Western Standard - Quick Dick McDick on the agricultural industry in Canada

00:00:00.000 we got quick dick mcdick i pulled him away from a fencing task as you can see and i've got him on

00:00:05.120 to chat with us so thanks a lot for joining us today i've really been looking forward to this

00:00:09.120 hey cory yeah good to see you man it's uh yeah there's never a dull moment around here it's uh

00:00:13.440 it's hard to get to everybody but uh yeah thanks for uh thanks for having me on man oh well that's

00:00:18.160 a lot of you know like what you've you've built i mean for those who aren't familiar with you that

00:00:21.680 most of our viewers are uh you're a person working in the ag industry you're out in saskatchewan and

00:00:26.800 you you put together a lot of fantastic videos and commentary that i think really helps bring

00:00:31.920 home the the challenges of working in the agricultural sector you know without bitching

00:00:36.160 about it and adding some humor to the whole thing it's just kind of drives it home to people who

00:00:39.600 aren't familiar with it yeah well you know i think i bitch about it sometimes too but i think we're all

00:00:44.560 guilty of that a little bit you know what i mean but yeah yeah well i appreciate that and i i try

00:00:48.080 to do it again to uh to show people what it's like out here firsthand you know we can we can listen to

00:00:53.120 a lot of seminars and listen to a lot of podcasts and everything but i think a really unique way to

00:00:58.240 connect with audiences nowadays is to visually show people you know what we do and i think it helps for

00:01:04.640 people to be able to draw a parallel uh to some of the work that goes into you know agriculture and

00:01:09.680 maybe some things that happen in oil and gas and hell sometimes we just go and do stuff that has

00:01:14.480 nothing to do with anything we just try and laugh a little bit right well that's it i mean so i mean

00:01:19.280 i'm going to segue this into a little bit of what i want to talk about so you you kind of grew up in

00:01:23.040 an agricultural environment you ended up taking off to the oil field for a while and put some time in

00:01:27.520 there and then you kind of migrated back to the ag sector is that correct yeah that's right yeah

00:01:32.400 that's exactly i did uh so i grew up in uh more on the cattle uh cow calf production side of of

00:01:38.400 agriculture and then uh yeah i did 19 years oil and gas in northern alberta and uh that took me all over

00:01:44.640 to northern bc the northwest territories yukon arctic circle and then uh wound up coming back

00:01:49.520 home here would be close to four years ago here now and i'm back in the egg here now uh working

00:01:55.360 with another uh much larger farmer than i am myself and uh yeah getting back into cattle and learning a

00:02:00.960 lot on the grain side here now too right on so it and and that's what happens you came back but i mean

00:02:07.360 what i wanted to talk about was that changing demographic and i mentioned it earlier you know we've

00:02:10.640 had a report recently that so we're expecting 40 percent of current ag producers to retire within

00:02:16.080 the next 10 years and a lot of the younger generation isn't isn't kind of taking up the the

00:02:22.880 the horns on that like we might end up with quite a crisis for producers very soon

00:02:28.160 yeah there's there's a lot of ways to look at it you know and i always look at a lot of these uh

00:02:32.480 these reports that come out uh you know especially when it's from rbc but especially they were talking

00:02:37.920 about the the amount of you know foreign workers that we'd have to come in to uh to take up the

00:02:42.160 reins or uh or you know uh have people migrate to canada a lot of that has to do with uh you know

00:02:48.720 with the with the horticulture side of agriculture you know that's the greenhouses and your lettuce and

00:02:54.640 and carrots and tomatoes and everything you know a lot of that's very you know labor intensive i think

00:02:59.280 there's a lot of different processes that are happening nowadays to try and take some of the labor

00:03:02.880 intensive processes out of it which happens with agriculture all over the place you know we're more into the

00:03:07.520 oil seeds and cereals part of agriculture here and obviously the the beef industry

00:03:13.360 we face a little bit different of a set of challenges though here i think there's a labor

00:03:16.640 shortage and people retiring doesn't mean that agriculture is going to go anywhere but i think

00:03:22.160 what we share commonly throughout agriculture in canada is is you know large corporations coming in to

00:03:28.400 to invest and and taking away some opportunity for younger people that are interested in getting into

00:03:33.520 agriculture to be able to to do it like you take myself for example uh i was lucky enough that i

00:03:39.120 bought some land years ago and i had some land here and was ready to come back and and and take that

00:03:44.400 land over uh from the people that were renting it from me but still your investment into equipment uh

00:03:50.080 and and technology and fertilizers and everything else especially if you're getting into cattle to buy into

00:03:55.760 your cattle herd and everything is is insane right so i'm just go figure i'm getting a little battery

00:04:00.400 warning uh but uh it's just it it takes a lot of money and when and if you don't have land you're not

00:04:07.760 going to do any of it and when we have whether it be foreign investment companies or local investment

00:04:13.040 companies here in saskatchewan you know we've got angelic and minnets that are uh that are they're big

00:04:18.000 corporate farms that are starting to own a lot of the land and when a lot of the lands prices start going up

00:04:24.000 and up and up and they come in and start paying a little more for rent and then they can artificially

00:04:29.200 kind of uh inflate the price of their land just because they own so much of it so if they buy a

00:04:35.120 quarter section next to them for you know three quarters more than what the average person would

00:04:39.520 pay for it all the land that they own around it artificially goes up in value as well so it

00:04:44.560 there's some big challenges and i think a lot of people don't realize you know the catalyst that's

00:04:49.200 fueling these challenges yeah well the the it's a huge capital investment if somebody were to try

00:04:54.880 and come from outside and get into something like that and kind of as you pointed out too i mean the

00:04:59.120 days of the little subsistence romantic uh so you know subsistence farm for a family to run are sort of

00:05:04.800 long gone now you've got to run a large enterprise and with modern equipment and that that's part of

00:05:10.080 it is a smaller labor pool can really maintain a much larger amount of fields but again you need some

00:05:15.440 very uh advanced training and advanced equipment and chemicals in order to do that yeah absolutely

00:05:21.680 and i'll take it down a little bit different of an alley here too is another challenge i feel that we

00:05:25.760 face is technology is going to continue to advance i've done a few talks on this at some different

00:05:30.960 ag shows and stuff and uh when we see like where springs going and autonomy and self-driving tractors

00:05:36.640 and combines and all this stuff there's there's nobody out here that's that's against that because it

00:05:40.880 it helps you know if you have an operation that only has five employees and you want to take on

00:05:45.120 a little bit more land to try and help pave some of the equipment that you've got no one's against

00:05:48.960 it because it's one less head that you might need running it which is fine uh but the people that you

00:05:54.320 do get i mean quality labor is something that that is lacking people contributed to you know they don't

00:06:00.880 pay enough in agriculture there's not enough money there for it i don't see that uh where we are

00:06:06.800 hired labor is well compensated uh for for what they do out here i i think it's what we see with the

00:06:12.800 with the whole scope of labor in general and candid in our new world here is that you got to get out of

00:06:18.080 bed at six in the morning and you are actually going to have to go and physically work for your money

00:06:23.920 and i believe that we have a generation of people coming up to take over this generation that we have

00:06:29.600 right now that are that are afraid of hard physical labor and that's a problem and that's where you see

00:06:35.840 the people that are in the horticulture industry and and in your fruits and vegetables that is hard

00:06:40.400 physical labor and in my opinion which i mean take it as you will that's why we see a lot of

00:06:45.440 temporary foreign workers coming into canada because these are people that are not afraid of of hard

00:06:50.640 work you know uh and i mean that's just my toony i'm sure a lot of people disagree with me on that

00:06:56.400 but it's what i see from from the boots on the ground perspective right well i think it's a fantastic

00:07:01.280 point i mean i was in the oil field for 20 years as well and i mean back then that was the days of yeah

00:07:06.320 10 12 hour shifts seven days a week month at a time until you get home uh but now we've got

00:07:11.440 a generation that's talking about going on to a four day work week because 40 hours is too much to

00:07:15.680 put in uh yeah finding that's well that's right but but like there's another side to it too cory like i

00:07:22.000 mean our government policy like it incentivizes you to to work harder the more money you make the more

00:07:28.720 taxes you have to pay the more you go into a higher tax bracket and when you look at clawbacks what

00:07:34.080 happens in the canadian economy we're slowly taking away the incentive for people to work

00:07:38.560 harder like there's an actual monetized incentive for you to work harder and if that's taken away

00:07:44.000 well i mean i listen here i'm gonna pick this up and show you where i'm at here right now like i mean

00:07:48.720 i'm out here in basically the middle of nowhere putting in a extremely expensive fence right now

00:07:54.480 uh but i'm here because i love it and but it needs to be done because what i need to get done as well

00:07:59.600 i wouldn't expect somebody that's coming out here to work for me to have to love it i just need to

00:08:04.560 pay them for their time to be here and that being you know contrary to me having that requirement of

00:08:09.600 them i require them to be here to do what i'm paying them to do i mean to me it's a simple

00:08:15.600 transaction but we just live in a society where uh it i i need to be beholden to the person that's here

00:08:22.720 we should just have a contractual agreement that hey we're here to get a job done let's love it let's do it

00:08:26.720 and uh let's go on from there right well yeah i mean it's a business like any other well it's not

00:08:32.000 like any other that's part of the problem though i mean it's it's got some seasonal highs lows it's

00:08:36.160 got uh you know times where you're working like crazy times where it's only moderately working

00:08:40.640 and that makes it difficult for something as well i mean when you have to take them for certain periods

00:08:44.720 i mean that's where you put in a bunch of overtime they get gouged on their check as you say and then

00:08:48.560 well later on when it's a little slower well maybe they could have used that money then uh speaking

00:08:53.520 the taxes though you put out a great video you've talked about that a couple of times i mean the

00:08:57.360 pressures that are coming on for producers uh people are screaming at producers they're screaming

00:09:01.280 at retailers as to why the costs of food are going up but they're forgetting that the government is

00:09:04.560 really contributing to the cost and the carbon tax is a big one yeah it it really is and i think that's

00:09:11.120 what i tried to illustrate my last carbon tax video i've tried to illustrate in all of them but uh

00:09:15.520 it just seems to go to the wayside and you have a lot of people fight the point that

00:09:18.640 even though so we're waiting on bill c-234 to receive royal assent it's got to pass the senate

00:09:23.600 here once more before before it receives royal assent and that would exempt farm operations in

00:09:28.800 canada that don't have their own carbon pricing structure which i mean basically is just quebec

00:09:33.360 because they don't have one in bc because they have their own that doesn't work uh but that would

00:09:38.080 exempt natural gas and propane on on-farm use that we use to heat our barns dry grain uh all that good

00:09:44.800 stuff right well we still pay a carbon tax on our electricity here in saskatchewan which we need to

00:09:49.520 do all the set above things and to run our bin fans and to do everything else that we do on an

00:09:53.600 operation but anything that we bring in third party to the farm or anything that we ship third party from

00:09:59.840 the farm are all like subject to carbon tax so if we're having grain hauled out or fertilizer hauled in

00:10:06.720 we get a charge passed on to us from that fuel because it's commercial operation bringing the

00:10:11.440 fertilizer to the farm then take that back a step to the fertilizer that's in the trailer well the

00:10:16.160 manufacturers that cfl say in medicine hat that have manufactured the fertilizer they're not exempt

00:10:21.600 from a carbon tax they use a lot of natural gas to make nh3 and dip fertilizers and look at nutrient

00:10:26.800 here in saskatchewan who mine potash all these places are charged carbon taxes and that just comes

00:10:32.080 down to their price which gets passed on to us and then when the product is done and grown and shipped

00:10:36.960 away from the farm here it turns commercial again as soon as it's out of our hands and so

00:10:41.280 that we we are price takers on this side we're price takers on this side and then if you take

00:10:46.640 the produced side of what we grow here on farms and send that down to the consumer that's in the

00:10:51.200 grocery store from the time it leaves the farm to the time it gets home in their uh of course non-reusable

00:10:57.200 plastic bags that don't exist anymore to their kitchen each step of the way that that food is

00:11:02.320 taken since it's left the farm is subject to a carbon tax and nobody talks about it no they've got

00:11:07.920 to understand they listen to that my album oh no but i got a rebate and it's a revenue neutral thing

00:11:12.160 well no you're paying for it guys you might not realize it but you're paying for it it's it's just

00:11:16.960 it's just not a line item and that's a problem i'd love to see a line item sorry line item everywhere on

00:11:23.360 on a receipt that we get that shows here's how much carbon tax it was because we get that we get that

00:11:29.040 passed on to us as producers and you'll see that in a lot of other places too where you'll see a fuel

00:11:33.920 surcharge and a carbon tax surcharge line itemized on a bill because transport companies can't afford

00:11:39.760 to absorb this cost carbon tax drives up the price of everything that they're buying to make their

00:11:44.080 business work as well they can't afford to take it and they're competing in a market for lower and lower

00:11:48.320 and lower rates when the cost of carbon tax keeps driving your fuel up and up and up like it's a

00:11:53.840 it's it's a it's a terrible terrible tool if that's what you want to call it yeah well and taxes

00:11:59.280 are kind of dry talk and you know we get economists on or things like that i get franco on the show

00:12:03.680 to talk about that but it kind of makes the people's eyes glaze i'm kind of bringing that back

00:12:07.040 around and what i appreciate out of you though is at least you bring it into some language drive

00:12:10.480 it home to where it's really happening but where it's palatable i i just wanted to bring up i know

00:12:14.480 you probably see it's more of a novelty show but like for example that clarkson's farm with uh

00:12:18.960 jeremy clarkson in england i mean it's it's it's just kind of a play almost exaggerated reality tv

00:12:24.880 but he really does illustrate actually how bureaucracy can really uh hinder producers from

00:12:29.680 getting creative or doing different things and i think that it kind of applies all over the place

00:12:33.840 people forget too that there is a lot of hoops and regulation it's not like you guys can just

00:12:37.680 have free run and do whatever the hell you want out there like you've got a lot of stuff to cover

00:12:42.320 yes it's what i tried to make up one point in the in the fertilizer ban video that i did is like

00:12:47.440 does everybody think we're just out here with with nitrogen trying to like sell it like a drug

00:12:51.120 dealer to our crop yeah i know you don't need it but uh how about you have a little taste instead

00:12:56.320 and just see how things go i mean there's a very specific amount of fertilizer that you can apply

00:13:01.520 to a crop everyone thinks that the more fertilizer you throw at a crop the better it's going to do

00:13:05.360 which is completely the opposite you can actually overgrow a crop and it'll lodge and fall to the

00:13:10.720 ground and you won't be able to pick it up and you'll cost yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:13:15.200 you can deal with seed burn if you put too much down at one time it's and people that are actually

00:13:20.880 professional farmers i mean i rely on a lot of professionals to help me do what i do they're

00:13:26.320 going to be laughing at me right now they're like you haven't even touched half the points but like

00:13:29.440 it's just it's an endless sea of perfect perfection that it takes to grow a crop and then if you do

00:13:34.720 everything right on your end you're still relying on mother nature to hopefully rain or hopefully be a

00:13:38.720 dry fall and we never get that we never get that option no and i mean it's also like putting out

00:13:44.800 that with professional drivers you're playing paying carbon taxes they can't reduce burning you know fuel

00:13:50.000 they have to it's part of their job and they're not they were never burning more than they had to

00:13:53.680 that's just throwing money you guys yeah so so that's the thing corin like in my oil field career

00:14:00.480 i was very involved in transportation and where everyone's like oh well just reduce reduce reduce

00:14:04.720 like fuel is your biggest cost as a transportation company you already do everything you can to reduce

00:14:11.760 your fuel usage right from we had not idle bonuses for our drivers and we would work on wheel hub covers and

00:14:17.360 we would work on aerodynamic trailers to reduce wind drag we would do absolutely everything we

00:14:21.840 could to be as efficient as possible without a carbon tax it's your goal it's the same with farming

00:14:27.200 it's the same with everything these things cost money and if you run a successful business your goal

00:14:32.720 is to have the least amount of input with the most amount of profit from what you've grown or your

00:14:37.360 product that you sell to your customer you don't need a carbon tax to make it happen no it's not an

00:14:42.960 unreasonable goal uh well i mean i that time went quick there i'm really glad you came on i want

00:14:47.600 to close with a few other things i noticed for example geez you know you you do some other things

00:14:51.520 you do some charities you shaved your beard off the other year crap look at that thing go i mean i i

00:14:57.280 got beard envy going on i mean the hair on my back's growing faster with age but i still can't grow

00:15:01.280 a beard to save my life you know if i can grow crops as good as i can grow a beard i probably i

00:15:06.960 wouldn't have to worry so much when i go to visit the banker but uh yeah it seems to grow good uh

00:15:12.000 and yeah definitely uh we've definitely got some hair going on again here now but it's uh no i've

00:15:16.960 had a really good opportunity uh sorry just low battery warning the last one that you get i've had

00:15:22.000 a really good opportunity uh to to be able to work with a few charities and to bring some uh some

00:15:26.800 attention to some different organizations i'm i'm very honored and humbled to be able to have the

00:15:30.720 opportunity to do that and the point of this whole thing is for everybody to just have a good time and

00:15:34.640 keep laughing so uh hopefully we can keep that going and uh and and see where things go we've

00:15:40.800 got to keep laughing or we'll truly lose it all that's for sure and sometimes things are so bad

00:15:45.440 there's nothing left to do but laugh at them man oh so just before i let you go then are there any uh

00:15:50.800 events you got coming up and where channels can people find you for uh to see oh man yeah so uh

00:15:55.840 i'm quick dick mcdick on youtube uh be careful when you google that it can take you to some websites i'm

00:16:00.160 not affiliated with uh whatsoever uh quick tick mcdick on twitter on facebook on tick tock qd mcdick

00:16:07.040 on on instagram just because apparently they won't let me have that name on instagram for some reason

00:16:11.840 and quick dick mcdick.ca uh man i'm going to be all over the place i'm booked up right until 2024

00:16:17.360 trying to get a a show list on my website there where i'll be doing stand-up comedy and if people

00:16:22.320 want to come and check it out we're usually raising some money for some good organizations while we do it so

00:16:26.640 awesome we'll have to get out and catch one of those shows in person well thanks for time to

00:16:31.520 talk to us today i'll let you get back to your fencing try not to nail your thumb if you can

00:16:35.520 avoid it and i hope we get the target chance to talk again soon i'll do it again thanks for the

00:16:41.600 chat or take care of yourself man here's an update on commodity prices in lethbridge for today

00:16:45.920 cash barley is steady at 420 feed wheat is down two dollars at 415 and corn is also down two dollars at

00:16:52.240 411 dollars per ton in the mill and wheat markets may minneapolis futures are lower seven and a half

00:16:57.760 cents at 848 and a quarter with local hardware at spring bid for april movement at 1020 per bushel

00:17:05.360 looking at canola nearby futures slip 90 cents at 758.70 per ton with delivered values for april may

00:17:11.920 movement at 1698 per bushel in the pulse markets nearby red lentil prices are lower a half a cent at 34

00:17:18.800 and a half cents per pound and yellow peas remain at 12 dollars per bushel and in the cattle markets

00:17:24.880 june live cattle are lower 33 cents at 16403 per hundred weight for more information on pricing or

00:17:31.680 picked up options give me a call at 403 394 1711 i'm matt musicum at marketplace commodities accurate

00:17:40.400 real-time marketing information and pricing options

00:17:42.640 you can become a western standard member for just ten dollars a month or 99 a year for unlimited access

Western Standard - April 21, 2023

Quick Dick McDick on the agricultural industry in Canada

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