Future farmers

damngrumpy

damngrumpy

Executive Branch Member
Mar 16, 2005
9,949
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38
kelowna bc
Actually at the time the ALR was great, and for that matter still is. The problem is we
have not developed a way to make it of benefit to farmers that was originally promised.
The concept is a good one in principle. I does preserve farmland for future use which
is important. Successive governments however have not finished the promise to
compensate farmers for the institution of the policy. If you notice, no government has
moved to dismantle it because over 89% of people support it, most of them are urban
dwellers. My point was that it should be paid for in some form to compensate farmers.
On the other hand it should be pointed out that in the early seventies the farmers saw
they actual farm value rise by nearly eighty percent over night and they borrowed on
it.
I farm I also support the ALR, its just time to revisit the process and pay what is owed.
The other real problem for those who grow spuds, vegetables and tree fruits it the
Columbia River Treaty. When they brought it in the Americans used the water control
to plant thousands of acres of tree fruit and vegetable farms here is the example I am
familiar with.
Before Columbia River, BC and Washington both grew about 12 million boxes of apples.
Now Washing grow about 120 million boxes and BC about 3 million. does that demonstrate
ad difference? The difference was Irrigation of desert and badlands. America got the
water and US Military Engineers built the storage facilities.
BC gets 350 to 400 million a year for the water, and I think the farm commodities impacted
should get some of the Columbia River Trust money that the Kootenay Region gets.
When I was in Agri Politics I was pushing for this and if I get back into office we will again.
 
B00Mer

B00Mer

Make Canada Great Again
Sep 6, 2008
47,142
8,151
113
Rent Free in Your Head
www.canadianforums.ca
here is an interesting artice on future highrise farms using sea water..

FUTURE FARMS: High-Rise, Beach Pod, and Pyramid Pictures

 
taxslave

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
4,342
113
Vancouver Island
Problem is that the ALR designation was a blanket imposition with no respect for ground conditions and some landowners were able to opt out while others were not based on politics rather than soil types. NO one can afford to farm a rock bluff and yet many such areas are kept in the ALR while thousands of prime farm acres in the lower mainland have been turned into houses and parking lots. Most due to politics not ground quality.
 
gopher

gopher

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 26, 2005
21,513
67
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Minnesota: Gopher State
damngrumpy said:
gopher, no we do not have subsidies for most of agriculture. We do have dairy
quotas and so on but horticulture is out in the cold. Farmers are on average
around fifty to fifty five years old. We have increased costs at every level plus
the farm safety rules, which I don't disagree with except they do not provide any
real farm safety most of it is window dressing for marketing.
Fertilizer costs and sprays are getting more expensive and we have an agricultural
land reserve in BC which means, farmland costs about a hundred thousand dollars
an acre.
Climate change is another problem but I think climate is always changing and will again.
In the next decades to come oil, water and food are the three main things in demand
and its coming fast.
Click to expand...


Thanx for your analysis. In much of the States farmland is excessively expensive. Certain prime land such as in California are beyond the reach of most aspiring farmers. In the midwest costs have gone up in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan - the ethanol corporate welfare giveaway has caused much of that inflationary price increase. Because of it corporate welfare recipients buy the land, receive large financial giveaways from those idiot politicians, and then the land is removed from the world's breadbasket. The rich get richer and poor get poorer because excess commodities can no longer be grown in lands now reserved for ethanol. This means poor children both at home and abroad are deprived of what would normally have been free food.

At the same time, farm lands in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas have been abandoned and remain fallow. This is because poor farmers cannot afford the taxes, rural electrification, and the inflated costs of fertilizers, farm fumigation, feed for farm stock, and the cost of transporting goods to urban or foreign markets. There simply is no profit in farming in those areas. Then there is the problem of polluted streams which cannot be tapped for irrigation - this means farmers often to buy water to fertilize their lands. Of course, much of this could be corrected if we as a society took a more organized effort to alleviate these hassles: improved trains which transport commodities, cleaner waterways and riparian rights for poor farmers, using corn fields for cattle feed instead of ethanol, flood prevention, and other steps can be taken to bring some measure of profit to the farms. In turn, food costs will go down, farmers can export foods to increase their profit margins, and any excess commodities can be used by government in food assistance distribution domestically and overseas.
 
B

beaker

Electoral Member
Jun 11, 2012
508
0
16
thepeacecountry
gopher said:
Thanx for your analysis. In much of the States farmland is excessively expensive. Certain prime land such as in California are beyond the reach of most aspiring farmers. In the midwest costs have gone up in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan - the ethanol corporate welfare giveaway has caused much of that inflationary price increase. Because of it corporate welfare recipients buy the land, receive large financial giveaways from those idiot politicians, and then the land is removed from the world's breadbasket. The rich get richer and poor get poorer because excess commodities can no longer be grown in lands now reserved for ethanol. This means poor children both at home and abroad are deprived of what would normally have been free food.

At the same time, farm lands in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas have been abandoned and remain fallow. This is because poor farmers cannot afford the taxes, rural electrification, and the inflated costs of fertilizers, farm fumigation, feed for farm stock, and the cost of transporting goods to urban or foreign markets. There simply is no profit in farming in those areas. Then there is the problem of polluted streams which cannot be tapped for irrigation - this means farmers often to buy water to fertilize their lands. Of course, much of this could be corrected if we as a society took a more organized effort to alleviate these hassles: improved trains which transport commodities, cleaner waterways and riparian rights for poor farmers, using corn fields for cattle feed instead of ethanol, flood prevention, and other steps can be taken to bring some measure of profit to the farms. In turn, food costs will go down, farmers can export foods to increase their profit margins, and any excess commodities can be used by government in food assistance distribution domestically and overseas.
Click to expand...

Sounds like very similar to the problems seen in this area. Where there used to be mixed farms every half mile or so there is now maybe five or six grain farmers over a space of thirty miles. They are quite large and the minimal support from the Canadian government is just enough to keep them trying to grow and be more efficient. To try again to produce more with less.

The trouble I mentioned earlier are as you point out beyond the control of farmers. The green revolution was terrific for consumers and farmers, they had machinery for every need, labour costs went way down per unit of production. Consumers prices have gotten to the point where the farm share of store shelf prices is virtually non-existent. I don't think that it is a question of food prices having to come down a bunch but rather that farmers need enough of that to survive.

Tax slave mentioned earlier that the forest industry is in a similar position, corporate control, governmental control, and I expect no room for the small logging outfit. It's like that with fisheries too. These are basic needs being treated in the same way as all the other consumer goods. The difference as I see it is that the man/woman on the ground has an inside track as to what will or won't work in any given area.
 
B

beaker

Electoral Member
Jun 11, 2012
508
0
16
thepeacecountry
B00Mer said:
How about an elephant trunk where my dick was suppose to be.. ;-) that'll work..
Click to expand...

Is this related to California dreamin'? :) I don't know whether genetic modification of crops can be really safe or not, but I have heard some pretty scary things, and as the gene changes get stacked on top of each other within one crop variety some people are expecting more damage.

The other aspect that I can see causing a problem is that in order to produce more from an acre of land, no matter what allows the improvement, you need more inputs as well. Those input costs are going up faster than farmers can afford them, and I haven't seen anything to indicate they are going down again. Anything is possible though, like the highrise food factories in cities or the ocean water ones you mentioned. (Sorry couldn't get to the story for some reason.)
 
gopher

gopher

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 26, 2005
21,513
67
48
Minnesota: Gopher State
Corn for Food, Not Fuel

op ed in NY Times:


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/corn-for-food-not-fuel.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Other countries seem to have a better grasp of market forces and common sense. Brazil, another large ethanol producer, uses sugar instead of corn to make ethanol. It has flexible policies that allow the market to determine whether sugar should be sold on the sugar market or be converted to fuel. Our government could learn from the Brazilian approach and direct the E.P.A. to waive a portion of the renewable-fuel standards, thereby directing corn back to the marketplace.




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This is pretty much what I wrote above. Hopefully, some members of Congress and others will realize its truth.
 
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