Ag Ministers Seal Your Doom

[fjlip]

WD9, how is it fair that making all the correct management decisions, weather destroys my potential profits 3 out of last 6 years? I say too much high cost risk NOT to have such a backstop.
Or if more crop Insurance options, but no, we should never have to pay crazy high private rates.
Ya food kind of real important to society, and SFA risk for 98% of the population, spending less than 10% of income? They owe us.

[perfecho]

Small businesses do not have a government with policies to ensure low cost food either......

[charliep]

Just curious as to which changes should
be of concerns to farmers.

No changes to AgriInsurance.

Contributions and matching on
AgriInvest reduced to 1 percent. 1.5
percent currently.

AgriStability - Margin payout reduced to
70 percent from current 85 percent. This
will have the most impact on crop farms.

Read the press release. Ask questions.

[wd9]

Food is important, but obviously you're
not producing that much with crop
failure. Cold statement, but maybe land
should be farmed that is much more
consistent. Move and buy some good land
in a better area.

Again, a very cold statement! But why
should tax payers fund farming in an
area that isn't profitable?

McFarms, don't buy crop insurance, you
don't need it. Lots of people don't take
it. Tax payers subsidizing your
guaranteed income? Given your net worth,
is it really fair for families to do
without necessary services just so you
don't have to worry about payments on
that second combine? (only an example)

[freewheat]

wd9, with respect, the region fj and I
farm within, has historically been one
of the highest and most consistent areas
in which to farm in Saskatchewan.

Just saying. It is not like the area has
always been too wet. As conditions move
back towards more common conditions, and
the western side is crying the blues
because of drought, and we are sitting
pretty, i guess we will just tell them
to move to a different area. That is
kind of a low blow.

The point he is trying to make, is that
you can be the worlds best farmer, yet
have crap happen. You can not manage
away too much rain, etc.

That being said, I do not like the
program structures we have in place. i
believe in the marketplace, in freedom,
and in government subsidization cuts. I
will reiterate, if farmers were more
careful and were not racing to be the
biggest, have the newest, and blowing
money like drunken sailors on iron, it
would be better for our public
perception etc..

Just a couple thoughts..

[hedgehog]

wd9, if all the farmers in bad areas jacked it and moved to better areas, the current world shortage of food would be far worse.
basically grain at $9/bu is still as cheap as dirt, thats why programmes are needed.

[farmaholic]

Subsidizing farmers to install autosteer and other toys in their equipment throught the Environmental Farm Plan was a joke. Protecting us from wild market fluctuations or wild weather events is ok with me. If someone who isn't doing this for a living thinks it is so lucrative and without heavy risk can have at it. I am on fjlips side if you want to eat cheap, support the ones who are supplying you with your food. If you don't want to, grow a garden and preserve it with canning and freezing, raise a calf to slaughter(some pigs and chickens too). Don't forget to milk the cow or she will go dry. But who will tend to this when they are at the lake every weekend? Food is too expensive but the boat that gets used 4 months of the year isn't.

[freewheat]

Farmaholic, you are bang on, particularly
regarding food vs. boats etc. Very true.

[wmoebis]

The majority of people would starve to death, if they had to feed themselves. Even right here in Canada.

I have done aot of work with "AG in the classroom", it would scare you.

[wd9]

People are starving not because of food
production but of government oppression
and people just plain poor. You could
get 400 bushels per acre and those same
people would starve.

We grow food for the rich. Period. and
we grow lots of it. The poor will always
starve unless you're willing to give
away your production.

At a billion people making less than a
dollar a day how will they buy your $8
wheat delivered?

In the US, 40 to 50% of the food is
thrown away, gone to waste in the trash.

Everyday 40% of the children in india go
to bed hungry, why? Food rots in huge
piles while they starve.

Bring that home now. You want how much
security in your income to afford that
latest iron? Its gonna cost you big time
because with the loss of risk, comes the
loss of cost, the loss of peaks, the
loss of valleys, the loss of any balance
whatsoever.

Agristability and agri programs are so
unfair and distort any sort of balance
of having risk vs consequences.

Why worry, the government will just keep
giving me money if i cry that i can't
make ends meet. All the while creating a
huge empire. Its wrong folks. This is
about world hunger and feeding people in
the cities.