Farmer coalition
The grain companies and railroads are right, it is our money they are spending and we cannot afford exorbitant taxes, utilities, maintenance and wages to operate elevators in every jerk-water town in Western Canada.
We can’t keep stopping our trains just to drop off a couple of cars in remote locations and it doesn’t make sense to pull loaded trains hundreds of extra miles over outdated track that wanders aimlessly about the countryside.
Today’s objective is efficiency. Everywhere we look, companies small and large are consolidating for a common cause. Farmers should take a lesson.
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Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Statistics show that 80 percent of farmers produce less than 20 percent of our product. Debt is increasing at an alarming rate. Government has a solution to the farm crisis: 100,000 of us have to go. The only alternative is that we start working together now.
Imagine 10 or 20 farmers in a block combining their assets at fair value and interest for shares in a company. Does this sound like communism? Railways, grain companies and banks don’t seem to think so. The company would operate as a free democratic enterprise with no restrictions.
We could retain our present residence or work for the company, but nothing would compel us to do anything. The benefits are obvious. A large modern shop would replace a dozen smaller ones. Efficient feedlots and grain processing would maximize our bottom line. Housing, retail, recreation and first aid centres would become communities of the future. …
Large rugged machines would work faster and better, workers would concentrate on important jobs, caring for livestock and working the land, service trucks would keep us rolling. Marginal and vacant land would be improved, old fences and roadways transformed into modern thoroughfares with wide sloping ditches that are hayed and double as water runs, rerouted to provide access to every location.
Sloughs, bush and low areas would be cleared, levelled and drained to eliminate saturation and conserve water, creating large open fields studded by permanent shelter belts ideal for farming or grazing.
Divided, we can never improve our situation. We don’t have the time, equipment or finances. United, anything is possible and could be the beginning of a farmer coalition that would guarantee fair prices and a secure lifestyle for all.
– Louis K. Berg,
Sedalia, Alta.
Crop insurance
It’s amazing how (Saskatchewan agriculture minister Clay) Serby could take an idea from APAS (Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan) such as calling for a 25 percent increase in bushel coverage in crop insurance. (i.e. a farmer having a 16 bushel coverage would increase to 20 bushels per acre) for all farmers, including farmers not in crop insurance, to calling for a 25 percent increase in the prices per bushel.
Crop insurance is triggered by bushel losses.
With Serby’s idea, any farmers over their bushel coverage would not trigger one penny of his 25 percent increase of bushel prices.
With APAS’s original idea, thousands more farmers could trigger more dollars to get compensated for this year’s drought, all so he and the provincial government can protect provincial dollars. Sounds to me Serby is on the same old NDP game plan of only pretending to help rural Saskatchewan and farmers. Protect the provincial coffers from farm aid so the urbanites of this province vote for the NDP in the next election.
Please ask Serby why he isn’t calling for the change of today’s safety net formula from cash receipts to percent of losses per province (majority of losses not in today’s cash filing income tax numbers); percent of acres per province; percent of taxpayers per province (fixes the 60-40 problem across Canada).
So we farmers in Saskatchewan could get our fair Canadian share of farm support dollars.
Out of the last federal cash injection, Ontario farmers averaged over $20 per acre while we in Saskatchewan averaged $4 per acre. Taxpayers in Saskatchewan paid their fair share in federal income tax dollars but Saskatchewan didn’t get their fair share back. A lot of Saskatchewan’s federal dollars went to farmers in other provinces.
Please ask Serby why he isn’t calling publicly for the changing of the income tax system at the farmgate so all farmers can get 100 percent of our farm losses (from) Ottawa. Serby stated at a recent meeting that he has six provinces on side to change the income tax system. …
Please ask Serby why he hasn’t called on the federal government to be our neutral lender at the farmgate for farm credit – like with production contracts for all crops? We farmers could get out from under the grain companies, saving millions on input costs, driving down input costs, freedom to sell our grains and oilseeds over a period of a year instead of today’s two months – making millions more at the farmgate.
A good example is that the crop production contracts, crop inputs, (came) due Oct. 31. Canola price was over $7 but now all grain companies dropped the price to around $6.50 because (of) Oct. 31, … stealing millions from us farmers.
If we farmers had production contracts from the feds and were allowed to pay them back over a year, we probably could sell our canola next spring in the $8 to $10 a bushel range, thereby becoming viable again and requiring little or no farm support dollars form either government.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Balcarres, Sask.
Life’s pictures
I would like to commend you and your staff for the excellent pictures (reminders) of what harvesting still is on many farms on the Prairies.
In this day and age we are shown huge machinery, large farms, giving anyone not involved in agriculture, that farmers that can afford machines this size are financially quite secure.
It should be quite obvious that a lot of smaller farmers spend a lot of time keeping their equipment repaired. Many older farmers and ranchers remember well how busy we are kept with seasonal work, cutting and peeling fence posts, fencing and building corrals, picking rocks, cleaning corrals, attending the livestock, preparing rations, and repairing equipment.
These are few of the jobs we had to do, which I’m sure the younger generations of farmers and ranchers are not informed about.
So thanks again to Western Producer staff for the pictures depicting a bit of the life we once experienced.
– Harry Jurke,
Vanderhoof, B.C.
Over-taxed
In the last Producer the farmers are all having finance problems, but what’s new? Everyone is having problems because they are over-taxed to pay the interest on the national debt that has caused bankruptcy, unemployment, poverty, crime and prostitution and all our ills.
What they, the government, have done good is taking care of themselves and friends. Canada may be the best place in the world to live, but it must be better for those getting $1,000 a day or more than those getting $5 a day or less.
I believe everyone would be better off if they took the tax off cigarettes and alcohol and fines off of seat belts and pinching for going over 50 or 60 or 80 km-h on a road you could go 120 on.
I believe if the police did not charge everyone, they would not have so many criminals to chase. I am writing this in hope that the government may change its ways for the best of everyone.
The government owes everyone a chance to make an honest living.
– Lloyd Scott,
Shawnigan Lake, B.C.
