The government sure is throwing a lot of tax dollars around, considering we are being told we are dead broke.
Another one of those things that just make you go...hmmmmm.

now the ranchers can grow more pot

its the new age,we dont need ranchers no more! why throw are tax money on hay!

More Handouts ,are there any Handouts for Pensioners like an increase in CPP and OAP, let me know , I may apply, may as well everyone else is getting free Money, I wonder how long we can go on like this?

If they spent the same amount of money to LOWER the price of beef in the store to BC Consumers, both ranchers and Consumers would benefit a whole lot more than the way they're going to spend it.

Why is it we can always come up with virtually ENDLESS amounts of dough to try to bulldoze our way into "global" markets ~ to sell our stuff in other countries who really haven't got any need, or even desire, to have it ~ especially when it unemploys people in those countries who were previously providing products there that ours are going to displace ~ yet we can NEVER provide ANY money whatsoever to enable our own Consumers to more fully access our own 'production', as our 'earned' incomes become decreasingly able to do so?

Hello Socredible. I am another follower of Douglas who lives in Alberta. I would like to get in contact with you.

I have my own blog on the subject:

http://social-credit.blogspot.com/

I have seen a few posts by you on this paper through google searches on the subject. You seem to have a firm understanding of the subject.

Well said socredible...if canadians could afford to buy beef in the stores in Canada,the ranchers would be a lot better off!
I am thinking that a middle income family of four doesn't buy much of it,other than hamburger and stew meat!
It's like the guide to healthy eating that the government came out with a few years back...there wasn't much in there that low to middle income families could even afford!
Obviously the government really doesn't get it?

Sure sounds like a lot of you apartment dwellers out there do not understand where your food comes from. You must prefer supporting countries halfway around the world instead of Canadian producers.
You complain about the cost of beef, and then you complain that our ranchers are being subsidized. Nutty.
metalman.

Sure sounds like a lot of you apartment dwellers out there do not understand where your food comes from. You must prefer supporting countries halfway around the world instead of Canadian producers.
You complain about the cost of beef, and then you complain that our ranchers are being subsidized. Nutty.
metalman.

Well, metalman, it's a question of WHO really needs to be subsidised?

The rancher as a "Producer", when he can already raise MORE beef cattle than he can sell?

Or all of us, as "Consumers", who'd buy MORE of this beef if we could only afford it?

Which we can't, at least not at a price sufficient for him to fully recover his costs. If we could, there wouldn't be so many ranchers without adequate incomes to keep ranching.

For the rancher, producing MORE beef than he's already doing still won't solve that problem, for even if it lowers the costs per cow to do that, it's the TOTAL costs of raising ALL the cows that still have to be liquidated, and he's now got more cows than the market can take.

He can "dump" them abroad to try to "keep the price" up at home, but just what good does that really do US? Or the country that receives our beef, and sees its own agriculture, and people employed in it, go down the drain him from doing so? When you unemploy all those foreigners receiving our goods, just how are they supposed to buy those goods? Whatever the price, they have no income.

Nice sounding theories, but with all due respect, it sounds like you do not have an understanding of how it works at the ranch level.
I am not going to bore you with how tough it is, how much equipment costs etc, what you need to know is that the rancher gets, at best, about a dollar and ten cents per pound at auction for a prime young steer, which will weigh maybe 400 to 499 lbs.
All other classifications of beef cattle sell for less, for example you will be fortunate to receive fifty cents per pound for a cow or bull that is a few years old.
From that he will have to pay for trucking to get the animal to the auction, and pay the auctioneer to feed and care for the animals if they are there a few days before the sale.
If all goes well, the rancher can make some money on the sale of the animals.
The trouble here is that the rancher is not getting much more per pound today than he got twenty or even thirty years ago. Meanwhile, like everything else, costs have risen dramatically. In the U.S. farmers and ranchers are heavily subsidized, so it is possible to make a decent living at it. I think in Canada that if any industry should be subsidized, it should be agriculture.
metalman.

Metalman

I am a Canadian working in the US and have been in agriculture my entire life. The comment about US agriculture being subsidized is completely false. I do not think the beef industry should be subsidized and I do make my living in the beef business. The problem in BC is that land is just to expensive because of its recrational value and low productivity of crown land. I hope BC finds a way to keep its ranchers but the government throwing money at it isn't going to solve the problems. If raising cattle was truly the objective you would sell your land and move to Sk or MB and own your land and reduce expenses, but it just ain't as pretty as BC

No, I'm not a rancher myself, metalman, but I do have close relatives who are, and have been all their lives. So I'm not totally unfamiliar with the problems at the ranch level. And I'm constantly reminded by them, and again by what you've written above, that there IS always something worse than lumbering! So far as income (or, more correctly, lack of) goes, anyways.

As I see it, there'd be far more beef sold in Canada if Consumers could afford to buy it. Right now they can't.

To them, regardless of how little the rancher gets out of it, it's still beyond their means when it hits the store's meat section. As long as those means are met from their earned incomes alone, that is.

We all realise the rancher isn't getting much out of it now, and he sure can't afford to sell for any less than what he's getting. Otherwise he's just subsidising an enjoyable lifestyle, (at least sometimes, in some ways, to him), at his own expense. Out of what he's been able to borrow, while he can, or from some other source of non-ranching income.

I'm sure there are more than enough ranchers doing just that right now.

And a lot of other people, in a lot of other businesses, (small, or medium sized businesses), who are steadily finding pretty much the same thing is happening to them. The "costs" are always rising, and the margins are continually being squeezed tighter and tighter as it becomes increasingly difficult to pass them on.

The "money" to pay them just isn't there, the public, collectively, doesn't have it. And individually, more and more members of that public don't either.

While that affects all producers, in all industries, the efforts to alleviate this problem so far have all been directed to trying to ease the situation at the "Producer" end, one industry at a time. Starting with basic ones like agriculture, which have been the hardest hit by this phenomenon. The concern is commendable, but unfortunately we're really not making much progress that way.

Too many good farmers and ranchers are still being wiped out, and as their industry, too, is 'rationalised' into ever larger units we're losing not only a way of life, but often the necessary care for the land they've long provided. And a pride in delivering the best product, in the process.

Maybe it's time to try something new. Look at the problem from the "Consumer" end, and make it possible to do what currently can't be done. Sell that beef, and other products, to Canadian Consumers at a price they CAN afford, only without the Producers taking any loss on it.

After all, who could contend that it's CONSUMER Demand that's the origin of all economic activity? And I believe there's a far greater Consumer demand for beef, and a whole host of other products grown or made in this country than what's currently being met.

And that comes about SOLELY because of a lack of EFFECTIVE Demand in the hands of those Consumers.

Rectifying that is not really all that difficult to do. Far easier, I think, than some of the ways we've tried, and failed, to meaningfully subsidise Producers to export. Only to see our efforts negated by "anti-dumping" retaliations abroad, while our own Consumers still can't afford what can't be profitably sold.

Thank you for the clarification acanart,
I should have checked my facts.
I do not personally know of subsidies for the U.S. ranchers, but assumed that since other agricultural segments ARE subsidized stateside, that beef was one of them.
Socredible, thank you for your considered reply. My accusatory tone stems from a close connection to the cattle business. I'm sure that there are worse industries in which to eke out a living, but farming and ranching must certainly rank well up there in terms of uncertainty. You're right, the problem lies in the cost to the consumer. Once the 'meat' leaves the auction mart, it has to pass through a few more hands, adding more layers of cost to the end user. From what I understand, the largest mark ups go to the packing house, and the supermarket.
metalman.