundred others attached to them.

My solution is that the only way to beat the issues is to join them. Our approach now, is that we put ourselves in the middle of the value chain. Each member or component of the value chain is their own profit center. We supply each component with the tools they need to strengthen their own operations, be those tools, education, communication, access to marketing, coordination with long term customers, acting as Quality Assurance in the stream, whatever it takes. The fee for service actually comes out of the profit center where these services should be offered in the first place so really there is no extra costs involved just people placed in the right places to ensure proper distribution of costs and profits.

To date this system has been implemented in seperate components to test the solutions integrity in real time situations. But we are now ready to take the big plunge, buy the brick and morter and take our place in the supply chain.

Oh I must add, this is the first time I have ever worked with producers when they have agreed (at least 80% of them) that we are going in the right direction here! As usual will keep you all updated

[pandiana]

Every time I think that just maybe I am getting the big picture, some farmer or another gets up as says that there is really not a problem. They are doing just find and that if marginal or poor farmers aren't making money then, in this free market system, their demise is merely normal attrition. Just how many farmers would be considered to be profitable? How many of these are primary producers? In other words, how many farmers are desperate enough to get motivated towards change or will be just wait for the waves to crash over us? Now that grains seems to be increasing, would we lost their support?

[cowman]

Pandiana: Some farmers are very profitable. Pig farmers for example. My Dutch neighbor makes big bucks and he rents his whole farm!!! $14,000/month net! Mind you he is young and agressive and works hard. Which is a good thing! Also a very nice fellow. Of course we have to consider what he is doing...PIGS...not exactly the most acceptable way of making money? Sort of a toss up between pigs or selling crack? Which is more acceptable??
I don't believe grain has solved any of its problems. Drought drove up the price but for the majority of grain producers it has not helped the bottom line. Believe me grain producers are not doing any better than anyone else. I don't care if the price of barley is $8/bu.;if I have zero bushels in the bin!
What we need right now(and this is a short term reprieve) is 4-5 inches of rain!

[rodbradshaw]

Unfortunately the market is down playing the possiblility of another drought. Prices for barley and feed wheat are declining from the previous highs and unless there is major problems in the US corn belt they will head back to 2000 price levels or lower.
We simply have to much production capability for most producers to return a postive figure to the bottom line.

Whether any farm organization could stir up enough emotion or desire to create any significant change remains to be seen.

[Steve]

Cowman ; Thanks for all the info on the bad Government guy, but I already knew what you pointed out. The real problem is some people don’t seem to understand that Canada is a big country and we have the rich, the poor, the good, the bad and the ugly and the Governments job is to try and satisfy all. So it all means you don’t really understand the problem if you don’t have a sustainable solution. If one wants to become a leader you first learn to listen and then talk, because you have to understand the problem before you can suggest a solution.

[cowman]

Oh I understand the problem very well. The problem is the same problem we've had in this province since day one. We need to LEAVE this country. Canada is a rotten and corrupt nation. I am a citizen of Alberta,not Kanada!