Great visit with SK Farmer Megzz - Why we need to share agriculture's story.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Railroads

"Transparent" open market

Machinery and parts costs

Why, when evidently operations are more than willing to pay such prices for the privilege of shiny paint,

Gutted and inadequate insurance and risk management programs

Which if left intact, would otherwise serve remove all risk, leading to inflated land prices and rents, and profits will be back to where they were without.

One sided grain contracts

Hyper inflated land prices that shut out our own young farmers....REAL farmers....agvocate THAT!!!!!

Do you care to suggest how to fix that? Who's fault is it that land prices are high, and how pleased would you as an established producer be if someone mandates cheap land prices for the sake of the next generation? I ask from the perspective of a young farmer who would really like cheap land prices.

Consolidated uncompetitive industries supplying goods and services to producers

Then why do the local independent suppliers complain that they can't compete with the big guys selling inputs? Why does everyone shop at Walmart while the more expensive independents go out of business?

Ad nauseam

[bucket]

I will summarize it another way.....until these agvocates can out lobby the existing lobbyists in Ottawa primary producers will remain at the bottom.....whether she's talking mental,financial or industry health. ....all of which are related. ....mostly the first two.


India technically has thousands of farmers offing themselves due to financial crisis. .....which is part of why there was a tariff put in place.

[grassfarmer]

I think you guys are confusing two roles - sharing agriculture's story with the public at large and advocating for the interests of farmers politically. You can't blame this woman for attempting the first and not succeeding at the second!

Time for all the bellyachers like SF3 to step up and get involved if you need political solutions instead of just sitting back complaining that the commodity organisations don't achieve anything.

[bucket]

Sure right....I could tell a story about how I raise my cattle that are grass fed and only a couple pourons of ivomec along with the blackleg shots.


Beautiful animals ....but it took my kid to buy some from the neighbor to compare and find out how good ours were.....better after they were in the pen together....so be it.


Add in the fact my kid wants the cows....excellent ....but there is very little money in it....and to do something higher value costs a shit load of money....no matter how I cut it. Pun intended.

Just helping him get to a herd like we had would cost a shit load.


As a friend said at a hockey game.....he has to show his sons a lentil cheque once in a while so they understand.

And no one wants to hear my story. Why? Because we use to have butcher houses to take cows to instead of paying heartland to sell them to a slaughterhouse. ...no place to take a cow that develops a bad eye over the summer....and at least pay the producer for good on the hook meat.

No dog food manufacturers for poorer beef...so instead my kid traps coyotes off them....which again is no longer a publicly acceptable practice....

Where do you go with those stories? ???

[bgmb]

Bucket if you are not completely satisfied with her message why not give your own? But really would there be any point lamenting the loss of small slaughter houses and wooden elevators. That ship has obviously sailed along with horse drawn plows and pull type combines so get over it.

But i do agree some of the agvocate stuff is over the top. Like who can stand 3 kids in a combine cab for more than 5 minutes ?

[SASKFARMER3]

I for one follow her on twitter. I like her message some days its ok some days it great.

Ag has a story but reality is were still getting paid 1937 prices in 2018.

Thats the sad part.

Grow more spend more hope you make it.

[bgmb]

I for one follow her on twitter. I like her message some days its ok some days it great.

Ag has a story but reality is were still getting paid 1937 prices in 2018.

Thats the sad part.

Grow more spend more hope you make it.

I am the same way not going to agree with someone 100 percent of the time but overall she comes across as genuine and intelligent

[farmaholic]

Why, when evidently operations are more than willing to pay such prices for the privilege of shiny paint,



Which if left intact, would otherwise serve remove all risk, leading to inflated land prices and rents, and profits will be back to where they were without.


Do you care to suggest how to fix that? Who's fault is it that land prices are high, and how pleased would you as an established producer be if someone mandates cheap land prices for the sake of the next generation? I ask from the perspective of a young farmer who would really like cheap land prices.


Then why do the local independent suppliers complain that they can't compete with the big guys selling inputs? Why does everyone shop at Walmart while the more expensive independents go out of business?

#1, "more than willing"???? Poor choice of words, "grudgingly" might describe it better.

#2, good luck making payments with crop insurance/ag program benefits, even under the old "lucrative" program formats, they barely cover COP! And at these land prices today's programs don't stand a chance, besides they weren't meant to pay for land, more like cover variable expenses growing a crop.

#3, I'm not advocating for "cheap" land prices, but it would be nice to see a young guy like you be able to afford and pay for the land you want to farm in a reasonable time frame. Priced at a point it's economically feasible, not you competing with piles of homeless money looking for somewhere to squat, "cash"! Geez, its gotten to be such a good place to stash cash that a farmer can hardly justify buying it and try and pay for it while making a living on it.

#4, I support my local independent retailer... they are always in the ballpark.

[bucket]

Bucket if you are not completely satisfied with her message why not give your own? But really would there be any point lamenting the loss of small slaughter houses and wooden elevators. That ship has obviously sailed along with horse drawn plows and pull type combines so get over it.

But i do agree some of the agvocate stuff is over the top. Like who can stand 3 kids in a combine cab for more than 5 minutes ?

Thought I just told a story. And the moose jaw slaughterhouse wasn't small but it was a vital part of the area's cattle industry....Still should be...how does a cattle industry move forward in Saskatchewan without a slaughterhouse that could have been branded Saskatchewan beef...there's a story that should have been told...wasn't it Brad wall talking about Saskatchewan ingredients on label's? ???

Here is another one . Canadian Agricultural Partnership CAP was signed in Quebec on friday and Quebec is the first recipient of 300 million out of the 3 billion allocated.

Some will go into this Agvocate promotion.

here is another story.

Went to a climate view presentation and asked a few questions some that were stumpers to the presenter....really get sick of hearing "...thats a really good question" that never gets answered.

[blackpowder]

Oh dear.
I agree with grassfarmer again.
I might need counselling.

Negative waves cant produce somethin positive.
Evolution cannot advance without death.

People like her need to communicate with the voting public majority.

Policy may not change without the 'death' of those living in the past.

[bucket]

I looked at her site ....I am not on any twitter or instagram etc....but we have pictures like hers on the farm...

Problem is ...it is important but it doesn't change politicians minds in this country....she might get a little funding for promotion ....but all of us know that won't solve the problems in agriculture.

Trend line yields have highlighted the our transportation system is ****ed...no on wants to hear that...


sending letters doesn't seem to help.

MPs are more than happy to dismiss inquiries about industries that are failing us by saying they can not get involved in private business but the very next day ask for emergency debate on the private pipelines.

Does anyone know when they are discussing ag again...March 19 for those that care.

[macdon02]

I am so ****ing sick and tired of hearing this is a noble profession and how ag gets promoted. Every where we go to a supplier is an oligopoly. The only competition for market share is between ourselves selling or what the market will bear. But things are changing and not for the good.... for society anyhow. Anyone notice there's a shortage of protein in wheat? Beans? Science is good enough to recognize that there's 2 factors that affect it, fertility and heat. In the race to the bottom as lowest cost producer I highly doubt from Texas to northern Canada that producers en masse are cutting back on nitrogen. So that leaves weather. So if we listen to our crops is telling us that we are not getting the heat we need. This isn't a 1 year phenomena. It's been building in hrw and hrs for a couple years. What's the attrition rate in farmers? 1 out of every 10 farmers sons carries on the tradition? So when baby boomer generation retires this is gonna get interesting. When gen x pulls the pin then what? Tech is making it possible to cover extra acres but eventually this will peak. This is developing into a perfect storm imo. Then add in the fact that all the genetics come from Monsanto. All the world's crops are being developed in to a monoculture. The micro crops are being dropped for corn and beans. Am I excessively negative? Possibly... all I know is that productivity is learned and can't be expropriated. Society has this God like attitude that they can control everything and when nature throws a wrench into things .... well it won't end well. So I'm bullish long term, excessively wildly bullish. It just needs time. There's no replacing a producer with skin in the game just look at Pike and One Earth. Cheap food has an end date and it's within sight. I only have a giant F U for the industry that's endorsing the current system unwilling to change.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

#1, "more than willing"???? Poor choice of words, "grudgingly" might describe it better.

#2, good luck making payments with crop insurance/ag program benefits, even under the old "lucrative" program formats, they barely cover COP! And at these land prices today's programs don't stand a chance, besides they weren't meant to pay for land, more like cover variable expenses growing a crop.

#3, I'm not advocating for "cheap" land prices, but it would be nice to see a young guy like you be able to afford and pay for the land you want to farm in a reasonable time frame. Priced at a point it's economically feasible, not you competing with piles of homeless money looking for somewhere to squat, "cash"! Geez, its gotten to be such a good place to stash cash that a farmer can hardly justify buying it and try and pay for it while making a living on it.

#4, I support my local independent retailer... they are always in the ballpark.

#1, Dealers keep selling new equipment, while nearly new stuff is a fraction of the price at Ritchies, someone is obviously willing to spend that premium, when they have a much cheaper choice. Producers are saying one thing with their complaints, but a different story with their wallets.

#2 The risk gets priced into anything you invest in, remove the risk, lower the profit. High risk =higher profit required to take the risk.

#3, I'd be all for mandating that land can only be owned by the party actively farming it. They would typically be the best stewards of the land. However, I'm not convinced that it will make a drastic difference to farmland prices in the long run. Farmers are still the ones buying land in most cases.

#4 I try to support my local independent, but 10 to 20% higher prices is more than I can support. When big retailers are selling products for less than the small guy can buy them for, I have a hard time believing that they are the ones gouging us do to their supposed monopoly. Of course, the problem may be further up the chain.

[bucket]

Anyone else notice other countries telling Monsanto they can't charge farmers outrageous fees....

Canada won't ....why?

Wouldn't that make an agvocate story?

[grassfarmer]

I know where you are coming from bucket. I have replies here to letters I wrote to the Ag minister and the Competition Bureau over the Moose Jaw deal - should never have happened but that's what you get when 90% of farmers/ranchers won't raise their voice to protect their own interests.

What this woman is doing is something different, presenting the face of agriculture to the public. There is a little bit of room in that approach to relay producer problems to consumers and try and get them to side with farmers and create a bigger voice for us. Farmers themselves have to do the bulk of the lifting and thus far they are not.

I'll share below a suggested solution to the transportation problem which I know concerns you very much. No doubt it will be shouted down and ridiculed by guys that complain about producer organisations doing nothing to help them yet won't get involved themselves. This is the problem we face.





(March 15, 2018 - Saskatoon, SK) -- The National Farmers Union (NFU) is announcing ideas for positive change in the grain handling and transportation sector that, if enacted, will benefit farmers.

“We are proposing the establishment of Grain Car Receivers at the West Coast and at Thunder Bay. They would receive Producer Cars at port and direct them to whichever Terminal Elevator had space. The Receiver would have the grain graded by the Canadian Grain Commission at port and then offer the grain to whichever grain company was purchasing that grain. Any discrepancies in space allocations and sales could be cleared up on a monthly basis by the Grain Car Receiver,” said Terry Boehm, former NFU President and long time analyst of transport legislation in Canada.

“For this system to work it would require that grain companies be mandated to accept a certain portion of their supply from the Grain Car Receiver,” Boehm explained. “The Grain Car Receiver would benefit farmers by making Producer Cars once again a viable alternative to shipping through grain companies, allowing them to fulfill their original function as a discipline on grain company elevation and/or basis charges and by allowing farmers direct access to rail transportation services.”

To make this proposal work, necessary amendments to the Canada Transportation Act could be made through Bill C-49, currently before the Senate. The list of amendments would be as follows:
Remove railways' ability close Producer Car loading sites.
Reinstate the former right of a group of 10 farmers to petition for establishment of a new Producer Car loading site.
Require that Producer Cars be given at least equal priority, if not first priority as was formerly the case, to any other rail car in car allocation by the railways.
Boehm went on to say that other legislation would be required to make the mandated Grain Car Receivers at port a legitimate and effective entity.

“Canada's grain rail transportation system has been deregulated extensively to the point it is now able to extract money from farmers with impunity. Instead, why not do something daring in this country to make the system work better for farmers and the country as whole?”, said Boehm. “In the end, mandated Grain Car Receivers would force grain companies to truly compete for farmers' grain with fair basis levels because farmers would have a real alternative with a fully functioning Producer Car option.”

“Unfortunately too many farm groups, along with the federal and some provincial governments, believe in the fallacy that reciprocal penalties between railways and grain companies will cure many of our problems,” Boehm observed. “What we have in Bill C-49 is a set of tepid and harmful amendments to the Canada Transportation Act that refuse to recognize the real power dynamics that exist in a system where most grain delivery points are captive to one railway or another.”

“Grain companies will be disadvantaged where they are served by a single railway regardless of their ability to negotiate a penalty for poor service – their actions will be tempered by the reliance on that one railway in the long term,” noted Boehm. “Meanwhile, farmers are standing by the sideline in any negotiations between shippers and railways. If a grain company ever brings a level of service complaint against a railway, Bill C-49's current wording adds a long list of considerations the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) must bear in mind when making its decision.”

“Under Bill C-49, the CTA would have to consider nine points that are so broad it is hard to imagine when, if ever, the railways would be in violation of their service obligations,” said Boehm. “This is a huge win for the railways. In effect they would be able to determine to a large extent, who they will do business with by making skillful use of these new loopholes.”

Bill C-49's weakening of the railways' common carrier obligation flies in the face of over a hundred and twenty years of transport legislation that was specifically designed to prevent the railways from exercising undue, self-serving power. On a positive note, the proposed legislation does reduce the time for a ruling on a service complaint from 120 to 90 days, however.

The Maximum Revenue Entitlement system remains in place but it still does not have any mechanism for freight rates to go down. The only calculation recognized is an inflation factor. This weakness could have been addressed by requiring a regular costing review that calculated the reduction in costs railways incur by running bigger trains, having far fewer pickup points than in the past, using smaller crews, and having more fuel efficient locomotives, for example.

“Why with recent drops in fuel prices in recent years have we not seen some reduction in freight rates?” asked Boehm.

Bill C-49 removes the definition of government hopper cars from the Transportation Act and allows railways' acquisition of hopper cars to be calculated into their rates. This is a further measure that ensures rate adjustments can only go upward.

Freight rates should also be adjusted downwards to partially transfer benefits of the railways' privileged position in the Canadian economy to grain shippers, and hopefully on to farmers as well. This idea is justified on two fronts. First, it has been known for some time that the railways are receiving more than $150 million in excess revenue using railway industry standard accounting measures that calculate a very generous return. Second, railways have been offloading costs onto farmers for years. Farmers have had to invest in more on-farm storage and larger trucks to meet railway demands for 24 hour fill times for 100-plus car unit trains. Being forced to bear a larger share of grain transportation system costs gives farmers a legitimate claim for lower freight rates. This inequity is not addressed by C-49.

“We cannot understand why there is support in some quarters for Bill C-49 when it does not result in any substantive change for the better for farmers.” concluded Boehm.
- 30 -

For more information:
Terry Boehm, former NFU President: Email terryedwinboehm@yahoo.com