Producers fear Advance Payment will miss the target

by Karen Emilson

Cattle producers in the flooded Interlake and Westlake Regions will soon have access to a Targeted Advance Payment (TAP) on their 2008 AgriStability payment. The TAP is meant to assist producers who need to purchase feed for their animals this winter.

This recent announcement made by the provincial government has Directors with the MCPA concerned that these payments aren’t the bulls eye producers need right now. In fact, they might be missing the target altogether.

District 10 Director, Joe Bouchard, lives near Fisher Branch. Many of the producers he represents around the MCPA board table found themselves short of feed this fall.
Bouchard attended numerous meetings with government and has spoken publicly about the issue. His main concern is that there are producers who will receive a payment and then be required to pay it back.

“I appreciate the gesture on the part of the Minister to get money into producer’s hands, but the problem is that the program still isn’t fixed,” he said. “We have told the bureaucrats time and again that AgriStability doesn’t work for cattle producers.”
He said that producers are beyond frustrated that the program doesn’t work and the politicians can’t figure out why. He says that the people who designed the program don’t see a problem with it, but that just because it works on paper, doesn’t mean it works in the real world.

“The tragedy is that there are people who are getting money who don’t need it and people in dire need who aren’t getting anything. The cattle industry is being obliterated, while the grain producers have production insurance and Agristability which does work for them, and as livestock producers we don’t have either. ”

Bouchard said that the government needs to work with industry to get the problems fixed.

“If the bureaucrats got paid on a commission basis by how well the program worked for cattle producers, they would be starving to death.”

Earlier this fall, the MCPA had producers in the flooded areas volunteer to fill out the AgriStability Interim Advance form and then monitored whether or not those producers were eligible for a payment. One out of three people qualified.

Based on those results, Bouchard is asking producers to be cautious about accepting the Targeted Advance.

“They need to know that this is AgriStability money that will have to be paid back if they are ineligible for a payout in 2008,” he warned.

At press time, Bouchard wasn’t exactly sure how the payments would be calculated but says the amounts will likely be based on individual production units. The estimated average advance will be in the range of $8,400 however, producers who are not enrolled in AgriStability for 2008 are ineligible.

“The government has been telling us that the new Growing Forward programs are the only game in town but cattlemen are reluctant to sign up because it hasn’t worked for them in the past,” he said. “The government has to take the lead and get this program fixed and then they would see more cattle producers enroll.”

Art Jonasson is the District 11 Director living at Vogar. He is concerned that the decisions producers make between now and the end of the year could negatively affect their future margins.

“And a lot of those are good, solid management decisions they will be making,” he said, explaining that producers he has talked to who usually cull around 10 percent of their cows may cull heavier at 15 to 20 percent, rather than purchasing expensive feed. Few producers (if any) fertilized this fall. How a drop in expenses and production units will affect each individual program year margin varies.

“Every situation is different and so it is every producer’s decision whether or not they take the Targeted Advance,” he said. “Worse case scenario is that it is an interest free loan and I would suggest guys should view it that way.”

Jonasson explained that in the past, producers who were in the former CAIS program and stayed with it, did not have to directly pay back overpayments. Those amounts were simply subtracted from any future payments. AgriStability is set up the same way.

To qualify, producers must have 50 percent or more of their farm income derived from ruminant sales. They also must live in the R.M.s of St. Laurent, Coldwell, Siglunes, Grahamdale, Fisher, Bifrost, Eriksdale, Armstrong, Gimli, Alonsa, Mossey River, Ethelbert, Mountain South or Lawrence, or in areas of Northern Affairs or First Nations next to these municipalities.

The government press release made no mention of producers living in the southwest where some are also suffering severe feed shortages but due to drought. Jonasson said both the north and south were included in the discussions with government and they will be looking into why the southwest was left out and lobbying for their inclusion. Read more!

Culling hard and sourcing feed

by Karli Flinta-Murphy

Some producers in the north Interlake and Westlake areas have not made a single bale of hay all summer. Others are culling harder this fall than they ever have before because they are leery of the fact they may not have enough feed for their herds come spring. If producers were lucky enough to get some hay put up, the quality is terrible. And when producers are saying this year is more devastating than when BSE hit, there is no doubt frustration out there. This is all a direct result of the unprecedented amount of rainfall producers faced this year.

Right now Albert Omer farms north of Fisher Branch, but not for long. Omer, who downsized his herd after BSE, plans to sell his entire herd within the next month. “There’s no bloody way I am sinking anymore money into those cows,” he said. “It’s a business, but it’s not a prosperous business anymore.” Omer has been farming his whole life.

Omer doesn’t have enough feed to winter his cattle after rains destroyed any chance of having a productive hay crop and with the price of hay, he doesn’t have the cash to buy so instead he will liquidate his herd. “I don’t know how anyone can afford to do this when they aren’t breaking even when they sell their calves,” he said.

Ken Hoff of Tribar Ranch at Peonan Point only got 25 percent of his hay crop up this year and had to source hay from three different places. Thankfully, he had a pretty good carryover from last year to help feed his 750 cows. “We are looking at $50,000 to $70,000 in hay purchases. We’re going to cull down about double what we usually do,” he said, adding he usually sells off 50 to 60 cull cows per year, but this year is will be over 100.

Much of Hoff’s land is lowland, which normally produces a lot of pasture, but with the downpours he had hundreds of acres that were just water and cattails. Pastures were lost and calf weights are down. Since June, Hoff said his ranch had over 30 inches of rain.

To make sure he has enough feed, he checked out the cost of grain, pellets and feed mixes to find the best bang for his buck. What he decided is that buying good quality hay and mixing it with the poor quality hay he put up, is the best thing for his operation. “It costs just as much in transportation charges to haul in poor quality hay as it does good because most of it comes from a long ways away. We may as well bring in good (quality hay),” he said, adding he never got any hay up without rain affecting its quality.

“With cow numbers going down in the U.S. and here in Canada, in two years when our economy turns around and people start wanting to eat beef again, we should see astronomical prices like never before because there is going to be a shortage of beef. So if anybody can hang on for two years, and I know I have been saying that to the boys up here since ‘03 and it’s been five years now, but I think now more than ever if you can just hang in there, our ship should come in,” he said.

But there are a lot who can’t hold on and like Omer, they will get out of cattle all together.

Hoff is hoping for a long fall and a mild winter so it will be easier on his feed supply because he doesn’t want to buy any more than he has already committed to. “We’re not doing anything radically different, just trying to operate more efficiently right from the start and there’s very little we can trim to make us more efficient. Sometimes you can make a mistake when you try radical things and it backfires on you. (Feeding hay) for us is proven and it’s just a matter of getting through this,” he said. One reason he said he will be able to survive perhaps better than others is because on his 10,000 acre ranch, he has a very low overhead with the native pasture. Not buying fertilizer and not having the costs associated with breaking up the land and seeding helps.

Like Hoff, Guy Johnson also has an optimistic attitude and he doesn’t want producers to give up. His farm in Eddystone was slammed with 42 inches of rain since the beginning of July and he said he has neighbours who were affected even more. “We were quite dry this spring. I was thinking of buying hay because it was so dry then it started to rain. It affected everything,” he said. “Our hay production is way down and our quality is terrible. Our weights coming off pasture were way down. It’s just not been a good year.”

Johnson got about half of what he usually gets from his hay lands, but it was all tame hay because none of his native pastures survived. He has since bought hay and baled and bought straw. He looked at hay as far away as Swan River, but found some closer to home, which was still more than 80 miles away. He will be feeding grain to make up the nutritional difference for his 450 cows. He will also have his replacement heifers custom fed and plans to cull heavily this year.

“Let’s not get too far down. Things can change so quickly. I tell guys not to get so far in the dumps that they dump their cattle. Be a good marketer because I would hate to go through this and six months down the road have it be a profitable business after guys got out of it too soon. This still is a viable business,” he said.

Although he doesn’t have a rain gauge, Robert Mankewich, said he had more than 20 inches pour down on his farm north of Fisher Branch. He said he was very fortunate this year because he was able to make about 50 percent of the hay he normally puts up for his 180 cows. “I know guys that only put up 15 to 20 percent—some even less then that,” he said. Mankewich bought hay as the summer went on, while scrounging everything he could get. He also had some carryover from last year. Early in July, he sourced hay from a local broker. The hay was reasonably weathered, but it was close and the price was decent. Although it’s three or four-year-old hay, he is going to run it through a shredder and if he feels his cattle aren’t getting the proper nutrients, he is going to supplement it with barley or grain. “I am going to cull here as soon as it freezes because it is so freakin’ wet. We can’t even move cattle around. They are on the pasture and will stay there until it freezes,” he said, adding he will be culling higher than normal this fall.

“There are a lot of guys really frustrated, including myself,” he said. “There were a lot of producers out there hanging on by a thread and this year’s going to kill them.” Mankewich considers himself lucky. He made it work this time and he is going to ride it out for one more year, but doesn’t know if he will be able to do so for much longer if these conditions continue.

Arne Lindell also considers himself and his 220 head of cattle lucky. Not all the hay he made was poor quality. But even though he put up some hay, he now can’t get it off his fields. “It’s wetter now than it was before. You might get on the field once, but you aren’t going there a second time,” he said about the 30 inches of rain his land received at his Eriksdale farm. Lindell is waiting until it freezes before he can get the rest of his hay off. “There is water where there has never been water before. There’s more water here now than there is in a normal spring.” The hay crop he couldn’t salvage is drowned out and it will have to be reseeded. “No one can afford it, we’ve lost money every year since BSE and we can’t afford to lose any more, we’re done losing,” Lindell said. He’s still deciding whether he will sell some cattle this fall. He’s gained two weeks already where he’d normally be feeding because of the weather, so he’ll gain some hay there. “I’m not planning on selling any more than I normally would cull.” Lindell is close to having enough feed. If the conditions are ideal, he should be okay, and that’s what he’s hoping for. But if he has to sell some of his cows to make it, he will.

Susie Wilkinson’s son, Tyler, desperately wants to continue the family tradition as a fifth generation rancher but his parents are worried. “How is he ever going to ranch and how are we ever going to stay here with him, I’m worried it’s just not going to happen,” she said, adding she is trying to stay positive, but is finding that difficult.

Wilkinson and husband Vince, ranch at Eddystone and this year they didn’t get alfalfa off many of their fields because it was too wet. “I felt so bad for some of our cows because we had nine hoof rot heifers who had nowhere to go but up on these mounds of pushed up brush because it was the only way to get out of the water for weeks on end,” she said. “There are people in really bad situations around here and I feel just sick for them. I don’t know how they are going to get through this.” The Wilkinson’s cattle are still on pasture because they rotationally graze and moved the cattle into their last paddocks later than usual, which will push their feeding window back. She said they only had half the amount of hay required to feed their 500 head over the winter and had to source a lot of straw and second cut alfalfa from Dauphin and Ste. Rose.

Campbell Forsyth is waiting for it to freeze so he can do something with the 200 acres of corn he planted in the spring. “We’ll get at it one way or another even if we have to graze the cattle on it,” he said. Forsyth said he invested $280/acre with plans of turning it into silage, and because of all the inputs, needs to make use of it. “You have to feed your cows, you can’t let them starve,” he said. “There is not enough hay. There is no wild hay and only a little bit of alfalfa,” the Eriksdale farmer said. Forsyth’s farm had almost 30 inches of rainfall this summer and if all else fails, he said at least he has crop insurance.

Brad Thorlacius, general manager of the Ashern Auction Mart says he is seeing some producers culling really hard, even up to 50 per cent of their herds because they don’t have the money to buy feed for them. “The worst part of a heavy cull is that you sell half your cows to buy feed for the other half and then will only have half the calves to sell the following year,” he said, adding that many producers are getting some late hay off their fields and that may help get them through.

Thorlacius said some producers just want to get out of the business all together because they are tired of the industry, but that financially, can’t give cattle away. Many producers are hiring custom operators to feed their cows, but they don’t want to calve them out.

East of Ashern, all native hay is under water and everything is really wet. Up in the Gypsumville area, even the pastures were affected. “Quite a few guys are short or just have enough feed if they don’t keep their calves. Guys that background their calves aren’t doing it this year,” he said. Producers short on feed hope to wean their calves and keep their cows out on pasture as long as possible, especially since this is the time when their nutrient requirements are lower. There have been many lessons learned on how to feed cows cheaper, he said, adding there have been some wrecks in the past by feeding straw due to nutrient deficiencies, but it’s all a learning curve.

Make believe program
Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) with assistance from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada released the Manitoba Forage Assistance Program (MFAP) to respond to the feed shortage across the province. Omer calls the MFAP a “make believe program” and says it’s just “more rope to hang ourselves with.” The MFAP is supposed to provide producers financial help to access feed by covering transportation costs, mirroring the program established during the 2003 drought. Being in the freight business himself, Omer knows what the costs are and said the program is using old freight prices and doesn’t reflect the current conditions. He said farmers have to pay for transportation costs anyway even with the help from the government.
Hoff gives the government credit that they’re trying to help, but so far, what the provincial and federal governments are kicking in isn’t enough to pick up the slack of the losses that producers have already suffered. “We thought in ‘03 when BSE hit, that it was devastating, but compared to this year, for us, it was a walk in the park,” he said, adding calf prices were lower this year than they were in 2003.

Guy Johnson said the program will not do much to keep up the provincial cow herd numbers. “(The package) is very, very bad. I know the government can’t do anything about market forces, but at some point we have to decide that keeping the cow herds up is a really good idea.”

Mankewich asked, “What assistance?” He bought straw from Argyle and by the time the bills are paid, it is still going to cost him money for freight even with the package from the Manitoba Government. “As far as I am concerned, I don’t think they did anything,” he said referring to both provincial and federal government assistance.

Susie Wilkinson would love to sit down with Manitoba Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk and ask her if she really understands what conditions ranchers are currently facing. She also is thinking of writing her MLA and encourages other producers to do the same. “We’re really disappointed with our government right now. The hay is expensive and you still have to pay for half your freight to get it to you. You can’t find cheap feed or good quality feed and people want $50 a bale for dust. The AgriStability payment doesn’t work in our favour either. We were told we aren’t getting anything.”

Arne Lindell summed up what most producers think by saying, “We don’t need any more government loans, we just need to be paid fairly for what we are doing.”

Test your feed
Rodger Sheldon, Farm Production Extension Specialist - Pasture and Rangeland with MAFRI, said when it comes to winter-feeding programs, producers need to put a solid plan together. Lining up the proper feed is a big part of the plan, but this year, with the costs being sky high and not a lot of extra, good quality feed around, it is difficult. “Having a plan also helps when working with your bank because now you have something solid to show them.”

Sheldon wants producers to know that their local GO Centres provide a service and are completely confidential. “There’s not a lot of money out there and feed is 50 to 60 per cent of your overall costs,” he said, adding that putting a feed test together is crucial in the plan to know whether your cows will be in good shape by spring, given what you have to work with. Sheldon cautions to watch for mold because some producers pushed the envelope this year by putting hay up tough. Fusarium in wheat and barley also needs to be monitored. “Make sure feeds are mixed properly because the chance of mixing feeds that contain both mold and fusarium could cause a lot of problems at a time when we don’t need any more.” Read more!

Governments hold firm on last fall's warning

by Karen Emilson

Last fall, cattle producers were warned by the Federal and Provincial governments that the days of ad hoc programs were over. The message came through loud and clear that the only way producers would receive financial help in the future would be through the Growing Forward program.

Now government has followed through on that promise by refusing to negotiate cash payments for producers in the flooded and drought-stricken areas of Manitoba.

Despite weekly meetings with executive members of the MCPA over the last two months; and pressure from MLAs, MPs and local government councils in the affected areas—the federal and provincial governments have held firm.

“After a few meetings it became obvious to us that the government simply was not going to move on this,” said MCPA President, Martin Unrau. “We were forced to switch our focus from trying to get approximately $120 per cow cash payment for producers, towards pressuring government to ensure that the programs they are offering will in fact work.”

The area that caused the most confusion was the AgriRecovery component of the Growing Forward program. By definition, and based on the program’s description on Agriculture Canada’s website, many believed disaster payments would be available to producers to help offset the cost to buy in feed. Many thought that it was just a matter of negotiating the amount—based on need—and getting the federal and provincial governments to agree.

But that’s not the case, according to the bureaucrats who met with the MCPA in September.

As it turns out, AgriRecovery is not designed to pay for feed but to cover auxiliary costs, like freight assistance, to producers who need to bring in feed. Those dollars are being accessed by the provincial government to help cover the cost of the Manitoba Forage Assistance Program announced in early September.

There are no dollars available to cover actual production costs except for whatever producers can access when they file their 2008 AgriStability forms. The government is encouraging producers who have enrolled in AgriStability to submit an interim application, to see if they qualify for a 2008 payment and if so, 75% of it will be paid now.

“The government is telling us AgriStability will work for producers, we are telling them it won’t,” Unrau said, explaining that he’s made it clear that producers who have low margins will have difficulty triggering a payment. “But what they are telling us is that the margins are there. So what we need is for producers to apply and then let us know if it doesn’t work for them so we can take that information back to government. If AgriStability is going to be the only game in town, it needs to be bankable and up until now it hasn’t been.”

Unrau says he is very aware of the time pressures facing producers. Government has ensured him that money will flow within 30 days of receiving an application.

“We are also asking government to stick their necks out and be able to calculate for producers when they come into the office, if they qualify for a payment and for how much before they leave,” he said. “For producers who aren’t in AgriStability, their only option is to sign up for 2009 and apply for the Emergency cash advance.”

When asked why there is resistance on the part of government to assist disaster stricken producers, especially during such difficult economic times, he said blanket style programs are probably a thing of the past.

“Part of the reason we are where we are at with government when it comes to ad hoc programs is that they have been abused,” he said. “Let’s face it, we’ve all heard of guys who have milked government programs in the past and unfortunately, that hurts the guys who really need help now.”

The MCPA will continue to meet with government on the AgriStability issue and other concerns as well. Read more!

You also might want to read this . . .

Do you hate the idea of filling out your AgriStability form?
Do you worry that you are not doing it correctly?
Is your accountant making more money on the program than you are?

MCPA Finance Chairman, Art Jonasson, and his wife Jackie have a cow-calf operation at Vogar. Normally they send all their AgriStability information to their accountant for filing. But after attending two of the workshops offered through MAFRI in mid-September, Art is considering filling out the forms himself. At the very least, he now has a better understanding of the terminology and how his information is interpreted on the form.

Q. Before we start talking about AgriStability, can you give us an update on the feed situation in the flooded areas?

“Fortunately the month of September was dry and due to the moisture and unseasonably cool temperatures all summer, the hay still standing in the fields is not as coarse as it usually is this time of year. Some producers were able to get a reasonable second cut of alfalfa. But that is all relative to the amount of rainfall an area received. The native hay meadows on the other hand are virtually a write off in many areas. In the northwest for example, in places like Crane River, producers there are really short of feed.

Further south, guys are still poking away at it. I know we got more haying done in September than we did in July. Most producers in the flooded areas say the hay they did harvest is of poorer quality and cost them twice the amount in labour and fuel to put up.

Some guys I’ve talked to have enough feed and have been able to take advantage of crop insurance write-offs and were able to bale down south. We appreciate the fact that grain farmers dropped their straw and allowed cattle producers from here to bale it.
This is a good year for producers to feed test for nutritional value the hay supplies they do have on hand, so they know what they are feeding - since many will be also feeding straw to their cows along with grain and minerals.

With early fall calf prices still below the break-even point for most ranchers, the added expense of having to buy feed is the last thing we need.”

Q. Have you been to most of the meetings with government on behalf of the MCPA?

“Yes, I have.”

Q. And are you satisfied with the results?

“Well, it isn’t the cash payment per cow that we asked for through AgriRecovery.
What they are telling us is that the feed shortage should trigger an AgriStability payment for affected producers. I attended two meetings in the Interlake sponsored by MAFRI that had specialists from Agri-Food Canada and AgriStability on hand. I wanted to find out exactly what they are recommending.”

Q. And what are they saying producers should do?

“Basically, they are saying that producers should be able to fill out the AgriStability forms themselves.”

Q. When the CAIS program was introduced, didn’t the government offer financial help to encourage producers to hire an accountant because it was so complicated?

“Yes, but now that the historical data has been input, they are saying producers can save themselves money and avoid costly errors.”

Q. What sort of errors do you mean?

“One of the most important things they said we need to do is double check our Calculation of Program Benefit (COPB) forms when the come back from AgriStability to make sure the numbers are right. We need to make sure that the mathematics and the numbers that have been put in match our records.

And that we have only 90 days to file an appeal if there is an error.”

Q. Did you learn anything specific to your own farm?

“Yes, I did. Some of the information that I thought wasn’t that important actually is. For instance, because we live along the lake, when the lake is low we can get more hay and cover more acres. In the years we can’t hay there, I wasn’t including those acres in our forage production basket. According to AgriStability, that production should still be included in our forage basket.

And if one year you mark down that you bought standing hay from a neighbour it doesn’t help you according to AgriStability. But if you rent the land and pay your neighbour $10 a bale as a rental rate, the acres become part of your forage basket. It has the affect of increasing your previous year’s margins. They are trying to even it out so you are comparing this program year equally against all previous years as if they all had the same number of acres.”

Q. This sounds to me like manipulating the program?

“I would say it’s figuring out what is important when filling out the form. We think of income and expenses being the most important part, but with AgriStability, determining your margin is more important, and to do that the key numbers for livestock producers are their cow numbers, cows that calved and their forage acres.
It’s more a case of understanding the concept of how the program is designed to work. They have been telling us all along that the program will work, and we’ve been telling them it doesn’t, and yet we’ve all heard of cattlemen that it does work for . . . .
I think they’ve realized that a lot of producers don’t understand the concept which is different from how we normally think. Now they are explaining that concept to us.”

Q. What are the common mistakes that producers are making?

“One mistake is not stating their production units properly and that affects the reference margin because it accrues.

Another common mistake is that guys aren’t recording their total number of cows that are supposed to give birth. They are just stating the number of cows that had live calves.

And we need to make sure that the units we use to measure are consistent. They recommend doing any conversions ourselves and recording our forage and feed quantities in metric tonnes before giving those numbers to the accountant.”

Q. Anything else that pertains to cattle producers?

“Many of us have been breaking our calves down into weight categories. They say this not necessary and that it gets too complicated. We can just record the average weight of our calves and it works out to within a few dollars anyway.

And they said that those who are having difficulty can go to them for help. They said that most cattle producers should have a margin of about $300 a cow. Any really low margins set off an alarm bell and they have found that something has been filled out wrong, like not reporting the production units properly.”

Q. Anything else you want to add?

“Well, this is my interpretation of what they said and I would recommend that everyone try to get out to one or two of these meetings.

I have to confess that it didn’t start to make sense until the second meeting, then about halfway through, it clicked and now I get it (or at least I think I do).

One point I’d like to stress is that the people at AgriStability are confident that this is going to work for producers in affected areas, and they increased the percentage of the interim advance allowed from 60 to 75%.

It is important if producers need to apply for the interim advance that they make a one-on-one appointment at their local GO Center with AgriStability staff. And as soon as possible the MCPA needs to know if these programs will or won’t work for producers. We need people to call and let us know.”

To find a workshop scheduled for your area, see the ad on page 6. Read more!

EDITORIAL - Five years is a long time to hold your breath

by Karen Emilson

It is late August and I am sitting on the deck looking out over the pasture. It is early morning and the sun has just come up over the trees. I’m listening to the cows tramping their way through the bush into the clearing just on the other side of our back yard fence. Hopefully it doesn't rain again today.

I can’t help but wonder the cows near, pulling up the grass, swishing their tails and bawling a bit, how the cattle business got to where it has these past five years.As feed grain prices, the dollar and cattle prices became unpredictable last year, weather forecasts became frighteningly accurate this summer. Every storm predicted for the Dauphin/Interlake region dropped rain as the weatherman said it would - unprecedented in the 23 years I’ve lived here. Either their forecasting has become a whole lot better or our luck is a whole lot worse. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

They say that it is always darkest before the dawn; that things always become their absolute worst before they start to get better. For cattle producers who have weathered the past five years, waiting out the dark times, watching their equity and retirement funds erode, in hopes of some light this fall - to be unable to put up hay because of either drought or flood is an unbearable disappointment.

Interlake cattlemen went into BSE facing the worst drought conditions in recent memory; now many of them will not get enough feed because fields are too wet or completely drowned out. Two hits within five years of escalating costs and below break-even prices means they simply cannot afford to buy hay this fall. Not only is this an economic issue, but a herd health concern as well.

Traditionally when faced with a hay shortage, producers sell cows and hold back heifer calves to maximize their feed situation. One bright spot is that cows are bringing the best price they have since BSE; and predictions are that calf prices will be better this fall than last. However, I ran a spreadsheet based on the projected figures and anyone who is short half their hay, whether they choose to buy feed, sell cows, or sell cows and buy hay, will likely be faced with a cash flow problem in 2010 - assuming they have debt to service and want to stay in the business.

Most cattle producers who have filed a CAIS return know that the program may work for others, but does not work for our industry. The new Growing Forward program replacing it - Agri-Stability - is ineptly named. There are so many compounding problems with this program that, suffice it to say, it provides no income stability whatsoever.

Someone said to me recently that as cattle producers we have to stop going to the government with our hands out. For the record, I’d like to say that prior to BSE disrupting our industry the way it did, we never asked the government for anything.

And then I started thinking about that statement. What exactly is it when an employee goes into the boss’ office to ask for a raise? When the government ups the minimum wage or a company increases its prices; or a union demands better benefits for employees. Are these people offering to put in longer hours or do a better job tomorrow than yesterday in exchange for that cash reward?

No. They request higher pay to feel valued for their efforts, remain viable, and stay in line with the cost of living. Pay increases, benefits, pension plans and paid holiday time are expected in the working world.

Imagine if they were asked to work for the same salary as 20 years ago; if every error they made or loss the company incurred had a dollar value attached to it that was subtracted from their paycheque.

What would happen if after five years of inflation and a pay decrease, if every employee across this country went in to ask for a raise and were told to “tighten their belts at home?”

Pride sends an employee into the office to ask for a raise. Ironically, it’s also pride that keeps the Canadian cattleman from believing he deserves one.

The cattle industry is a vital stimulant to the rural economy and necessary part of this country’s infrastructure. In a sense, ranchers are working for all Canadians. Unfortunately, the service we provide is not fully understood and therefore under-valued by most of society.

A recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press Business section illustrates that point. Even though Canadians spend less than 10% of their annual income on food, when prices go up, the uninformed blame farmers. With fewer and fewer urbanites having rural roots, it is reasonable to expect the information gap will widen in the coming years.

Not all support from government needs to come in the form of direct payments to producers. Funding the Environmental Stewardship, Verified Beef and Canadian Agriculture Skills Service programs are just a few creative examples of how a government that values agriculture can assist farmers. A public awareness advertising campaign, funded by government, that focuses on the vital role of agriculture in this country would also help.

Not long ago cattlemen could weather fluctuating markets and isolated natural disasters. Hopefully that day will return soon. But seeing how the world is evolving, our government needs to prepare itself in the event that, like other countries, we can no longer provide inexpensive food and be offered a reasonable standard of living for doing so. This generation will continue to subsidize Canada’s cheap food policy as long as they are able - but I doubt that the next generation of farmers can, or will.

Cattle producers in general are, or were, against subsidization of any kind. I’m not. I was raised in the city and don’t have the same stoic resolve. Twenty two years ago we lived in Winnipeg and I did clerical/word processing work in a government office for a salary around $20,000 a year. Basically I moved paper from an inbox to an outbox. They paid me as if I’d earned it. And I thought I had. Until we moved here and was humbled by how hard cattle producers work for every dollar they earn.

Governments need an agriculture budget that provides producers with business risk management programs—including income stabilization and disaster relief—that can be relied upon. When unable to earn a living from the marketplace, food producers shouldn’t have to mortgage their retirements while the middlemen between us and the consumer continue to make a profit.

I don’t call disaster relief a handout. It’s an investment in this country’s infrastructure and civilized reparation to people who provide a valuable service to society.

- Karen writes from the family ranch at Vogar, along the shore of Lake Manitoba.

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