Find a way to make family farming more profitable.

Money is an imperfect instrument. Not everything can be accurately reduced to monetary value or profit.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Very true but every effort seems to revolve around making it more so that way. The smaller family farm if not totally dead seems close to it. Certainly the current structure does not cater to it in any way I see. Farmers were never able to properly organise. Still the middle man ground in the food supply chain was taken over by concerns that became very wealthy commercial giants.

There should be a way enable small farms to survive properly in some fashion. Our food in north america is very cheap at this time in relation to average earnings.

There may not be or almost certainly wil not be the amount of indusrial employment there once was in north america. You would think people would be better off on smaller farms than sitting in larger built up areas on some form of public assistance. This growth area to me is overall socially destructive.

There are hundreds of acres of farmland on three sides of our home producing absolutly nothing now. Even if just planted in potatoes for example should be able to keep one family going if the marketing system for them were a level playing field. Currently it is my belief the farmer only gets a very small portion of the retail pricing. Too small to make it practical to produce moderate amounts of product currently.

Then curse the darkness.

I prefer a banking system with a wholly differant 'philosophy' from the conventional western outlook of finance.

For instance : Money is a simple means of exchange and not an assett, and therefore should not grow over time.
Money should be used for a proper economic purpose and not treated as a commodity on which return can be made by referance to time.

The purpose of these measures of course is to prevent exploitation from the use of money and to share profits and loss.

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CHILCUTT~
The secret to a long life. Is knowing when it is time to leave.

Prices at the grocery store are trying.....

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
1984 Toyota Landcruiser - 190000
1994 GMC Jimmy - 203000

https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

The average consumer could care less where their food comes from, as long as it's cheap, and it's plentyful. Which is why we have the problems we have.

One of my daughters and her husband purchased a show house near their cities limits. They called me in for a home inspection after they commited to the purchase. A show house to me is one that both exceeds the occupants requirements and is very overstated. Everything with it being very high end.

If they had approached me earlier I would have suggested buying a farm just outside the limits instead and reworking or replacing the house if required. Would have cost a simular dollar. The area is the growth centre of Canada at present from a city perspective and was becoming so back then.Or to me was showing the right signs of going in that direction.

My logic was simple the farm property broken up and developed into housing at some point in their future would have been a major benifit for them. Where I was wrong was the time frame. All those smaller farms where developed into sub divisions only about five years later. The house they purchased rather than one of the local farms for sale theoretically may have cost them millions.

What I saw was very obvious but at our age not practical I though. I could have picked up one of those farms for very little. Nobody was aware things would move as fast as they did or I would have. Even in the current economy they cannot seem to build enough new homes and they are not cheap homes in that vicinity. A good percentage of the younger proffessional population of the maritimes are gravitating to that place.

The place is well geared towards younger people. It also seemed to shrug off the economic slowdown that occured over most areas of north america.

One of the more graphic examples of the folly of placing monetary profit on a pedestal is the business of ocean bottom trawling. The practice does indeed result in large catches, i.e. large profits. However, it also disrupts and damages the sea floor, where a lot of nursery action of newborn critters takes place. Over the long haul, catch will be reduced, not increased.

Groundwater and topsoil are gradually being used up. Various attempts to extract more production often result in greater soil erosion. That's why nations with money are buying up land wherever they can.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Short term profit is not the same as long term profit. In today's market, short term profit is king. One can make more money in one year mining gold than in farming in the surrounding land immediately affected by the mining's toxic runoff. Over 50 years though, I suspect the balance would tip to farming. But them that worship immediate wealth are not concerned with such things.

A good example of that can be seen in Southern Baja. The mountains down there are the source of the water for everyone in the area yet a few gold mining ambitions in those mountains will not go away. One village has had its groundwater ruined already. The govt. is schizo on the deal. On the one hand they're investing in good roads to attract the tourist dollar, on the other hand they like the promise of gold money.

All hail the God of profit.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Another good eample of a craving for profit that has nothing to do with efficiency hits close to home for me: the housing bubble. Fools across the spectrum thought they were going to cement their financial future in the 'wealthy' category by building houses like there was no tomorrow, often using cheap illegal labor. Now there's a glut on the market and gentlepersons like me are semi-adrift, hunting for a way to pay the bills.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Those homes are all going to need to be caught up on the deferred maintenance, so they are a gold mine for people with your skills.... provided the market turns enough that they get lived in rather than razed...

__________________
On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
1984 Toyota Landcruiser - 190000
1994 GMC Jimmy - 203000

https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

That's true, things usually balance out. At this point I'm doing fairly well with kitchen remodels, maintenance, etc. Houses break, regularly.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

A free market does nothing to guarantee that a fool and his money cannot be parted. In does in fact, punish people for being foolish.