Too much production

[cowman]

I have come to believe farmers have just become too darn efficient at producing food or at least the food we can produce here in the artic! All we can grow is basically grain and grass. We produce too much of both and no one wants it at a decent price and yet what can we do? It is too darn dry and cold to grow anything else.
The sad part is with a global economy we can't even grow grain and grass and compete with countries like Brazil and Australia. Maybe we need to turn Saskatchewan, and parts of Alberta and Manitoba back into a big wilderness park for the natives and the tourists? Charge rich Europeans and Japanese to come out and shoot the buffalo and Indians, or something?

[cakadu]

We are over producing on some things and that is hurting us. It is my understanding that we could be producing other crops because they have made advances in crop development. Crops that would not normally have grown here i.e. flax have varieties that I understand will grow in climates like ours. Many new and exciting things are being done with flax fiber these days.

It seems to me we keep looking to the past and what didn't grow then, when maybe what we should be doing is looking to the future and what might possible grow now.

I'm really beginning to believe in the notion that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

[15444]

I know the idea of supply management is not one that is particularly liked in the Agri-ville forums, due to the fact that it does eventually make it impossible for new guys to get into the market. But as the hog industry goes down the tubes and the cattle industry faces collapse, what could be better then have guaranteed markets with adequate prices? I do not look forward to selling $0.20 culls and $0.60 calves for the next 7 years.

Hopefully something good will come out of the findings of the USDA as it wraps up it's investigation in the next week and a half.

[cowman]

Well I think supply management got a black eye because of how the quota system was set up, not necessarily because it was a bad idea? I mean how the value of the quota became vastly over inflated?
Just about every industry in the world practices supply management, although on a more sophisticated scale. When trucks aren't selling does Ford lower it's price and produce more to try to compensate? No they cut back production. When farmers can't sell their grain/cattle/hogs at a profitable price what do they do? Raise more! Beat out the neighbor...not too smart?
I see the price of milk has risen in the store. The reason given for the increase...lower prices for cull holsteins...thus a need for a higher price.
Supply management was a good idea. Unfortunately, in our greed, we didn't listen to Eugene? I guess he probably feels vindicated?

[grrrr]

How could supply management work in the grain industry? In 2002 barley in my area ran 15 bu. In 2003 it ran 85 bu. Under supply management rules would I not have been penalized for under producing one year and over producing the next?

[carebear300]

I don't know the solution either but like usual have to give my observations of the situation. First of all the notion that we can produce new crops that will make us profitable, from past experience going down that road, I really wonder!!!!! I did the lentil thing, and am still doing it, but all of a sudden lentils are worth about half of what they were. I grow peas and I remember quite vividly at the last meetings I attended at crop production week at Saskatoon, that we couldn't produce enough peas to affect the market, alas wrong again!!! In fact this year there apparently was another speaker that told everybody there that they would have to grow eight times as many peas to fill the extra demand. It won't happen if we grow eight times as many peas we will have to pay somebody to take them. I wish I could be more optomistic but past experience tells me that the prairie farmer can produce more of just about any crop that is practical than what we can sell proftiably. It would take no time at all for us to grow way too much of that new flax that they keep talking about. Maybe supply management is the only solution.

[Horse]

I guess I may just as well add my 2 Cents worth, if we were to go to low imput low yields mabey more of us could survive, hard on fert and chem co but mabey its thier turn to come up with a solution instead of letting us do it. On the call of the land I think it was someone did a study on gross and net $ / acre you know who came out on top ,the amish in indiana I think . Their net was (dont quote but as I rember ) !37$/ acre and in texas high imput operators was -18$/ acre now I am not sure I would like to farm with horses as I am a little to young to have real first hand experiance. But no imput for tractors power ph gas mabey it could be done any one interested.

[cakadu]

Supply management only works in the domestic market - it won't work in the global marketplace unless everyone buys into it.

How many will have to fall in order to make sectors like beef and grain conducive to the supply management scenario?

It might work for some, but who will get to be the lucky ones that get into the system? How would quota be priced and what would happen to grain where you are not producing for many months of the year?

[ianben]

Supply management on a global scale is exactly how I think we should think.

The internet gives us the means.

There is not over production just a shortage of people who can afford to pay. The rich get their food cheaper and cheaper and the poor go hungry.

Farmers only need to co-operate on the amount they offer for sale to get higher prices.

Cowman is right we are too good at production and believe the more we produce the richer we should be.

A man bought a rare stamp for $1million and destroyed it. Mad?
No. He owned the other which is now worth$5million.


Using the internet and within a week you could get predicted feeder numbers for next fall. Find feedlot/packer requirements and match the numbers.

All cull 10/20% next week or as they are born and get a fair price for what you produce. Matching numbers to demand by price is an ugly way with much pain.

Then fix a minimum price which leaves everyone a profit all the way up the chain without the need for the producer getting involed in areas he has little knoledge

I believe the internet offers farmers an oppertunity to regulate supply rather than manage production by giving us the same advantage mega corporations have of a pricing and market reshearch division.

Lets try to provide a service of good wholesome food but charge what the market will stand like everyone else

[plato]

I question whether supply management would work in the grain industry especially if world Govts fail to get on side. Why would American and European farmers cut production when they are being paid well for all they can produce. Our world wheat stocks are at historical lows but the price of wheat is still in the dumps.
I read that Canadas grain production is 5% of total world production. If this is true the grain we produce is nothing but the worlds dockage