EU costs
Just some information I found from a newspaper in England that your readers might be interested in. It is in relation to a contest run in England by the newspaper, The Farmers Weekly, and BASF. It is a unit cost challenge based on the cost of production for a tonne of wheat.
I hope this gives your readers, most of whom are farmers, a glimpse into what our competition is at. The following costs do not include rent, finance and professional advice.
I am listing the average of the top three producers, using $2.16 to the pound as the exchange rate from pounds to Canadian dollars, as of July 13.
Read Also
Topsy-turvy precipitation this year challenges crop predictions
Rainfall can vary dramatically over a short distance. Precipitation maps can’t catch all the deviations, but they do provide a broad perspective.
Variable costs ($ per acre):
Seed – $35.91
Fertilizer – $42.46
Herbicide – $16.71
Fungicide – $44.06
Insecticide – $1.14
- PGR – $6.05
Total – $146.33
Operating costs ($ per acre):
Cultivation – $40.97
Fertilizing – $8.96
Spraying – $15.63
Harvesting, trucking – $51.02
Total – $116.58
Total costs – $262.91
- PGR stands for royalties paid to plant breeders for farm-saved seed. So far, we do not have this but I would suggest it is on the way. The seed companies have ties in Europe, as well as North America.
With an average yield of 4.25 tonnes to the acre of 156 bushels, this brings the cost per tonne to $61.84 or $1.68 per bushel. The average producer receives 80 pounds per tonne or $172.80 per tonne or $4.70 per bushel.
Not much different than we are being paid.
I would like to know what their cost per pound of fertilizer is and how much they apply. Our input costs have a long way to go to match this or beat it. Maybe we need to question what we are being charged for the products we purchase.
As you can see, this leaves a large amount for the rent, finance and professional advice. I do not know what the top up is for the European Union subsidy but even at $172.80 per tonne, they have $471.58 left over per acre to buy land, pay interest and pay for advice on anything they need.
The farm sizes for the top three producers range from 445 to 1,000 acres, not a large amount smaller than the average farm here in Manitoba. The lowest-cost producer farmed 780 acres. We consider ourselves low-cost producers, but at these numbers we would have to put a crop in for $61.84 per acre if we hope to yield one tonne or approximately 37 bushels per acre.
This is something we have to take into consideration in our negotiations for farm policy.
– Curtis Lees,
Mather, Man.
Shifting blame
This is in response to the article which appeared in the July 5, edition entitled “SARM barking up wrong tax tree: province”.
The Saskatoon (West) Board of Education was disappointed to read that a high ranking provincial adviser would single out three school divisions as being culprits in gouging the taxpayer.
Mr. Marv. Schultz, Jim Melenchuk’s chief of staff, talks about the amount of money the province put into education in global terms, leaving the implication that all school boards are treated equally in the distribution of those funds.
That is not the case and Mr. Schultz should know that. Singling out three school boards as examples of poor decision making in setting their budgets is extremely disappointing to the Board.
To add insult to injury, Mr. Schultz does not even have his facts correct. The Saskatoon (West) School Division will let the other school divisions referred to in the article speak for themselves but the grants and taxes quoted in the article for Saskatoon (West) are inaccurate.
Foundation operating grants for the school division in 2000 were $5.2 million compared to $5.7 million in 2001. Net tax levy in 2000 was $10.1 million compared to budget net tax revenue of $11.3 million in 2001.
Of this $1.2 million in additional tax revenue, $650,000 will go to pay for increases in teaching and non-teaching staff salaries – a direct result of the provincial government’s negotiations for teacher salaries last year.
Another $327,000 will be put back into reserves to restore a reasonable reserve balance after depleting reserves the last two years when the board held the tax rate in 2000 at the same level as 1999. The Board raised the tax rate marginally in 1999 by one mill.
Seventy percent of the Board’s operating budget in 2001 will be spent on instruction of students. A further $1.8 million will be spent transporting students to and from school.
The board further estimates its utilities costs will increase by about $80,000 in spite of the very significant efforts the board has taken over the past number of years in the area of energy conservation.
Some of the additional grant dollars come to school boards as restricted funding, meaning those dollars must be spent only for certain purposes and are not available for general program funding.
Finally, some of the increased expenditures required by school boards are the result of expectations set out by Saskatchewan Education. For example, the implementation of new sports safety guidelines from Saskatchewan Education will result in added costs to boards.
The bottom line is that while the school division did receive some additional provincial grant funding this year compared to 2000, the increase was more than taken up by salary cost increases.
The additional taxes levied by the Board were needed to address the serious under funding from the province over the past number of years and will be used to address projects such as deferred painting and maintenance, capital projects, computer internet initiatives and the like.
For Mr. Schultz to suggest otherwise is entirely inappropriate and is a weak attempt to shift the blame and responsibility to school boards when it rightly belongs with the province.
– Bernie Howe,Chair,
Saskatoon (West) School
Division,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Help with drought
Contrary to what (the) NDP agriculture minister may think, much of Saskatchewan is in a full-blown drought.
The drought will certainly result in dramatic yield reductions and, in the most severe cases, complete crop failures. Livestock producers are being forced to consider the sale of some or all of their herds because of a shortage of water, bone-dry pastureland and a shortage of feed.
The Saskatchewan Party has been calling on both the federal and provincial governments to move forward with an effective long-term safety net program that will give producers the tools they need to manage risk and make good farm management decisions. Unfortunately, the response from both levels of government has been inadequate, to say the least.
Cattle producers have indicated they are not interested in any direct government payment because of the potential to spark international trade sanctions against the Canadian industry.
However, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and the Saskatchewan Stock Growers’ Association both agree there are a number of actions government could take to assist with the current drought conditions.
The official opposition Saskatchewan Party has asked the NDP government, in conjunction with the federal government, to consider the following three-point plan to assist livestock producers through the current period of drought:
1. Commit immediate provincial funds for the development of a tripartite water source development program to assist cattle producers who do not have sufficient water to maintain current livestock herd levels.
Program costs would be cost-shared by the provincial and federal governments and livestock producers. Projects would include but not be limited to the drilling of new wells and the development of existing springs.
Water source development projects and funds would be managed in co-operation with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, given their existing water management expertise and infrastructure.
2. Loosen provincial crop insurance regulations to allow grain producers to forage severely damaged crops early to maximize feed value and increase availability of livestock feed in drought affected areas.
3. Negotiate the following three changes to the federal government’s tax deferral plan for producers selling breeding stock due to drought:
a. Extend the federal tax deferral program to a minimum of three years. The current one-year deferral is of little value to most drought-affected ranchers. No rain this year means no grass next year.
b. Expand the federal tax deferral program to include early sale of yearlings and calves due to drought conditions for year one only.
c. Move forward the date for final designation as a drought area for federal tax deferral purposes from its current date in November to June 30. This program adjustment would facilitate more effective herd and financial management.
The Saskatchewan Party has discussed these proposals with the CCA and the SSGA. Both organizations have expressed support for these government initiatives to assist livestock producers in their effort to manage through the current drought conditions.
The ball is now in the court of the NDP agriculture minister. It’s time for Clay Serby to get in the game.
– Bill Boyd,
Saskatchewan Party
Agriculture Critic,
Regina, Sask.
Dry rot
Saskatchewan is in (the) mid to late stages of economic dry rot. It has been developing continuously for years disregarded, a result of provincial and federal fiscal mismanagement. …
We have been losing population for 60 years and it is accelerating. The farming sector leading the way (is) now down to a skeleton force.
We have a health system we cannot afford. Doctors and nurses leaving from over work and under pay. The rural school system is drying up, a shortage of beginner children. Nevertheless, teachers are still demanding higher wages.
To fund these and the rest of the things people cannot do for themselves, we have assessments and taxes levied on balloons called assets. Taxes have inflated the costs of every item we use, to the point where unless they can be charged as an expense and passed on, they are unaffordable.
We are losing people because there is a money shortage in the country. People leave if there is no money, and only stay if they can at least get by. People have to have money. That is the bottom line in an industrial system.
Making money is not the largest problem, having enough left after taxes, to pay the tax built into the pricing system, is.
Economists, politicians and bankers tell us with a straight face there are no flaws in the system that raising and lowering interest rates won’t fix.
When the lights have been turned out, after your flag is taken down for lack of population to function, remember, as late as 2001 it could have been salvaged, provided enough dead wood had been removed and replaced, and treated with a heavy injection of financial change.
– N. L. Grant,
Unity, Sask.
The best
In the July 26 Open Forum, Roger Brandl asks me to answer comments I made in the June 28 issue. I am sorry if anything I said is not correct. I will always appreciate being corrected. It is good that Mr. Brandl has made the effort to write, as it gives an idea of how some farmers think.
I feel that he is interested in having a marketing agency that is concerned about the farmer. There are a few multinational corporations that determine the price of grain throughout the world. Canada only produces about three or four percent of grain in the world and has about 19 percent of the world exports.
The Canadian Wheat Board has to compete with multinationals and their only concern is to make a profit.
Marketing is obtaining customers and arranging to have grain delivered when they want it, 12 months of the year. The CWB has gained returns for the farmer by being an honest, reliable supplier of top quality grain.
The CWB is more or less independent of the government and has a board of directors – 10 elected by the farmers and five picked for their expertise. Every farmer is treated equally and fairly.
Any benefits the CWB gets are shared by all farmers. The CWB sells grain on the U.S. market. It goes to the end user, not to some elevator in the northern states.
It wouldn’t make sense for the CWB to sell grain for less than what they can obtain. There may have been some government regulations that caused a lower price. This would have to apply to all marketers.
The CWB has long-term contracts. If they are to supply these markets, they have to know what is available and deliver it in an orderly manner, which the customer requires, which also makes better use of available facilities. …
The CWB has up-to-the-minute news service, which gives (information on) anything that affects grain prices or supply throughout the world. The CWB has customers in over 70 countries. They have mills and equipment to teach millers from all over the world on how to use our grain. …
It is a sad situation when politicians will use misinformation to discredit the CWB just to try to gain votes when the CWB is more or less independent of government.
It used to be that the Winnipeg Grain Exchange had to spread their own propaganda. Now they have the wheat and barley associations doing it for them.
The organic growers are divided on what they want and I am not well enough informed to comment, and by what I read, I don’t think they are.
– Alex Olson,
Spy Hill, Sask.
Won’t improve
This letter is in response to the letter that Roger Brandl wrote to the Open Forum July 26.
He criticizes the Canadian Wheat Board. No doubt the board could be improved, but you are certainly not going to improve the market by doing away with the wheat board.
Why do you suppose Winnipeg had the most millionaires per capita than any other city in Canada? It was made from farmers’ wheat that the grain exchange sold and made millions.
I don’t know how long you have been around, but it is plain to see that you never had anything to do with farming before the wheat board was formed.
I was. If the board was done away with, the vultures are waiting and I would think that they are a lot more greedy now than they were 60 odd years ago.
You say that American farmers get more for a bushel of wheat than we do. I guess they do, because 48 percent of their income is subsidy, and the farmers overseas, their income is 58 percent subsidized.
Pretty easy to farm at that rate.
– Harry Froyman,
Vanguard, Sask.
Too much rain
Somehow it doesn’t seem fair. Parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan are in a drought, no moisture for crops and pasture, no water in the dugouts for stock.
Here in central B.C. it’s exactly the opposite. As I sit here writing this letter Aug. 4, I look out on the lawn which has a creek flowing through it from last night’s storm.
It’s our third year of this and seems to be getting worse. The storms come in from either the northeast or the southeast, and linger over us for weeks at a time.
Our hay crops are great, higher than the fence posts and should have been cut a month ago. The food value is dropping as the crop stays uncut. We cannot get on the fields to put up silage.
There is plenty of grass for the cows but again the value isn’t there. All we can do is hope for better days and hope we can get at least some feed for the winter.
As I read The Western Producer, I can understand the problems of the prairie farmers. Grain prices and marketing, the mega farms and grow operations, cash flow or lack of it.
Here in B.C., most of us owning land also had a bit of timber to sell. In the past we could go to various sawmills and bargain for the best price.
This no longer is the case as one or two multinationals have bought out the independent mills and now dictate the price you get.
Between these, the environmentalists and the past government we had for 10 years, one has a hard time to farm or ranch. Hopefully the new government will be better.
There is a torrential rainstorm out there again. Depressing.
– Walter Anchikoski,
Prince George, B.C.
