Farming... Gone

Yeah yeah, maybe this isnt ATS stuff, but nobody reads my agriculture threads no matter where I put them. This has a big impact on land use, so, fragile earth it is.

www.cbc.ca...

A Saskatoon economist says it's become clear farmers on the Prairies can no longer make money growing crops, and government officials must now decide if they want to keep farmers on the land – or help them leave.

Hartley Furtan, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, says Prairie farmers can no longer make any money growing grains and oilseeds for export, which is forcing family farmers off the land.

It is a sad world when it comes to this. Basically we are going to depend on other countries for our food. That makes sense how?

The governments keep giving farmers money. That doesn't solve problems. It puts a patch on the problem until next year.

This funding needs to go into market expansion. Take that money and get us some markets !

People are with food shortages in other countries, and we have such a backlog that we should QUIT FARMING?

Do we want to be the ones starving? No I don't think so.

ARGH

Furtan: "When we look at a hundred years down the road, or two hundred years down the road, might we need this industry to be a source of energy, a source of food, because of climate change etc. Yes we might."

No S#i%!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit on 21-2-2006 by Dulcimer]

this makes me sad as my whole family(except for me) are farmers it is getting incresingly hard to do it and when goverments stop helping farmers your throwing away the best sorse of food and energy


people need to hear this

I think this is a blessing in disguise.

What I might do, if I was a farmer with a few thousand acres and no incentive to work it on a commercial scale, I might sell 1 acre plots to people for a few hundred bucks (start up a community maintenance fund for the tractor and livestock replacement), and team up to produce a surplus of a variety of foods, and a lively local economy to boot.

It's not a way to get rich, but it is a way to live through rough times.

That may work to an extent near the larger city centres, but for folks like me, we are just too far away from anything to make it happen.

Even our land value is going down. That's the sad part.

I'm guessing most of our product is going to be going into fuel production in the future. Canola right now, is not even worth selling (could be used for biodiesel).

The selling price is way below production. No local markets for the stuff.

A lot of people have tried diversifying and specialty crops, but you just cant make a living. The world is producing product cheaper and cheaper with more efficient means.

Its like china pumping out cheap plastic goods.

And no, the organic sector is not doing much better. Unless you are selling at a farmers market maybe.

its the same here we make a surplus of evrything and where the corn realy goes is to china b/c the US dosent want our corn. its funny how you mention how you can just sell 1 acre plots you know nothing of farm life no one wants to move out to the country they all want to live in cities. the equipment is unimaganable where just a mid size farmer but a harverster is ~200K and a tracter is 100K thats probaby more than your house is worth i take checks to the bank that is as much as your parents or you make in a year and its all we can do is barly brake even think about that.

its funny how you mention how you can just sell 1 acre plots you know nothing of farm life no one wants to move out to the country they all want to live in cities.

I know quite a lot about farm life actually, but I know more about the English language.

the equipment is unimaganable where just a mid size farmer but a harverster is ~200K and a tracter is 100K thats probaby more than your house is worth

o_O I don't know whether I should laugh or not. Are you saying people can't engage in subsistence farming without heavy machinery? Having a tractor to be shared amongst a number of people growing produce with different lead times makes perfect sense, because it pays for itself in efficiency. I'm certainly not the first person to think of it, it's standard practice in small farming communities, especially in Europe. The harvester is unnecessary with small plots.

i take checks to the bank that is as much as your parents or you make in a year and its all we can do is barly brake even think about that.

I don't even know what my parents make on a yearly basis, how the Hell would you? If you're some kind of freakin' super psychic, can you inform me, using your powers? Where's my dad at? Does mom still keep her apartment too cold, trying to save money?

Where do you farm, and what do you farm, and what is your market? A Mid-sized farm is, generally, the WORST sized farm. Too small to be profitable and too big to be worked without massive investment in machinery. On top of that, farming has NEVER, EVER, in the history of the entire world, been an easy and profitable venture, it's hard, and it's dirty, and there's only so much you can do without a red phone to the weather Gods. It is noble though.

Too bad the profession doesn't impart any of that nobility on the farmers themselves.

[edit on 24-2-2006 by WyrdeOne]

Dulcimer, put the farm ground in grass and raise cattle, save a little back for your own feed needs.

BTW I have 16 fancy Angus heifers for sale I can get you started.

Roper

your right i cant spell and i dont have a finite grasp of the english lang. if your basing my intelagence off of that your sorly mistaken.

no where is this about subsitance farming its about a dieing lifestyle that it makes things hard on people who work 20hrs a day evryday. let me inform you with somethigns our tractors are in the field at all seasons except winter there in a field all the time.there is no way we can share a tractor or a harvester or a grain system there in use for all the day except for when the oporater is getting there. if we did do that yhou would starve b/c we are the one shipping it out to so you can eat. we have quite a fue acres and we have had 1 person in over 100 years that has asked to buy a plot and all they wanted was a half acre!

most dont make over 100-200K a year so i can asume that on a basis of avrage US income. im sorryabout your soceoeconomic statis but if you had any idea about what goes on uless you have done it. btw i live in the poorest county in one of the poorest states my grandmother cant even turn up the heat so i can simpathise

lets see we are in northern indiana we farm corn and beans some mint as a cover crop we do a 2-1 crop rotation mostly with corn and beans, we have umm ~20-30 thousand acres and we are a incorpaoration.


as for that last comment ill tell you where to shove it

[edit on 24-2-2006 by engenerQ]

Hey!

engenerQ, BE NICE.

I can't say that I have a huge knowledgebase for this topic, BUT...

I live in Allentown PA. It is a pretty big city. However, surrounding Allentown are counties like Lancaster County. We are Amish Land around here.

We do not get much news. When something that is seemingly insignifcant happens in New York City, it doesn't make news. It does here, though.

I have not heard anything about farming going belly-up. In fact, our Jaindl farms and Hatfield farms are stronger than ever. The Amish market is strong because of the unnatural growing methods of commercial farming (pesticides, etc).

It just bothers me that sometmes "they" group everyone into one big stereotype and call it good.

Oh, and trust me, I would LOVE to make ~100- 200K a YEAR. Living life with three kids isn't easy on a quarter of that. So please tell me...is that all profit, or does most of it go back into the upkeep fo the farm?

I strongly and actively support Farmers' Markets and most of the organics. In groceries, all you can get is tasteless GM vegetables so I search out the vendors who sell the real thing and buy from them and tell everyone about it.
I can and freeze in summer what I will need for winter, I even make up packets for vegetable beef soup. Each packet has all the vegetables diced up for one big pot of soup.
There is some confusion in organics, some do offer heirlooms, real stuff but others use organic methods to grow GM.
Agri-business is taking over and soon that will be the only seed available and it will be GM. That is why family farms are failing, agri-business is putting them out of business and forcing them to buy GM seed.
I have a small garden plot in my yard I am going to have deep tilled this spring with compost and peat moss also horse doo. I grow heirloom tomatoes, chilis, okra and this year I'm going to try potatoes.
Be picky about what you buy, if you don't know what a good tomato tastes like, find out and only buy that, then save the seeds and grow in containers if you have to.
Carlisle is one of the culprets.

Originally posted by Dulcimer
This funding needs to go into market expansion. Take that money and get us some markets !

Gosh Dulcimer, I really sympathize.

But as you probably know opening markets (as they have with CAFTA and soon the FTAA) just devastates those farmers.

It really will be okay in a couple hundred years. We'll ALL be farmers.

If you drive farmers off the land, and have huge multi nationals growing the food, who will be there to stop the GM horros from happening? Farmers are not just business men / women, but also guardians of the land (Especially organic/ non gm farmers)

With all the talk of goverments wanting to take over every aspect of our lives, surley the best way to control a society is if you control its food sources.

The farm support systems in the United States and Canada are quite different. In my opinion, the United States farmers have it better. Its hard to explain.

GM seed does nothing to help farmers or feed the world. Why?

Terminator technology. And Canada is not helping.
www.guardian.co.uk...

Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant.

How does this help farmers? The world?

It doesn't. All it does is guarantee them business and that's all.

BLEH.

Dulcimer i think your correct about the condition on farms compared to canada so what er need to do is take your healthcare merge it with the us and merge the US ag to canadas! lol

Rouschkateer
a answer to your question is 95-98% of our income goes to upkeep and bills

the whole notion of "organic" food is holarious its just a money makeing plot let me explane. all food is GM just in a bit difrent way the corn you know was orig in mexico called mayze it was 2 foot tall and the ear was very very small but they where bred for many many years to make it taller better and more resistant. all food has a simaler story. what GM is is jsut a way of not waiting a whole season to cross breed a species. and for pestacides and herbacides well you all know roundup it is less toxic then most city water b/c it atackes the plant parts in a cell and sence we dont have that it is jsut as harmless as water. pestacides well there a bit worse for humans but ive been exposed to them breatherd them in ya not healthy but when the food is procesed it is all disolved. i eat corn straight out of the field after all the gm and things we put on it it tastes fine and none of my family have shown no ill efects b/c of it.

jsut a farmer passin on some facts to save you some money next time you go shoping.

PS. thats harsh calling gm food tastless i mean even the realy good ferry mores seeds you can buy that are SOOO good are gm

Originally posted by Roper
Dulcimer, put the farm ground in grass and raise cattle, save a little back for your own feed needs.

BTW I have 16 fancy Angus heifers for sale I can get you started.

Roper

Sounds like the right idea.
Cattle, sheep, hogs, etc, might supplement the income when you can't sell the crops.

BTW What's the market for ornamentals, landscape plants, roses, etc?

Too special for our tasts and too much structure to build.

Some greenhouses operate around here, but not much. They are pretty much going out of business.

Cattle or some animal is probably a slightly better idea than cereal crop farming, but cattle are not easy or cheap to deal with either.

If we had cattle when the BSE stuff was going on, I wouldnt be talking here right now because we wouldnt be able to afford a internet connection.

Psst..rabbits...

They convert food to lean meat more efficiently, breed faster, require less space and care, hardy vs. the cold, and they're cheap to set up.

I don't know why more Americans don't eat rabbit. It's delicious.

Right now the meat goat mkt. is a growing thing. Mexicans like goat.

If I Had to try to keep up with a few hundred goats, I go nutz!

BTW out here in the Okla. Panhandle,Texas Panhandle, SW. Kansas, WE NEED RAIN! There is no dry land wheat! It's going to take 6" of moisture to break this drought and that just isn't looking good.

We just had our annual performance bull sale, sold 70 bulls and the average was 2,580 $, up from last year.


Roper


Roper

Right now the meat goat mkt. is a growing thing. Mexicans like goat.

If I Had to try to keep up with a few hundred goats, I go nutz!

Goat's good meat. You have to cook according to the texture and taste though. Strong spices, or long simmer times, otherwise the meat is too tough and gamey. My favorite goat recipe is Goat Curry over basmati. It really is delicious.

BTW out here in the Okla. Panhandle,Texas Panhandle, SW. Kansas, WE NEED RAIN! There is no dry land wheat! It's going to take 6" of moisture to break this drought and that just isn't looking good.

I was just looking at the radar images for today, you guys might get some moisture. Send it up here when you're done with it though.

We just had our annual performance bull sale, sold 70 bulls and the average was 2,580 $, up from last year.

What age were the animals, just out of curiosity? I've never even considered raising bulls, they seem very high maintenance, in terms of space requirements and feed and what not. The coolest thing about small animals is the growth rate. After just a few months they're saleable/edible.

Well, most of them.

"We're going to need a bigger pot Martha!"




[edit on 25-2-2006 by WyrdeOne]