Menu
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New media
New media comments
New profile posts
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles and first posts only
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Forums
Cattle Boards
NCBA, R-CALF, COOL, USDA (No Politics!)
It's Like This
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Help Support CattleToday:
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Cattle Rack Rancher" data-source="post: 55520" data-attributes="member: 245"><p>Very interesting. I really don't know what the solutions are for the farming sector. From a business perspective, farming is a very strange looking thing. You have millions of producers worldwide, all with different standards of living and different currencies. This means that there are always lower cost producers that can supply the North American market. Some of them are government subsidized, which throws off the fair price for most agricultural commodities. The whole industry is keenly affected by the weather. Often even if the weather is perfect where you are, everybody else has an abundance of the same crops as you. There is no management as far as what crops or the amount that will be produced in any given year. This causes massive price fluctuations on all agricultural commodities. Producers as a whole are an odd breed. The average age of a farmer right now is close to the age when most workers are retiring from there jobs. Many producers are hobby farmers who are farming for the lifestyle more than to make a profit. The biggest problem we have of course is that we are <u>price takers </u> instead of price setters. Any other business sets the price for their product and if you don't want to pay the price, you don't get the product and often there are only a few other sources that you can get that product from. In agriculture, there are so many small independant producers that don't even know if they are profitable or not because they are in it for the tax write-offs or as a hobby. In Canada we have two large packers that control the market and the price they are paying for fed cattle in no way reflects the price that they are charging the consumer. The problem is how do you get a fair price for cattle without setting some sort of price floor or supply management system. That reeks of socialism and so I am against it, but how else can you solve the problem?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cattle Rack Rancher, post: 55520, member: 245"] Very interesting. I really don't know what the solutions are for the farming sector. From a business perspective, farming is a very strange looking thing. You have millions of producers worldwide, all with different standards of living and different currencies. This means that there are always lower cost producers that can supply the North American market. Some of them are government subsidized, which throws off the fair price for most agricultural commodities. The whole industry is keenly affected by the weather. Often even if the weather is perfect where you are, everybody else has an abundance of the same crops as you. There is no management as far as what crops or the amount that will be produced in any given year. This causes massive price fluctuations on all agricultural commodities. Producers as a whole are an odd breed. The average age of a farmer right now is close to the age when most workers are retiring from there jobs. Many producers are hobby farmers who are farming for the lifestyle more than to make a profit. The biggest problem we have of course is that we are [u]price takers [/u] instead of price setters. Any other business sets the price for their product and if you don't want to pay the price, you don't get the product and often there are only a few other sources that you can get that product from. In agriculture, there are so many small independant producers that don't even know if they are profitable or not because they are in it for the tax write-offs or as a hobby. In Canada we have two large packers that control the market and the price they are paying for fed cattle in no way reflects the price that they are charging the consumer. The problem is how do you get a fair price for cattle without setting some sort of price floor or supply management system. That reeks of socialism and so I am against it, but how else can you solve the problem? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Cattle Boards
NCBA, R-CALF, COOL, USDA (No Politics!)
It's Like This
Top