Let¹s Get While the Gettins¹ Good

[cowman]

Well madcow, I guess its all how you look at it? Personally I believe this old world will last just as long as it is supposed to, but then that isn't exactly a popular opinion with the left leaning population?
The age of oil and gas is rapidly coming to an end. The technology is out there to replace it, but vested interests don't want that to happen? Personally I don't want it to happen as it is my bread and butter!
I think Alberta should crank up production to the max and reap the rewards...as long as it is going to the people of Alberta!
In Venuzala (a so called Communist regime) the people pay 5 cents for a liter of gasoline! That tells me if Venuzala can do it so can Alberta? Give Albertans 5 cent a liter gas...include our neighbors Saskatchewan and BC, if they care to drive here and charge the rest world oil prices...just like they charge us world prices for cars, trucks, manufacturing goods! Alberta doesn't owe Canada anything...we've paid more than we ever got.
When eastern Canada could buy oil cheaper than the Alberta price, how loyal were they? Did they chant about how we are all Canadians? No they bought it cheap from offshore and to hell with Alberta and their oil and gas industry! Luckily California saw the wisdom of buying a secure and local product and they kept us going!
You reap what you sow?

[ivbinconned]

I don't mind paying the world price for what I buy, If I would only have had the FREEDOM to always sell at the world price

What angers me is that when I was growing malt barley I was told by the "raping" Canadian Wheat Board, a Canadian Government Enity, that I should be happy with the $3.50 they were giving me. I feel sooo protected!

If I could have snuck it accross the border to those terrible Americans who would have given me $7.50 U.S. I would have of course, if caught by the feds, been facing some jail time.

[cowman]

When I was a boy my Dad had some barley that was accepted for malt. Great! He jumped through the hoops and paid the freight to Thunder Bay where it was again accepted for malt. Great! Then after paying for the offloading, elevation charges, etc. it was off to Montreal. Guess who paid the freight on the Great lakes? Yep, my Dad!
In Montreal it was declared feed! So some Frenchman got to feed his hogs on Alberta malt at half the price!
My Dad never grew another bushel of grain for the SOB Canadian Wheat Board and neither have I! I rent my grain land now to my cousin but he also refuses to grow anything that he has to sell to these SOBs! The CWB is Canada.

[ivbinconned]

Now cowman I sure do wish you would be a little clearer about things.

[cakadu]

I would like to point out that I didn't say to go from one extreme to the other - we just need to have a lot more thought going into it before we do it. We are reaping the short term benefit at the expense of untold and unforeseen damage over the long term.

Things cannot keep going at the pace that they are - it is unsustainable. It is an absolute disgrace the way the oil companies are colluding to put prices up and it won't just be at the pump either - it will come in the form of natural gas, home heating oil etc.

Yes, things are moving along very well right now, but it wasn't all that many years ago that oil was $11/bbl. Look at the gloom and doom and whining that went on then about no jobs. The demand that the oil patch is putting on the labor force is unreal - other industries can't move ahead because there just aren't enough workers, plain and simple.

Building our Alberta economy on something as volatile as natural resource prices - when we do NOT in any way shape or form control the pricing mechanism is folly - in my opinion.

We need to be building more sustainable industries that do not rely on things that are as unpredictable as oil and gas prices. What if we were to focus on value-added products and industries, capturing more of the value of the goods we produce?

We've just had the official celebration for 100 years. I wonder what sort of legacy we leave for the next 100?

With all the money that we are making on oil and gas right now, shouldn't we be putting 10% back into the environment - at the very minimum?

[cowman]

Linda, I would ask you what sustainable value added industries we should be building? And who will do the building?
Obviously the business world must be the ones who decide if they want to invest their money? Government ventures usually turn into losers...real fast?
Where could we value add to any product that would compete with the likes of China or India?
Could we do it with food? Who wants our food...virtually no one... at least those who can actually pay for it!
We have few options. We do have a product the world wants, and will pay for! Petroleum products!
Alberta has spent a fortune, in both forfeited royalties and direct investment in the oil and gas sector, and I believe that was a good idea generally? Obviously it has put a lot of money into our pockets, both personally and as a province?
Farmers son says Alberta was once a "have not" province and benifitted from equalization payments...which is true...but it is like the old baseball story? The aging star is complaining to the manager that he isn't being paid enough and isn't getting enough playing time. He goes on to remind the manager how, in the past he helped win the world series, hit forty homeruns etc.! The managers responce "Yea, but what have you done for me lately?"
So Canada sent a pittance 40 years ago...but what have you done for me lately! And what is the likelyhood you'll ever do anything for me again?
Canada is like the over the hill ballplayer....probably never do anything again!
The reasons central Canada built the railroad and "built a nation" was for one reason and one reason alone? To provide cheap materials for the heartland and to provide a market for their goods...in other words a colony?
Some of us are old enough to remember the days when everything we sold went east? Beef, grain, oil, lumber! All the exporting to the US basically happened in Ontario so they could reap the profits of our labor and resources! Many remember the days when grain going to Asia had to go east through ThunderBay and the great Lakes so someone could make a good profit! We were nothing more than a source of revenue for central Canada! Free trade changed that and Brian Mulrooney should go down as the greatest friend western Canada ever had, because he gave us our first taste of freedom from our eastern masters!
The anti-American threads on here are not reality! Take a look at the trade balances between our two countries and then realize a few minor irritants like BSE, softwood lumber, wheat don't really matter? Take a further look into quite a few of these disputes and consider some of the American objections? Do they have any valid arguments for these objections?
Consider how much we sell to them...and then look how much we buy from them...and you will quickly see who is the winner here? We get one hell of a lot more out of NAFTA than we give up! So when you hear these leftist liberals talking about scrapping NAFTA realize that they are not in the real world? They want us to become some sort of backwater socialist third world tin pot dictatorship where the rights and freedoms of the individual are taken away! Where we can all fall down on our knees and worship the "all knowing government"! I think I'll pass...no one can take care of me...better than me!

[madcow]

cowman ,we have some things in common,a feisty spirit for one.I've had friends and relatives ,especially in the last three years say"why don't you ditch the farm and get a 'real' job" I tell them,if I'm going to starve to death ,I'm going to at least do it my way ! I don't take orders well ,or even suggestions.Kyoto is not popular out there ,and not terribly so here ,for the same reasons,N.S. & NFLD finally negotiated a better royalties deal with the CENTRAL masters.Just in time for emissions cutbacks.
On the other hand ,look at the news,hurricanes ,typhoons,dead and homeless, diseases. And its getting closer to home.Katrina for example ,the all knowing ,ever prepared, had no clue what was about to hit them.Sept /03 we had hurricane Juan,labeled the storm of the century.Thousands of acres of forests flattened as though run over by a giant roller.Dozens of silos blown down,barns flat,costal communities wharves destroyed,electrical infrastructure down.Then Feb /04 White Juan,the blizzard of the century,more silos,wharves,power lines.I fed the cows up good Wednesday night and got back to the barn Saturday morning,it's three miles down the road,had to wait for the road grader with the V plow to open one lane of the road.Storm of the century,or these once in a 100 years storm.You hear of them nearly every week some where in the world.Squid native to Mexico caught off Vancouver,water temperatures rise every season it seems.Last year pack ice was so thin it affected the seals pupping season,polar bears found far inland looking for food. Is global warming real,it's beginning to look that way.Are humans and fossil fuel to blame ? I really don't know,the world was a warmer place when the oil and coal was formed.??Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees.Can you see the future for the oil wells?I agree, no one can take care of me better than me.And things that cannot adapt show up later only in fossil records,you have Drumheller,we have Parrsboro.

[cakadu]

Cowman, if the same royalty and tax credits that were/have been given to the oil and gas sector were given to other industries, we would see a significant change. Problem is, that isn't too likely to happen.

Let me ask you this - when all those things were getting shipped east, did we have an oversupply of them or an oversupply to the extent that we have now? Real prices on grains etc. have been in decline since the turn of the century and most definitely in the last 50 years.

Would we have been producing what we could use, with the rest going into the "global" basket as it were? We keep producing more and more of what we can't sell, getting less and less for it while the costs of inputs just keep skyrocketing. Where is the sense in that? It has been a long, slow painful shift from a production focus to one of a market focus. Will it ever happen in my lifetime? I hope so because we are going to loose more and more producers as time goes on because they a) simply can't afford to go on and b) won't keep working for virtually nothing.

Businesses do not keep trying to sell what people are not willing to buy. Why, oh why, do we persist on doing it in the business of agriculture?

[farmers_son]

You people are confusing the price producers get paid for food with the consumer demand and say if we are not getting paid then there must be no need for our product.

The retail price of food continues to escalate while the producer price tends to be declining. This is not a problem of a lack of consumer demand rather our inability to capture our share of the consumers food dollar. Ceasing production would be an incorrect response to this situation.

Chronically low farm returns is not feature of supply and demand. There are other sectors of the economy that produce commodities that are affected by supply and demand yet those industries enjoy competitive pricing for their production. The energy sector comes to mind. If the junior oil companies had to sell their gas and oil to Cargill and Tyson they would be getting under $10 a barrel.

[madcow]

f_s ,you hit the nail on the head!

[cakadu]

There is a correlation between the two, farmers_son. If we keep growing commodity crops, then we will get commodity prices, which are sadly no where near what producers should be getting paid for them. If AB was like Sask where there wasn't as much call for feed barley, where would the price of barley be here?

Getting into a value chain where your products - even the commodity products - are in demand, will see the producer getting paid more for their product. To grow Red Hard Spring wheat when there really isn't a huge market for it will result in lower prices. Most bread we get from stores today is made from frozen bread dough, which is not made fro RHS wheat because there are other varieties that lend themselves better to making frozen bread dough.

What other sectors are you referring to when it comes to supply and demand and getting paid appropriately?

Customers aren't necessarily the ones that end up buying your product in the store - there are many forms of customers and if they don't want your commodity to turn it into something else, then what do you do with it? We need to grow what we can sell, not sell what we grow.

I have no dispute at all with the fact that processing sees the lion's share of the prices paid with respect to agricultural goods - there is absolutely no doubt in that.

That is why in some respects having things like growth in the biodiesel/alternative fuel area will be a very good thing for producers as that will create a greater demand for these commodities i.e. from biodiesel makers and from the food sector.

[cakadu]

Linda the more value added to a product the better the return. We have been content to produce the raw product whether it be grain or livestock and let someone else add value to it and reep the benefits.

Some producers have added value to their product and are doing very well. I am thinking of dairy producers that add a yogurt component to their operation thus adding value to their raw product which of course is milk.

The main incentive for folks to do this is to capitalize on opportunities for added returns on their investment. We will always receive what the market will pay for our raw products and it is doubtful if that will ever change. The success our farmers have achieved in yields of grain crops, pounds weaned per animal in the livestock industry etc. is a credit to good management practices and using whatever technologies are available to their particular sector. It is unfortunate that the financial return isn't fair value for the input costs and labor involved.