It's all broken, $2 for 100 grams of split peas? when did anyone get paid for splits? $3 for a loaf of bread, I've heard they can make up to 100 loaves from a bushel of wheat. I've made beer for 30 years, 5-10 lbs of barley will make 5 gallons, (60 bottles), it depends on what you want for a product.
The media makes us all out to be rich MOFO'ers living of the rest of the people. They will come for what is rightfully theirs in our life time
Here are some numbers that will make us all pissed off!! They get 350 bottles of beer from a bushel of malt barley, average yield here is about 85, which is 29,750 bottles per acre, and is 4,760,000 bottles from a 1/4 section!!! The alcohol tax on that is north of 2.5 million, that goes to our government, while we might make 30k after expenses from that 1/4 of barley!! There is less than 2 cents of barley in a beer, the fricken cap on the bottle is worth more than the barley it took to make that beer!!
As for wheat, the can make approximately 60 loaves from a bushel, so that works out to about 12 cents of wheat in a loaf! So all the middle men between the farm and grocery store all all make more off a loaf of bread. than us farmers who take all the risk, for little reward!!
Now here's one for our climate change gurus who love to fly away on holidays 4 times a year, but bash oil and gas!! A 747 holds about 240,000 litres of fuel which will last for about 15 hours. I farm 2000 acres and that amount of fuel would last me 8 years!! If i grew wheat on those 16,000 acres, I would have close to a million bushels of wheat...take that million bushels of wheat and make bread from it and it would make 60 million loaves of bread...all from the fuel from ONE 15 hour flight of a 747, I could feed 1000's of people!!! But those climate change gurus have no f***ing idea how they get their food, or what it involves to produce it!!
The average age of farmers continues to climb, farms are getting larger and larger, margins have been very slim for the last few years...it's no wonder the next generation of farmers would rather get a 100k a year job, with less stress and not have a huge debt load with no guarantee of even breaking even some years! I tried to make a $100 bet with a stats Canada guy a couple of years ago...I said, I will bet you that there is not a kid coming out of high school in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, or Ottawa that would want to be a farmer. Needless to say...he would not take the bet!! If you are not born into it, chances are you will never be a farmer!! Just my 2 cents on what you brought up NVW.
As for the cattle side it seems to be even more risk with less reward than the grain side! It is tough to make a buck when we have to actually feed for 8 months that the cattle can't be out grazing! Feeding $100 bales of hay, bedding with $25 straw and and and and...leaves little in the end! I got out of the cow/calf side of things 10 years ago and have no regrets!