Discussion in the comments about the state of agriculture in the province reminded me of this letter that I’ve long planned to share;
Mr. Calvert,
I am a small (1680 acres) farmer with 4 kids in Rocanville area. My land taxes went up $1500 last year. They went from around $7500 to over $9000. It was all because the school unit didn’t adjust their mill rate when your government played with the land assessments in the area.
Now, immediately after your government made our school unit massive, with administration being done 2 hours away, we are losing 56% of provincial gov’t funding. If the cuts were being applied evenly across the province, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Unfortunately for your gov’t, we still have people that can find out the details and publish them. Why should the french students get over $12,000 per student and we get $538??? This is stupid.
I am 45 years old, I worked oil rigs for 15 years out of school to start farming. I went back drilling last winter, leaving my wife and kids to look after cows and snow clearing on their own. Fortunately we have very good neighbors and municipal patrol operator. We have our farm for sale. Fortunately for Saskatchewan, we have put a lot of improvements into our yard, so it probably won’t be abandoned like so many others, it will probably be purchased by another family. If it sells, it will be to Albertans or foreigners.
Saskatchewan has so much wasted potential it makes me feel sick to my stomach to think of it. We have oil, diamonds, largest potash and uranium deposits in the world, some of the best farmland in the world with the most efficient farmers. We have so much more that I don’t think of at the moment, and we always seem to squander it away. Your government now and in the past always seem to think they have to have their fingers in any project ‘for the people of Saskatchewan’ or it wouldn’t be ‘fair’. Where’s the ethanol plant you had the photo op for by Regina a few years ago?? You destroyed the potato industry. You won’t allow us to process the uranium here (ever hear of ‘value added’?) An economy needs investors and people willing to take a risk with their own money with the potential for a good profit in order to grow. Saskatchewan has such a reputation for the last 40 years of beating up people trying to get ahead, and trying to run everything, that it will be a long time before the attitude changes enough for anyone to take a risk here.
Ever heard of a guy named Lingenfelter? Used to be deputy premier? Wonder where he is right now. He had some good ideas last fall, and you guys fell over yourselves shutting him down. Have you noticed ADM is setting up a biodeisel plant just across the border in North Dakota? Have you noticed the northern states are getting a quite a number of Biodeisel plants when they don’t even grow much canola?? Doesn’t that piss you off just a little bit? It does me. It also pisses me off that when working in Alberta, a large percentage of the enterpeneurs out there come from where? Yep. The land of perpetual potential.
I know you can’t change your way of thinking, and I also know you that You know that there is a great divide in Saskatchewan. You know you are being returned to power all the time by the old Tommy Douglas voters, Gov’t union voters, and (dare I say it?) the native vote. I would suggest that most of the above mentioned voters like things the way they are because its easier for them. Human nature says most people take the easiest way out. All I can ask is that you actually try to LEAD this province, not try to run every little thing, and try to do what is best for the future of the province, not whats best for your party.
Alright, I nominate ok4ua as being the dumbest of the dumbest to have ever graced this province. Sounds to me like a dipper who’s worried he may lose his job after the next election.
By the way, ok4ua, after almost 50 years of oil wealth in SK, not to mention uranium, natural gas and all the other abundant gifts handed to us, where the hell is our Heritage Fund?
Oh, sorry, forgot. That extra oil windfall was invested in the bogus “rainy day line of credit that doesn’t actually have cash in it but it sounds good to Joe Q. Public so we’ll go with it” fund. Speaking of that fund, has it topped $15 billion yet? No? Then stop talking trash and do something about our debt…like, maybe you and the other 10,000 or so “new-hires” that kissed ass all the way to the legislature should quit their jobs and join us in the real world.
While you’re at it, stop throwing stones at glass houses. Farmers are 10x harder working than you bunch of latte-swilling hind tit suckers in Regina. Do you know what a 60 hour week is or is it something that you read about in NDP Fiction class during orientation week?
Wow, so much hatred! First off there a large number of misconceptions, although one poster pointed it out. Yes Canada, your government does support farmers (along with others) through direct and indirect subsidies. Ever wonder why a grain farmer has to sell their grain to the wheat board? Blame it on the U.S. because you are too afraid to fix the problem yourselves, that would require weaning yourself off the government teat!
It’s not called farming anymore, it’s called agri-business.
Like any other business when a product has reached maturity in it’s life cycle other products have to be brought on stream to replace the ones that no longer make money.
Agri-businesspeople that do well today understand this concept and thrive as a result of it. Farmers that continue along old well worn paths are doomed.
Romantic notions will always get you in trouble in business. Adapt or perish!
All you farmers are are is an excuse for the SaskParty to keep us devided. If you believe the Tory philosophy of every man for himself except if that man is good to get some votes. The SaskaTory party pitches us against each other to get votes. Don’t blame the Gov’t. The SaskaTory party doesn’t even try to get labours vote. That tells me something. It’s the SaskaTory party that keeps the love/hate relationship going in rural Sask.
ok4ua, SK needs a healthy farm sector, it is an integral part of the diversified SK economy. I believe that SK needs some business-friendly policies, expecially after the business-hostile NDP (and thanks for the recent tax cuts, better late than never) and that this will also be good for labour (like it is in AB). Otherwise, I don’t understand where you are coming from. I ahve accused the NDP of using ag. as a wedge issue, and you seem to ahve picked-up on my theme, ut wiothout providing any logical context.
Reverend Devine started this division not the NDP. The SaskaTory party says the NDP don’t like farmers. How long have I lived in Sask? Over 50 years and the NDP have always kissassed the farmers. The difference is the Tories paid farmers more in drought money than they made farming. Is that really a good thing? How long would that have gone on? We as a province were broke because of the cash gifts to everyone. The SaskaTory party have said they would do the same.
All I ever see on TV is the SaskaTory party dragging some terminal patient in the legislature or telling how the NDP don’t like farmers. Who the hell do you think brought in all the farm programs in the last 50 years in Canada? Not the Tories.
My father-in-law is pretty much in the same sinking boat as the 45 yr old Rocanville farmer except a couple of decades older. He too is hoping to sell out to someone out of province with money since not many younger Saskatchewanians have much interest investing their lives & savings in the land themselves. Modern farming has become a hopeless dead end and the current “urbanized” provincial government sat back as the disaster unfolded in their laps over the last 15 years.
I fear that conditions are so bad right now (land values, input costs, commodity prices, market access, interest rates, aging demographics, increasing tax burden, decreasing services) that we are past the point of no return in having any ability to save Saskatchewan’s family farms. A terrible legacy that will forever attach itself to the NDP.
Umm maryjane,.. how much do you pay for such items?
The power company doesn’t pay me for the poles that go across my land like the oil company does. Which means I am subsidizing it along with the government which runs the system.
Flying is easy, or don’t you remember the government bailouts of Boeing and Air Canada.
In as much as gas the government runs it to and built the network (we were able to get gas pipe to our farm despite the evil nasty devine government, while in the benevolant Rommano years burying the 1500′ of powerline in our yard would have cost upwards of $10,000)
And lumber. Even while most NAFTA Rulings went Canada’s way, many of the WTO rulings stated that we did subsidize to a certain extent.
Governments often use grants and tax incentives to encourage business. Money in = decreased cost of production = lower price, aka. subsidization.
Healthcare and education are still my favorite tho. We pay almost nothing at the wicket. It is nearly all subsidized by tax dollars.
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ok4ua, you seem to be delusional. The NDP and farmers have long standing disagreements. Not saying Devine improved our lot either, but remind me again what support the dips have given farmers that hasn’t had to be ripped out from underneath them? Not the wheatboard, not GRIP (which never was a good program), not NISA, they were draged kicking and screaming into CAISP, they gutted the useful portions of crop insurance in the last 5 years.
But that’s just a few of the bad portions. They have ofcourse lauded great praise upon us and showered us with extravagant gifts. Thats obviously why the NDP holds only rural seats and no city seats.
Farming is like a lot of jobs when you start out. It takes awhile before you make any money. That’s why a lot of farmers have off the farm jobs. I know lots of civil servants that have farms. I don’t blame your dad for selling. He’s ready to retire. Everybody including myself have had to settle for a lot less. Whether it be raises in pay or less for grains. I don’t think we should abandon agriculture but I think it’s up to Ottawa to help out. All of Canada eats our food not just in the prairies. And in Europe and the US the federal gov’ts help out not individual provinces or states. That’s too costly. The province does help out farmers and don’t try to let on they don’t. But it should on a need basis per farmer. Not universal. Some producers don’t need help and the ones that do should have to show they do. It’s almost like walfare. If you have lots of assets you can’t get walfare. A lot of farmers don’t want to show this. If I apply for unemployment I have to show I have worked in the last year. I’ve never been on UI or welfare and I’ve worked 30 years in my present occupation.
ok4ua, 30 yrs, serving the people, no doubt! thanks for all the empathy, now please STFU!
I completely disagree ok4ua.
You help people based on need. You should never help business based on need.
You can give businesses incentives to setup or setup in an area and create wealth for people. You can ocassionally offer help to businesses which are struggling due to (temporary) conditions they cannot control. [ex. natural disasters, temporary loss of markets (BSE), or short spikes in business inputs]
Supporting businesses based on welfare principles creates welfare businesses. Why? When you give someone something over and over they eventually figure out the conditions where they can recreate the gift (not just welfare, buying a car from a dealership which will give you an amazing deal is the same. You will go there for the deal instead of the cometition)
While I understand that people can be permantly disabled, disadvantaged, etc. A business under the same conditions should be closed in favour of a more efficient model.
Though a knee jerk tearful reaction says you should help those at the bottom, that is an incorrect course of action. Rather aid should be given to larger and more efficient business models. A single section producer with 30 year old equipment will almost certainly never be able to replace their equipment with modern technology and gain enough land to become competitive.
Aid, when offered should be offered to those with business models efficient enough and with economies of scale such that they are on the edge of making it.
Buisnesses do create wealth for people. Go work at Walmart for awhile. Buisness creates wealth for themselves. Farmers are 8% of or GNP. Peoples wages contribute more. Helping farmers helps farmers and hardly anyone else but their families. You right wingers had better wake up and smell the roses. I’ve worked in both public and private jobs. Public pays better. And it does in Alberta too. I’ve heard it all for 50 years. Same shit different bowl.
I don’t know much about walmart. Sobey’s tho. My rommate went to work there last year. Being a hardworking individual (ie. not a union hack) he started just above minimum wage. Today, not a year and a half later he is a store manager and is paid as such. If you are perpectually on the bottom of the pay scale then it is because of your actions, your attitude and your work ethic.
“Buisness creates wealth for themselves. Farmers are 8% of or GNP. Peoples wages contribute more.”
The first part that catches my eye is 1% of persons, who are struggling to make a living no less, are 8% of Canada’s National production. I don’t know if I am elated or scared to death.
next stupid question…. how do you get wages for people without a business to employ them.
Wait, we can all work for the government. It will pay all our wages, and we in turn can pay all of its. The Soviet Union does this and we can see today how far ahead of us poor poor capitalists in everything they do.
As for farms not creating any wealth except for the farmers.
Oi, do you live under a rock?? (or just in a government office)??
My farm employs 2 full time seasonal personnel. (and at nowhere near minimum wage, you get what you pay for in employees.) We also pay several part time employees for varying hours. This ranges from neighbours, to neighbours kids, to my little cousins. They do a good job and they are well paid for their labours. (This adds up to nearly $50k into the community from my “family” farm)
On any given year we spend thousands in rent on several quarters. They are rented from persons no longer farming, or from persons that just wanted to have an investment in land and stay working in town.
But wait, that is not all. I spend hundreds of thousands on stuff from town. Equipment, chemicals, fertilizers, oil. My neighbours do too. Those several businesses we purchase our inputs from in town comprise another 30-35 employed persons that my dollars affect (just in my small town).
But wait where do they get stuff to sell me?? Hundreds of businesses and each one with employees manufacture those products. (And are no doubt paid to do so.)
But wait, my farm and all these other businesses are completely unnecessary. The government will empoly all of us (somehow) and pay for our every want right here in happyland. Bullcrap.
ok4ua works for the government, has for some 30 years, collects his wage and his pension, and then complains about all the hard-working stiffs out there trying to get by, about how unfair it all is, etc….
It is all about envy for ok4ua, and envy has been the bane of Saskatchewan since Tomy Douglas. Envy keeps us mediocre. Thanks alot, ok4ua, nice legacy.
Would someone over here (the one who always talks to the Sask party all the time) and tell them that the name of their party (and the province)is spelled:
S-A-S-K-A-T-C-H-E-W-A-N.
Oh and while you have them on the phone, remind them that they are trying to achieve:
G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T (not ‘goverment’)
Welcome to the era of News Talk Radio where ‘uninformed opinion’ is just as valid as ‘informed opinion’
Not everyone can be a boss. Some of us peasants have to do the grunt work. I worked 12 mos of the year 8 to 9 hrs a day on average with no OT. I did this for 35 years. It was a job someone had to do. Still do. Most people that actually work or their kids who have jobs are wondering when will it end. A billion dollars doesn’t buy what it used to. My son got offered a management job with Walmart. He was 20 years old. He said he didn’t want to kick workers around because that’s what their managers do. There are 10 times more workers than bosses. Someone has to do the grunt work. He told me there were lots of farm kids working there who thought 8.00 an hr was OK. I guess their parents kicked in the difference.
What am I jealous of? I wish I was born into farm money. A guy I know told me city people don’t pay their fare share of taxes. The told I make too much money as a silly servant. This is after his dad gave him 75,000.00 to start a buisness which failed. A realative of his got a resterant which dad bought. It failed. He got 10,000.00 to do his house siding,5000.00 for a new kitchen,5000.00 for a new roof, a new deck and air coditioner. Guess what poor old dad does……….he farms. You guys think the rest of us can spend money like that? You farm boys want it all. You always had it and still want it. You live a very sheltered priveleged life.
Go to a provincial and look around you at the 5th wheels. Over 75% are farmers. Go whine somewhere else.
“Go to a provincial and look around you at the 5th wheels. Over 75% are farmers. Go whine somewhere else.”
That doesn’t even make sense. Summer is when we do the work. Not leave the quiet country to go to the quiet park. If/when I decide to camp out I can do it in one of several abandoned farmyards on the land I own. And not have to deal with noisy neighbours.
“Not everyone can be a boss.” Espically when years of service count more than an actual willingness to do the job. I watched my rommate pull several 70 hour work weeks in a row simply because of the lack of ethics in the staff. People would just skip days without even phoning. This from the same benevolent union on strike months before for better wages… Many don’t deserve them.
The fact that your son rose to the level where he could manage a walmart is proof that awarding jobs, and more espically wages based on merit and work ethic works.
1) In regards to Leftdog, STFU please!!! It’s fairly easy to misspell words now and then. In case you missed it during his leadership bid, Lucky Lorne’s troops didn’t do much better and by the end of the night he was known as Lorne “Clavert”. I have a friend in the newspaper business who has said the paper contains something for everyone and typos are included for the ones who get bent out of shape over a misplaced comma or a missing letter. I guess you are the person he was describing to me.
2) ok4ua says his son worked all those hours without overtime and had an opportunity to climb the ladder to a management position but didn’t want to kick around employees like other managers do. This is typical dipper personality. ok4ua jr. must enjoy being at the bottom where he can be kicked around. Given the circumstances, if I had someone working for me who needed to be kicked around, he or she wouldn’t be working for me for very long. I’m sure the managers at Wal-Mart don’t “kick around” employees for the sheer fun of it…it’s counterproductive and totally against any sane businessperson’s philosophy! If there are Wal-Marters being booted in the ass it’s likely they need it. ok4ua jr. sounds like he’s taking up the socialist lifestyle rather well and would rather just toil in mediocrity all his life and spend his free time bitching about his job and eating Doritos. One suggestion for ok4ua sr. and jr….if you don’t feel appreciated or think you are overworked and underpaid, FIND A NEW PLACE TO WORK! God knows, apparently we have some 11,000 unfilled jobs in this province. Let me know ok4ua where in the labour legislation it reads “must remain employed at Wal-Mart or face imprisonment”.
3) Barcs…you make a lot of sense. I have many friends and relatives that farm and I don’t see many of them towing a 5th wheel to the provincial parks for the weekend during seeding/spraying or harvest season. If anything, they MIGHT take a day or two in the dog days of summer and head for the lake for some rest and relaxation. My brother-in-law lost his dad in 2005 and farmed not only his land but also his dad’s in 2005 (and has seeded it all again this year) and, in the end, fired up his boat for a grand total of 5 hours all summer. BTW, he also works full-time off-farm from October to March so don’t even go there.
4) Leftdog wrote: Welcome to the era of News Talk Radio where ‘uninformed opinion’ is just as valid as ‘informed opinion’
——————> If this is the case, what time can we catch your talk show Leftie?
Only farmers can afford 5th wheels. My son no longer works at walmart he works at a good job in the private sector. Socialist has nothing to do with it. Some of you were lucky to be born into a farm family a lot more of us weren’t. That’s the way it goes.
Here in SK, most of our ancestors were born into farm families. Times have changed: now, most SK children are born into civil servant’s families (such as ok4ua) or welfare. And most farms kids are fortunate to learn the value of hard work and honesty, and they leave the farms and make it big in (non-socialist) AB.
Three cheers to Bushman…he knows it!
To ok4ua…I’ve never lived on a farm or spent more than 3 days on one but I do know from my experience in dealing with farm families that they are some of the hardest working people I know. I wish I could say the same for my civil servant neighbour who spends every other Friday morning in his driveway polishing the tires on his boat trailer and washing his 5th wheel as he prepares for yet another long weekend at the lake.
You wish you could be so fortunate to have been born into a farm family? I think there’s a few thousand of those families who would gladly swap places and take your cushy dipper job…and every second Friday off that goes with it! You’re the one who should be counting his blessings and not bitching about farmers being a drag on the economy!!!
I don’t get Fridays off at all. And farmers don’t work nearly as hard as they used to. That’s a falicy that farmers do all the hard work. Not anymore. Just remember this my taxes pay for your deductions. Remember that there are a lot more working people that farmers. Don’t deny me my piece of the pie. You may have to change your lifestyle to reflect the times. Your grandfathers started it,your dad’s built it and the kids blow it. That’s about right isn’t it.
You remind me of the Southern Faith Healers I watched on TV as a kid. Send us money or my pisser will rust shut or I won’t be able to go to Arizona or buy my kids new cars. You never see farm brats in old cars. I drive a 13 year old truck and my wife drives a 13 year old car. The cost of living high is expensive Mr.Farmer.
13 years old? almost brand new.
my last vehicle (which is still used as a farm truck) is an 86 (that’s 20 years old) Toyota with nealry 300,000 kilometers on it.
My current truck, for the last year now, is a 98 (8 years old) 3/4 ton with a 6.5 diesel engine and a trailer package (160,000k). But oops, no 5th wheel travelaire. It instead pulls a tandem 5th wheel with my water tank on it out to the field. It pulls the same with bales during haying season. I have a couple other trailers around the year to general purpose haul stuff.
I could drive a tiny car, or another old toyota… but neither would pull my equipment.
The fact is farmers don’t have shiny newer trucks because they go to the beach. We have newer vehicles because the old ones get worn out. Just like any tool.
You must have cattle that’s changes things. Cattle and dairy farmers work very hard. I’m talking about the grain farmers. My cousin’s had a dairy farm and it was a 24 hr a day job. They had a hired man 12 mos of the year. They made good money but they worked very hard for it.
nope.
Grains oilseeds and pulses.
1 month ofr 4 of us to seed, 1.5 for the same to harvest and the rest spent fixing, repairing, yard maintence, hauling grain (4 months of 10 hour days 7 days a week for a single guy), spraying (3 weeks of 10 hr days for a single guy)
Finished seeding last night. Hauling grain today since the elevator opened. They are closed for the next 2 days at 5:00pm today so I am gonna spend some time tonight and tommorow cleaning the bottoms of bins into trucks. (yeah I was shoveling this morning to get it full, omg.) Monday I will bring the sprayer into the yard and spend a day fixing all the quick repairs needed to get the last week done. Tuesday and Wednesday hauling grain. Thursday is back on the sprayer. Air seeders will hopefully be fixed up and put away by the end of the next week by the hired hands (inbetween rock picking).
Course that might all get hijacked by the inch of rain we are supposed to get tonight 🙂 (yippee). In that case repairs and shopwork get moved up, and other stuff waits a couple days.
This summer includes 2 weeks of work for 2 guys cleaning up a couple old fencelines, knocking over a tree row (another week), fixing irrigation pipe, putting up a few bins (a couple more weeks).
All in all I probably don’t work as hard as my grandfather does. But then again, neither does an office worker in the city work as hard as grandpa. So maybe comparing me to him isn’t right. Kinda like saying teachers don’t do any work for 4 months. They do… just like me.
I work hard too but the returns aren’t as good. I’ll never be rich or have assets I can sell except my house. Working people don’t get rich.
In other words, maybe trying to make it in the business world instead of just being a wage earner, tho a risk might not be so bad.
Long term average returns on agriculture is about 2-3%. Some years are better than others.
2 to 3% return????!!!!!!!Something doesn’t jive. My farm friends work at a job,farm and combine their incomes , do their taxes and come up with negative income for tax purposes. I wish I could do that. You do better than that. My realatives do. I think you’re not on the level. If I get 2 to 3% return I’d sell the farm and bank my money and get a job. I have not seen or heard one honest comment about farm income for 30 years. It’s always a loss. I find that hard to believe. My farms friends sure spend like they have money.
that’s the point isn’t it.
The average return on the stock market for someone doing well is 8-10%. Sometimes you make 30%. Sometimes you lose 30%.
You really need to talk to an accountant if you are goind to talk about profit and loss in a business.
Covering variable costs and covering fixed costs are very different. My guess is that your friends that declare a loss every year cover their variable costs (fert, fuel, etc, etc) but do not cover fixed costs such as buildings and such. As such they would have a positive income and money to spend as buildings and equipment deterioate past the point where they sould be replaced.
If that is the case and the current economic environment does not change. Your friends will not be farming in 10-15 years. And they will join my friends neighbours as they leave the farm with the same problem.
I can’t say for 100% sure that all farmers are making money but some are. We can’t save them all that’s for sure. But I don’t believe the province should go in debt trying to. My wife and I do alright in our jobs. We do budget though. We don’t go too far in debt. We do our own yard work,house repairs and I repair what I can on our vehicles. It saves us some money.
We’re all civil servants. If the gov’t gives the farmers a billion dollars how does that make us different? There’s a fine line to be crossed here.
How much is that per farmer? Some farmers are better money mangers than others. Just like working stiffs.
How much is that per farmer? Some farmers are better money managers than others. Just like working stiffs.
Farmers and labour fall into 3 categories,private or public. 1/3 are good,1/3 are fair, 1/3 are no good. I’ve worked for farmers,private buisness and public service.
The only people who think union workers are overpaid are underpaid non union voters. We have to take care of our native people. We can’t ignore them. This is not Nazi Germany where you get rid of anyone we don’t like. Some of you bloggers are alot like little Hitlers. You’re so far right you’re left. You made a complete circle.
We have to educate people. That’s the only way to get them out of the ghetto.
So back when I was 18 and working for $13/hr from PSAC and moved to $15 doing sales….
Absolutely agree with your 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 though. The percentages slide up and down depending on market conditions. But you are absolutely right. Some people are very good mangagers, business operators, workers. And there is the bottom precentage of managers, business operators, workers who will never do a good job, no matter the help given. It is an unfortunate reality.