'An absolutely brutal year': Alberta farm incomes plummet 70 per cent in 2018

"Build that Pipe!"
"Build that Pipe!"
"Build that Pipe!"

That's just the life of a farmer for you.

My winery friends in the Delta a few years back had hard times and this year it's going to be a massive harvest.

That's just how it goes.

Sadly true.

It's not the just the weather that is against them. In good years, their crops rot in the silos because all the trains are booked to carry . . .oil.

When I heard the MC at the grad ceremony I was at in Olds read out that half the class's goal was to take over the family farm, I knew it was code talk for "convert it to a grow op and make actual money".

A lot of farms that are growing corn to make into sugar in the US are looking to convert to growing Hemp for the medical CBD market.

The times, they are a changing.

Legalization could inadvertently help fix the obesity problem.

An entrepreneurial spirit that deserves all the success coming to it.

It's not the just the weather that is against them. In good years, their crops rot in the silos because all the trains are booked to carry . . .oil.

More argument to build pipelines, isn't it?

Yes.

It is true that pipelines would mean less competition for rail capacity and more room for crops. However, the biggest harm to transportation of grain was the demise of the wheat board.

On weather and markets, Dad's always said that "If you can't handle three consecutive bad years, you have no business farming."

A "bad" year would be one where the farm turns no profit, or even loses money. I can remember him in the kitchen looking through papers and saying "I paid $20,000.00 to farm last year."

When your livelihood depends on the weather and markets, you need deep pockets, good credit and a side hustle or two.

There's no reason why the wheat farmers can't form a voluntary cooperative.

We have plenty of such cooperatives in the USA that cover all sorts of crops like oranges, almonds, apples, blueberries, and etc. and they manage quite well without forcing people to join their cooperatives.

There was nothing stopping farmers from dissolving the wheat board they had all on their own. All they had to do was vote for it. In any of the many board elections.

Given how much control of agricultural commodities have been taken over by the financial sector there's no reason to believe that a voluntary co-operative would be allowed to have any input at all on pricing.

Pricing is still going to be subject to market demand.

Ten years ago the farmers I go to church with were all in safflower, tomatoes, and soybeans.

Now they're all in grapes.

Because that's where the money is. Give it another ten years and maybe they'll pull out the vineyards and plant safflower again.

That's farming.

Now the former wheat farmers can plant something else if it suits them.