Saskatchewan, big whitetail country!!! | GregWCIL - 12/1/2007 10:17
on the economics up there.
Yields, costs, grain prices, rent figures.
It's always interesting to learn how things compare in other areas.
Thanks,
Greg
I'll do my best. I first must say my previous post was not meant to sound complaintlike, etc.
I am from northeast Saskatchewan, near the end of civiization, where to the north is forest to the arctic tundra. The soil is a deep black loam and clay loam, with some rocks.
The climate: The growing season length is the limiting factor. You have a 3 week seeding window if your lucky, and an even narrower harvest window in most years. It ALWAYS rains enough, but we do not always get enough heat, and/or growing season length. We have had frost in July on one occasion. Frost free average dates are from May 25th to about Sept. 10th. For this reason the cropping options are limited to mostly: Wheat, (winter and spring), barley, oats, canola, flax, rye, canaryseed, peas, hay, etc.
Yield are as follows;
Winter wheat, 60-80
Spring wheat 45-60
Rye 50-60
Canola 35-50
Flax 22-34
Barley 70-90
Oats 90-130
Canaryseed 1000-2000 lbs
Peas 35-70
Hay 1.5-3 tonnes based on 1 cut
The average size farm is around 2 000 acres, some are 300, some are 18 000.
Costs;
NH3 is now at least 45 cents a lb, phosphate is the same, generic roundup is 6 bucks a litre or about 28 a gallon. Other chemicals are probably similar to your prices.
To get the above yields, the fertilizer would run about 70 bucks, chemical around 30, seed 15.
Rent is from, you'll laugh at this, 25-40 bucks an acre, or 20-25% share, generally.
Crop prices.
Canola is about 10 bucks a bushel.
Peas 8
Flax 12
Oats 2.25
Canaryseed 25Cents/lb
Rye 5
Now for the wheat and barley, which farmers are FORCED to sell through the Canadian wheat board, ( a misnomer, since ONLY western farmers must deal through them). The projected prices are forWinter Wheat, 5.50, spring, 6.00, and barley is from 3.50 to 4.50. The catch? You may or may not get this money for the grain grown this year, by December of 2008. Yes you read that right, 2008. You get an initial payment on delivery, on maybe 25% ofyour wheat crop. You can only sell when they call it, in usually 25% increments. The initial is about 70% of expected final price, and you get this peed out to you from now until next December, maybe two bits at a time. It is a major thorn in the side of the 60 per cent of the farmers who want freedom. In fact, our (MINORITY, unfortunately) conservative goverment gave us a plebicte to be free of the CWB, the farmers spoke, yet because the liberals (socialists) and ndp (communists), elected in city seats in the east, mind you, who think the CWB is God, continue to smother farmer control of their own grain, most of them not knowing what wheat would look like. I digress...
So a farm up here will usually gross 150-200 bucks, and on a good year 300. Total costs are at least 150.
There is potential money in it, but short seasons often kill us. Somethinglike 70 percent of farmers up here have another job, and most ofthese jobs pay for their farming habits. LOL The farmland is emptying out of people, young guys are tough to find to farm, and the average age of farmer is creeping up on 60.
I look at this site every day. I am in awe of several things that are different from us.
1. Your land prices
2. rental rates
3.the amount of tillage LOTS down there
4.the talk of ripping, which I have no idea of what it even is...
5. your high wheat prices
6.your immense ethanol production
7.your growing seasons and enormous seeding and harvest windows
8.Your cheaper inputs, especially fuel and Nitrogen
9.this whole double cropping idea,
10, crops like milo, corn, soybeans, and winter wheat pictures that a Canadian moose couldstand on, and nt fall through
11. The friendliness yo usually exhibit towards your fellow farmers, cmmenting and commending eachother on you good fortune, good crops. That is RARE where I come from. I commend you on that.
I must mention one similarity, which has to do with IRON. On both sides of the border are farmers who must have spankng new machinery, versus used, cheap stuff. I like the used and cheap stuff. It is money in my pocket. Many guys up here have a 30 buck an acre combine payment, versus mine of about 2 bucks, IF I break down. To each his own. But I truly beleive it is killing farming up here, that guys think they need all the bells and whistles to farm. One need not look further than the auction sale flyers to see what I mean. Margins are tight enough without 30-50 bucks a acre ofiron payments. No wonder they grab up land like a bunch of ravenous magpies over a deer carcasses. They need it to soften their costs. Then they need more machinery, then they need more land, then they need more machinery, and on it goes.
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Land @ $7000 acre
