Drought and prices!

[cowman]

Well the price of grain and hay are way up but a lot of people don't have a lot of either. I suspect, for a lot of people, their gross returns will be down this year compared to last. It cost quite a bit more to grow that crop due to higher costs(fertilizer and fuel) so the net will be pretty sorry. I suspect for some it will be nearing a crisis. Cattle prices are good but it's going to cost a lot to feed that old cow this winter. Is the government going to be able to help a whole industry from possible failure? Or is it going to be like the thirties when thousands left the land? Is there a solution to this situation?

[nakodo]

In history we see points where events build to a critical point and change occurs more drastically than it would have normally.

The invention of the moveable printing press put tens of thousands of monks out of work. Their product superior to their successor but not valued as much as the cost of the individual art works versus paperbacks.

The invention of the printing press did not destroy the monastery system, it was a combination of political, religious, scandals, costs and the straw that broke the back of many monasteries was the loss of their income from their main saleable product - manuscripts. This loss occuring at the same time as the other building pressures for change decimated their orders, they abandoned buildings, land and their calling in 10's of thousands virtually all at once not by slow attrition over time due to the other pressures.

The drought in the thirties forced settlers to look at the forces against them, the advent of the tractor and truck changed the mechanisms of farming and allowed for economies of scale, a depression meant no off farm work, too many homesteaders in to tight proximity meant farms were barely cost effective when it did rain and then when it did not rain the palliser triangle (a semi-arid desert at the best of times) turned to dust and the wind blew away the farms and the farmers.

Higher prices when you have nothing to sell will not help out the drought areas or their farmers. A one time dorught payment will not fix the other underlying pressures on the farm, gradually we are being worn down by these other pressures, the drought makes them all deadly at once, not death by slow attrition over time.

So what are these fundamental issues that are pressuring us downward, lower income on the farm is one, world prices for what we grow another, telling our kids to take engineering not agriculture tells them not to stay on the farm, having 3 % of the vote is another, consolidation of "suppliers to" and "buyers from" agriculture another and there are lots more.

How do we deal with them, the only solution long term is to change to produce things the consumer WILL pay more for, safe, more "natural" (whatever the heck that means) foods produced in an environmentally sound way. In the short term we need to keep as many efficient operators around as we can while we change a system created over generations to fit the new world needs.