Focus on Sabbatical president Ken Goudy has a plan.
As soon as he completes his current membership drive in Canada and the American Midwest, Goudy intends to finalize details to take cropland out of production for a year.
He said the program will be based on input from producers and legal experts
An investment company would launch a share offering once a certain number of memberships are sold. The shares would go into a trust. If the sale of shares did not reach the desired target, the money would be returned to investors and the program would be put on hold.
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If the share offering was successful, the investment company would buy positions in the commodities market with the expectation of driving grain prices up. Markets would be warned of the impending sabbatical.
The timing of the sabbatical and whether it went ahead would depend on the response of the market.
A decision on whether to proceed would be made in January by an elected board of farmer and farm landlord directors. A target year for the sabbatical has not been chosen.
Profits from the investment company would be paid out by the end of harvest in the year of the sabbatical, Goudy said.
The underlying theory is that a cut in production by Canadian and U.S. growers would force grain prices up. Goudy is talking about a production cut of nine billion bushels.
The program’s success relies on broad support from farmers. Goudy said producers within the program would not be martyred so that other farmers could profit.
“It’ll either expand quickly and do what it will do, or it will die and be gone.”
