dual system debate 101

[lakenheath]

Wedino you sound like Monsanto. "It is our sole mission to feed the poor and hungry of the world". Bull!!!! Biggest myth going today. Overporduction is our biggest problem next to the subsidies that create this monster. The world has more than enough food to go around. Too much. Starving nations can't afford food. Why? Because they can't make enough money through there own agricultural economy to purchase our so called "cheap food", not the mention corup government that we never hear about in the new. Subsidies are killing these Third World nations and our farmers. Not the CWB.

[wd9]

Lakenheath, I would agree. The average cow in Europe is worth more in subsidies annually than a typical farmer makes in one year in Africa. Twisted - yup. CWB's fault - nope.

[wedino]

Vader, lakenheath: Why do you choose not answer these questions?

How do you decide who gets to produce? Will they be penalized if they produce too much? How do you explain to starving people when the chosen few(those that actually get to produce) have a crop failure?

[Vader]

wedino, I choose not to answer because it is not up to me to decide. I simply know that overproduction is the problem. Overproduction will continue to be the problem and I don't want to be part of that.

As you may or may not know I have gone organic on my farm. I am not an organic evangelist but I will tell you that I am growing my own nitrogen fertilizer. I do not have a HUGE fertilizer bill to pay off. If you saw the front page of the Western Producer there are studies showing that organic producers can rival the yields of conventional producers. By including a plow down in my rotation I have 25% less acres in production. That is working well for me. These last two years are going to be the most profitable years in my farming history. Certainly the premiums for organic are helping, but if we produced 25% less grain I think that conventional grain would be worth more than organic is today.

You might want to have a look at some information on the soil foodweb at
http://www.soilfoodweb.com/

It may never be possible to establish a mechanism for supply management. It may not be possible to save the family farm.

I see three basic choices. Reduce supply. Increase demand. Legislative solutions (subsidies, floor prices, ad hoc payments, etc).

I don't think that the legislative solution will work. Some will say that I have left out the obvious solution where we simply compete more effectively. I don't believe that is a solution. We have become as efficient as possible given the available technology and we will continue to become more efficient. That simply drives production up and prices down. That will be a continuing challenge.

Growing our own nitrogen fertilizer will reduce supply. Growing our own fuel (biodiesel and ethanol) will increase demand. If we are really smart we can build a part of the bioenergy industry as it moves forward and be part of the value chain and not simply the suppliers of commodity inputs.

[agstar77]

There is no need to decide, with so many farmers near retirement, a buyout package for those who wish to quit should do quite nicely. The land could be taken out of production and put in a CRP like reserve. Government should be given the choice : Do you want to support a subsidized agriculture or not?

[Vader]

CRP the way it is designed in Montana is not working. I spoke to a farmer whose neighbor put his entire farm into CRP. The neighbor moved to Texas and bout a bowling alley. Now the money flows to Texas and not to Montana. The CRP land itself has zero economic activity associated with it. This is devastating rural Montana.

Rather than taking land out of production arbirtrarily we need to have new uses for the land that provide revenues for the owner without contributing to the oversupply of grain for the export market. Growing your own fertilizer and fuel fits that bill.

Historically when farmers leave the business somebody else takes over. The new operator usually increses production through the use of higher inputs. That is not helping. Let's figure out how to make farming pay. Let's not only keep the existing operators on the land but entice the sons and daughters of those operators to come back to the farm.

[TOM4CWB]

Vader;

Went through the dinner line with LEN.

SOmething like 70% of Cargills sales are made in the top 70% of the market.

If Cargill managers don't perform... they are G O N E.

I have seen data on financials from banks that in currency hedges... are in the 90% 90% area.

Ag sales in general are 2/3rds of sales made in the bottom 1/3rd of the market.

Now when the CWB does even worse... like in 2002-03... they use every excuse in the book to blame everyone else... and everything else... for the obvious failure of planning and the following negative results.

How do I fire these bad CWB managers... when we have a "single desk" monopoly...

And the CWB directors don't have a clue what a reasonable outcome should have been in the first place?

[Vader]

Tom, are you saying that 30% of Cargill's sales are in the bottom 30% of the market? Or are you saying that 100% of cargills sales are in 100% of the market? Sounds very logical to me. Doesn't prove much, but is very logical.

[agstar77]

Cargill is probably not very interested in whether they make money on sales as long as they do not lose money. In a number of cases they are selling to subsidiaries and anyway they make on their handling costs. And if they do make money it won't be passed along to growers.

[TOM4CWB]

Agstar;

Visit a Cargill elevator, ask about the their program to help make sales at profitable levels... and listen to what they have to say.

However we are about 6 months too late on market timing... for profitable grain sales at this point!

Check it out for next year... and see what they have to say!