One thing we as producers have learned, as the nineties wind down, is the importance of managing risk. In our forefather's times, risk was pretty much centered on production. Hail, rust, grasshoppers, drought, floods could all cause disastrous affects for farmers. But if you could grow a crop all you had to do was get it to the local elevator and things would generally work out. You may not have liked the prices but usually if you could produce an average crop the economics would allow even the poor business managers to make a decent living. The odd wreck would be more than covered by the above average years. Crop prices would most times cover the expenses and leave enough left over for next year's plans. I remember hearing "stubby pencil" economic formulas like; 4000 bushels of wheat would buy the newest large tractor or combine, ...keep a bin of flax around to sell when prices spike through the roof. Managing risk in those days doesn't seem so bad when you look back. A little crop insurance, hail insurance, keep that bin of flax around and leave the rest of the business to the professionals and you could get by. The Wheat Board gave us the price, the Ag Rep would tell us the variety to grow, how much Avadex and 2, 4-D to apply and the elevator agent would phone to let us know how much grain we could haul and when we could deliver. When we had a good crop we could replace some of the old machinery, buy a few bins and take the kids and mama to the big city for a holiday.
The risk to our resources was low. We got our crop nutrients when we summerfallowed, never worried too much about what got into the water and burned gas in the biggest V8's we could buy never giving a second thought to what happened in the atmosphere. Sun block was what the big fat kid did to your kid in the playground and the only greenhouse gasses we worried about were the ones uncle George produced after the barbecue. Somewhere along the way, however, things changed just a little bit.
In the mid eighties, as an Ag Rep, I started noticing the soil test results on fallow coming back with little or no available nitrogen. As a result many of us quit fallowing because we didn't see the point of leaving our fields sit for a year if we had to put fertilizer on anyway. At the time we were learning how to farm stubble land and found out we didn't need to fallow to store soil moisture. With less fallow we started extending our rotations and got into special crops which required more management and pricing plans. We soon found out about the risks of weeds and diseases that didn't seem to be a problem under the old ways. And the risks of drought, insects, hail and other calamities unknown to our predecessors ,due to changes in weather patterns, grew as fast as our loan accounts. If the only sure things used to be death and taxes, you can now add increased input and machinery prices as soon as crop prices improve. Four thousand bushels of wheat sure won't buy you a new large combine or tractor these days. And to top it all off, it seems now that our land, water, soil and wildlife resources are coming under increasing pressure and scrutiny. Regulations for waste management and input use are in place in much of the country. Oh yeah, another sure thing nowadays is, whenever there is a danger to our resources we can expect some regulation to follow.
Modern farming systems and those in the 21st century will need to address these risks more than ever before. Partly this is true due to the increased awareness of all concerned of the risks associated with resource based food production. It is also true because of today's economics and the increasing strains we are putting on our resources. We need strategies that involves careful planning with all the ramifications of our actions considered.
The good news is that we, as producers, have the ability to do this planning. We have adopted new management practices and have better information resources available to us from which to make decisions. As we have become better managers and planners we have been able to address serious problems like soil erosion and degradation. We have improved our crop water use efficiency and cost effectiveness through low disturbance seeding systems. We have diversified our production that allows us to broaden our marketing opportunities. We have become more attuned to the global factors affecting our industry and are more active in affecting political change. And we are just starting to become very active in promoting our prairie soils as an effective carbon sink for greenhouse gasses that will help Canada meet our climate change responsibilities.
Many farmers will suggest there have always been risks associated with farming and that today's farmers have it better than in the old days. It does seem, however, the risks we face today as farmers do not allow for much error and have more far reaching implications. As a farmer organization the SSCA recognizes these risks and will incorporate strategies in our programs to address the risks associated with farming. Programs like ours will help farmers recognize the risks of their occupation and help them plan and operate around these risks to keep their farms and their surrounding environment viable through the remainder of the nineties and into the 2000's.