Speaking of CAIS...

[kato]

Exactly how slow are they? We've had an application in for five months, and still not a peep out of them. This is even slower than other years, which is hard to believe.

Anyone here had an application actually processed yet? How long did it take?

[mb_rancher]

kato,

I know the feeling. Ive called them quite a few times asking if our application was processed and they keep saying they are on hold. I know of one family member who sent his application in to Cais in July he has his calculation of benefits back already. Its getting frustrating.

[grassfarmer]

I always forget which year I'm waiting on them to process they are so far behind. As an anti-disaster package it is completely useless as if you were depending on CAIS you would be out of business before they get around to paying out - even in you were in a payment position. Remind me again how to you get in a payment position again?? it's been so long I've forgotten.

[perfecho]

but....if my info is not in on time, they send a letter stating that $500.00/month will be deducted from any monies sent out.

[Junebug]

You need to fax them a letter saying are need to make some very important finanical decissions and you need to know if there is anything coming from CAIS. Our application hadn't progressed in 5 months, but came very quickly after the letter.

[kato]

I bet it wasn't a coincidence either. I think I'll give it a try.

[Sawbones]

Can anyone tell me why
cows are not treated as the other commodities and their decrease in value is not calculated in the loss for the operation. We run about 250 cows and that change in policy resulted in a potential claim of $37,000 being reduced to $0.
Can anyoine also tell me why they dropped the optional/madatory inventory adjustment without recalculating the previous years margins. That also has made significant changes.
I hate this extra bookwork but if I'm forced to do it, I expect to be compensated when its justified

[Cattleman]

Cows are priced at end of year price because CAIS admin argue that since cows tend to not be marketed you don't realize the loss. This may be flawed, because if you sell the cows for less than the opening inventory value you will realize the loss. But if opening inv. values are around 7 or 8 hundred dollars, you have lost maybe $500 in equity that you never got compensated for.

Government also justifies this P2 pricing for breeding stock by stating that when bred cows go up in value, you will not be credited with a gain in margin. Also a problem because when cows go up in value you likely had a better than average year, but that will depend on your operation.

OIA/MIA was removed from the margins because it was replaced with accrual margins, from your CITI statements. OIA was a proxy for past inventory adj. It is important to be aware of this as there were several errors with CITI statements, so make sure your CITI inventory adjustments are correct, as it could have a significant impact on your payment.

[mb_rancher]

kato any luck with them yet in gettin gyour app processed?

[kato]

Nope. Not yet.

[kato]

I spoke to someone at CAIS on Friday who told me what the holdup is on our application. Apparently they don't have a price reference for donkeys in our municipality!!! Good Grief! They also say they don't have a price for some of the classes of cattle on our inventory.

I told her that if she needs a price reference for donkeys, just use mine because I'm the only person in the municipality who ever sells them. I'm not even sure what they need this price for, except that it has something to do with structure changes and such.... I guess.

She says that it's out of her hands, because whoever is working on our file checks once a week with some kind of finance department who is in charge of coming up with this price. If it's not posted, then they just put it away and check a week later. Or so she says. I can just imagine how high a priority the price of donkeys in one municipality where they hardly exist is in the minds of the finance people!

Now, how much a change of price of a few bucks on five donkeys would possible affect our reference margin is beyond me. They are holding up a pretty big calculation over a potential change of maybe a hundred dollars. In the meantime we sit and wait and possibly have to make some fairly substantial business decisions without knowing how this is going to turn out.

As for the cattle prices they say they don't have, there is NO EXCUSE!!! They've had since January 1st to know what they are, and the year is almost over.

She also told me there are lots and lots of people in the same situation as us, and she didn't think there was a single thing she could do about it but apologize.

I think some people need to be replaced, and soon.

I told her I was going to call back several times a week to check on progress, and ask to have a note attached to the file every time I call.

I'll try the "squeaky wheel get's the grease" approach, and see how that works.

[grassfarmer]

Maybe a stupid question and late in the day to be asking in Kato but if donkeys are the problem why do they even figure in your CAIS program? Can't you just treat them as pets and get on with it? I know if I had a dog and sold the occasional pup off her it wouldn't be appearing in my CAIS applications.

[kato]

Wish I could, but they consider them livestock. I sell two a year, and was amazed to find they consider it a herd! They are on the tax return, so there's no getting around it except by getting rid of them, and I don't want to do that.

[kato]

Pestered them again today. Still no progress, but I found out that the cattle prices they are waiting for are for breeding bulls and cull cows.

This pretty much means that every cattle producer in our municipality is on hold, just like we are, while we wait for somebody in the finance department to do market research.

What a crock!

[mb_rancher]

I know the feeling kato. Hold up on cull cows and breeding bulls.