Lunch time musings

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:21 pm

While i sit with my lunch time tea...i was reading a lot of the postings regarding GMOs etc on various threads on FB....now as you all may know, I purposely seek out only heritage varieties of seed for my ever growing ( in size) garden...my choice...but I am against anything to do with GMOs if i can manage...theres a big labelling war going on in the states...just a distraction but real non the less..i grew up on a farm...i have many agrarian friends..i married into a successful dairy farming family...hell, i even have a "Farmers feed cities" sticker on my truck window...that brings me to my thought...farmers may feed cities, but its not the job of a farmer to do so...no one really gives it much thought do they?... The farmers only responsibility is to himself and his family..to make a living from the land he has...if he has modest yields, but can live off that then why do more?...I've often wondered where the greed factor came into play here... Who managed to twist things just enough that it became a go big or go home scenario anyway...i know there are a lot of factors at play, but hey, farmers are tearing out hedgerows to grab a couple of extra acres to grow on, exposing sensitive soils to erosion etc..are the margins that close that the profit on the farm is in those few stolen acres?...makes me wonder...why?..to whose benefit?..and all this in one generation of time...when i was a teen ( yeah yeah, eons ago) the farm was viable on 25 milking head milked twice aday, not fed corn as a staple in the diet and nary a GMO to be seen...what the hell happened?...and why?...I'm still thinking greed...

G Williams · Post by **G Williams** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:56 pm

Cheap food policies. Government bailouts when things get tough keep the risk takers in the game. Temporary foreign labour subsidises the large growers at the expense of small family operations who have to compete with them.
In the States it is the tolerance of illegal immigrants. If the employers had to do jail time for hiring them the problem would disappear.
Large equipment has increased the economies of scale.
Greed plays a part in that when farmers have a good year there is always some-one who will go around the country offering to pay higher rents for land, thus decreasing the margins for every-one.
The younger generation doesn't want to be tied to livestock any more so they have larger operations with hired help or a partner.
35 years ago $160/Tonne was a good price for corn that is about the price today. Every-thing else has gone up 3 or 4 times. No wonder farmers will embrace any new technology to make a few extra bucks of an acre.

Bayvistafarm · Post by **Bayvistafarm** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:57 pm

Money is the root of all evils.

I hate that people are clearing more land to plant crops. We here, planted trees on a sensitive piece of land behind our barn, because it was on a slope, and eroded bad.

I also hate that the very sensitive area's in the world are being cleared, as in Brazil.... to plant soybeans year round. I think I heard they can have 4 crops a year?? Maybe its 3. Those amazon rainforested areas are what governs our weather. I think we have WIND almost constantly now, because people are screwing up the world.

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:26 pm

BVF, forgive me here, but its "The love of money that is the root of all evil." Do you love the money more than other things?

As long as grocery stores (Walmart) stock food from places where there are : no environmental or labour practice or animal welfare laws, and where untreated human sewage is dumped on farmland (China), and where any chemical is used for short term gains (so what if fruit and veg pickers die before age 50 from strange cancers as they do in Punjab state of India, the home of the "Green Revolution" from a speech from Vandana Shiva, as seen on Youtube: if you haven't seen her, go and look her up now, it'll be the best thing you ever see there) ... How do you compete?

A local grocery chain I know of will pay less for apples from local farmers than they will pay for apples from New Zealand because they know the local farmers have nowhere else to go. How the bleepity bleep bleep do you compete against that?

Our 65 hp tractor is worn out, and I will keep fixing it as new ones are all computer based: i.e. John Deere will sue you (!) if they catch you bypassing a sensor to keep a tractor running (and where did you get a "for dealers only" repair manual?)

Monsanto (seed selling and patent giant) has in their employ the largest private investigator force in the USA to investigate their customers (farmers) to make sure they do not save any seed so you MUST buy from them each year. In India, 100,000 farmer suicides each year. Why? Because of debt against the land used to buy seed or chemicals from "giant seed companies" and/or subsidiaries.

The agricultural subsidy budget of the USA (350 Billion) is bigger that the budget of the whole Canadian gov't.

As a farmer..... do you sell a commodity...Or a value added good? Are you a price taker or a price maker?

I have friends who started a wine label (Jabulani) near Ottawa. Tom told me its not one business; its three. 1. Grape growing farmer 2. Wine maker 3. Wine retail sales (LCBO takes 40% if you sell through them) and they all must be successful to make a $. He just figured out he makes more money with less hassle renting the place out for weddings. Wait a sec... his sewage system isn't big enough for large parties....$10,000 in fees to city of Ottawa and he needs more toilets.....

seek the truth in all things......

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:09 am

Another apple orchard owner I know of has a "you pick" business. His biggest expense: liability insurance in case someone trips and falls or falls off a hay wagon.

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:43 am

Speaking of apple orchards...a while back i ran into a gentleman at the farmers market in Kemptville..we got to talking and somewhere in the conversation i mentioned that MJ worked up on the college campus..he said he had retired from a career working a KCAT a few years back and lived just up the road, maybe i knew the house....i did...well he said he had the corner there with 25 acres and had run an apple orchard there his entire adult life..i said that i was familiar with the property but didn't recall seeing an orchard there...well, seems that on retirement he decided to not want the apple business anymore so he cut down the entire orchard...some 80 standard apple trees...several varieties...i gotta tell ya, i wanted to cry...truly...I mean, its one thing to clear some trees to make room for another crop but he didn't do that...it sits unused to this day...and here i am planting apple trees and recovering as many of the trees gone wild here on the farm as possible...i mean, really, what are some people thinking.....

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:57 am

Seems like some farmers have forgotten all the hard lessons of the 30's, around here they are busy clearing the hedgerows, nothing left for any wildlife at all. Around here in the GTA everything is being paved over- following the 407. It makes me sick, time to move away, I'll go crazy living in Scarborough. How many stupid little clone plazas do we need, another Walmart, pet value, Mark's work warehouse, etc. etc.
All that BS about Carbon tax- what a load of cr*p. It's all just empty talk. and yet another gas tax grab. It's business as usual, with professional hand wringing for show. Why is there no Go train service even to Bowmanville yet? They should have made a rail line follow the 407. Nope. Cars cars cars. And it's never, ever,enough money. When the governments finally take 100% of people's income I don't know what they will do, there will be no blood left in that stone.

ross · Post by **ross** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 9:55 am

Yep , folk will be effected for sure .

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:31 am

Back in the 80's, the gov't in one province in China figured out that the wild pheasants were eating too much of the grain harvest. So they went out with pots and pans and flushed and shot all the birds they could almost exterminating them. The next year crickets and grasshoppers decimated the crops. At least they learned the lesson. Now they have studied and learned that domestic ducks are the biggest bug eaters and they have millions of ducks and duck herders on standby if insect populations are expected to grow to plague levels. The Chinese communists do some things wrong...But they do some things right!

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:41 am

I have been around long enough to see the changes , from the time Agriculture Canada worked with and for the farmers, doing grain trials, developing new and better seeds, importing livestock from other countries (before AI) so farmers who couldn't afford to do that on their own would have access to improved stock........
to a complete turn around, when Ag Can culture changed completely and started to dictate to farmers how many animals they needed (the go big or go home culture) to survive in the bright future that was just behind a corner, right where the Bank Loan office was.
I did some commuting at that time, Ottawa- Kemptville, and Ottawa - Winchester, and watched the "corn cribs" torn down to be replaced with $ 40 000 silos at the time when average bungalow in Ottawa was $ 20 000 and huge barns were being build with total environment control, so the animals never needed to go outside, and the vicious circle begun, produce more to pay for all the wonderful things you need to farm in the modern times to pay for all the gizmos that will enable you to produce more yet again.
And the modern times brought the Food as a Commodity so "pork bellies" here we go again.
Sorry my rant for the day.