Investment company plans million acre farm with Indian land! Good Luck cause your gonna need it!

[imwithmo]

As most of you have probably already heard about it, but those that haven't Get this!! A Bay Street investment company called "Sprott Resource Corp" has anounced a $27.5 million (just to start with) investment to manage millions of acres of Indian "First Nations" land (as if investors have not lost enough $$$ already). They want to create one of the largest farms in North America. They're calling themselves "One Earth Farms Corp". They want to seed 50,000 acres this spring, then plan to grow to over 1 million acres shortly after. So far 17 Indian bands in Saskatchewan and 1 in Alberta have teamed up, with many others wanting to jump on board. Most of the land will be custom farmed this year (lock the fuel caps), but this will decline as time goes on as they plan to become self-sufficient, and do the work themselves.
Sprott Resources chair "Eric Sprott" is even donating $1million to the University of Saskatchewan to create a scholarship fund for aboriginal students to study agriculture.

This is the part that cracks imwithmo up......get this!! Larry Ruud, One Earth Farms Corp president says, "When you combine the opportunity to bring in a population that DESIRES to be trained and EMPLOYED in this industry and has an INTEREST in it and a PASSION for it, combined with equity in the land instead of piling on more debt, I think it is a temendous positive for the industry"..........(quote from the Western Producer)....Sounds great on paper

This is what imwithmo thinks!

Native people in Canada have a VERY high level of unemployment, crime, drug use, gang violence, so on and so forth. And this so called "Investment" company thinks that they can turn them into a multi million dollar, million acre corprate farm in one year! Sounds great but, this has got to be the biggest joke I have ever heard. This has been tried (one a smaller scale) with so many Indian bands before and has failed. New equiptment getting smashed, grain handling systems not getting shut off till the power company has to do it, crops and livestock being neglected cause of laziness. Native people have more than every oppurtunity in the world to better themselves, from getting paid to go to college or university to getting chosen for jobs first. Yet so many of them choose to ignore these advantages that they have been given...WHY? cause it is easier to do nothing.

If I were an investor with this Sprott Resourse Corp, and hell bent on putting my dollars into agriculture. I'd pull out my $$ and buy a 1/4 of land with it and rent it back to a real farmer. Cause this million acre Indian thing won't last 5 years, and when it does fail, the Indians will still have the land and the investment company will have nothing but a bunch of half wrecked machinery, and pissed off investors!

[jensend]

so you don't like natives. anything else going on?

[imwithmo]

I have no problem with Indian people personally. I hope they prove me wrong. On "paper" it should work. They have free land, money, and the man power. But history tends to repeat itself, Indian people do not nessesarily have a very good business or work ethic track record (for the most part). What I'd like to know is, who's money Sprott Resources playing with....somebodies pension???

[rookie]

First the disclaimer ( this comment is an opinion and does not intend to offfend anyone ).

Well, at least someone is trying. somebody has the money and they seem to have the okay to give this a go.

Will it work ...time will tell and to what extent.

Its not a bad idea in theory. And I am sure input suppliers are liking it too.

Now as for for the comment on who will be working there... it could be hard initially. But understandable why. I can't begin to imagine the change the native people have been exposed to simply because someone else settled in there back yard . Those stereotypes out there where created in my opinion by a century or so of mismanagement by the government of the land ( so who are the idiots, or where at least).

The change in lifestyles the native people have had to endure ( and who says life is perfect now) has occurred in a relatively short amount of time, not hundreds and hundreds of years like my own ancestors; thats gotta be tough.

Somedays I think we can hardly manage our own society ( and now we are all one society, right?)

I just hope all ag producers are successful. This year and many more. And what will that take.......

[DonMass]

Sorry imwithmo, you do have a problem with our first Nations people. For starters Indians come from India. Secondly, yes our FirstNations people do have their share of social problems and a lot of that has to do with being forced into Residential Schools. I wonder how great you would be doing in life if you would have been ripped away from your family as a young child and forced to live with strangers. Day after day being told you could not speak your language and to be told your culture should be erased from the face of the earth. If you were not physically, sexually or verbally abused there is a good chance that you saw someone who was. How strong would you have been. The First Nations Community is healing and it will take generations to get over the attrocities that were inflicted on them. Do no t expect to happen over night. This projects sounds like a step in the right direction!

[ado089]

I don't know, my rental agreement for land go through the department of Indian Affairs. There is a huge cultural problem and this idea that it can be fixed from only one side is ludacris. I applaud someone having the balls to say something though a little more tact may have been in order. After spending all day yesterday putting out fires on the land I rent on the local reserve, land that was just seeded and had machinery sitting on it, I'm going to have to agree that there will be alot cultural issues to ovecome surrounding this venture. I just think it's sad that first nations leaders fight so hard do defend the system is holding their people back. The fact that I'm saying "their people" is testement to that, there should only be canadians.

[DonMass]

I am still not sure why people are agains this idea. People constantly complain that our First Nation people are a burden on the tax payer. I have yet to find an article about this project which mentions government money being used in this project. These are private investors willing to put their money into this project. Investment firms tend to want to put their money into something that will pay back. The only reason I can see that people are against this venture is because it involves First Nations. Racism and prejudice must be put aside if we want First Nations people to become self reliant AND self governing. I think the Department of Indian Affairs is outdated and still has a paternalistic view of their role. First Nations are the largest growing segment of the population. In 20 years, 25% of the work force will be aboriginal. Aboriginals are wonderful people with great values and quite frankly were ahead of their time when it came to the environment. They have believed for centuries that we must take care of Mother Earth. We are only now catching up with their way of thinking. But you are right about one thing. We must stop thinking of it as us and them. When we can consider all of us as Canadians, we will be a better society!

[ado089]

This is why this issue will never get resolved, anytime anybody says anything that is against the grain or puts a share of the blame back on natives they are accused of being racist or intolerant. This stifles the ability of any positive change. Nobody wants this project to fail because it will fall back on the tax payer, we just want the challenges identified ahead of time so that planning can take place to manage these obstacles.

[Hopperbin]

I don't have anything agains the first nations succeding in this venture. I do see a problem in that this earth one is just too big and too new. How many times have we seen farmers get big fast and have problems. I think they should each band hire their own manager and go from there. So much more economical, who needs board members and presidents and bankers and shareholders and etc. telling them what to do. It won't work. They even want to hire all the custom work this year, how outrageous is that? They will be sunk on that alone.

[Hopperbin]

Think about it for a sec. farming has always been an up and down business. Shareholders want profit. It is done now.

[may-be]

I know many hard working successful natives. Not many from the reserves. One obstacle from some that tried is that some of the bad ones made things so difficult for them, they gave up. This is one problem they need to address. If they could, maybe we would not have so much theft and vandalisim when some of them come to town. We just had our grandstand burnt to the ground a couple weeks ago. If they can make that farm work I will give them alot of credit for the challenges they face.

[DonMass]

So is there proof that the grandstand fire was set by Aboriginals or are you just assuming that?

[jimbob]

How did these guys do this spring? Anyone know?

[Hopperbin]

Actually have some good friends that are first nation or native or partial thereof from my school years. I am 44 now some of them are still going to school because there is so much money available for them and when they get a job say as a nurse they find out they don't want to work shift work and then go back to school. Farming is just another career opportunity offered to them. I think they need to own their land individually which has been denied to them ever since we came here.

[imwithmo]

So how did they do?? I can't seem to find any recent info. All I can find is info on the "plan" from March and April...

DonMass...What does this have to do with residential schools?? What white people did was wrong I agree. But How long do people like yourself keep blaming everything that is wrong socially with Natives, on the residential schools?? 25 years? 50, 300?? Whackos were even using the residential school excuse to defend that scum bag who let his little girls freeze to death @ Yellow Quill First Nation.

I think that arguement is a cop-out.