Of course they did.

hahahhaahahaha

yup..
you know if we get a sentient ai that actually "cares" about us and this place...
it is for sure gonna take away the toys...

hm...
well dave...
the countdown for sure is on...
here in Canada with the drop in our currency...
we went from $3.60 / lb for asparagus before x-mas to $6.60 after the new year...
And I'm guessing it is higher than that now in the grocery....
This is the problem created when we import food instead of grow it...
which surprisingly we as a nation have quietly been not doing for quite some time now...
Foreign produce is cheap when your currency is higher than the imported good's country...
But god help you if your currency tanks compared to your neighbours..
and Canada is certainly sinking fast...

oh. shame on me indeed. random week indeed...

hahhahaha....
oh THAT was good....
random as it gets...

Really? I though Canada was a major wheat producer. Even more impressive when recalculated per capita.

Wheat?
sure..
canola and many other grains too...out of a handful of megafarms making up the arable land of Saskatchewan ...

The reality is very grim for us and extends back to a beginning in the 60-70's
when farming families were protesting throughout my country...
Serious protests back then...

Former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan is hit on the head with a milk jug during a demonstration by dairy farmers in 1976.





We had traffic jams and stoppages everywhere by farmers blockading roads with their farm equipment...
We had a few blips since the 70's where the protesting would start up again..but most of the farmers were done and gone by then...
Reality is..
The crisis was a long time ago now....
What is happening now...
This is just the fallout...

So many were losing their farms...it was an epidemic.
It didn't stop either... one either went teats-up or sold out and ended up working their previously owned farmland for a megacorp.
My family farm was just one of the casualties...we went bust...
It was hard back then...
Before we went bust...I remem. going to our neighbours farm "sales"....where they were selling everything they owned ..before the banks would come and take it all...we used to give our friends and neighbours whatever we could....
Only another farmer would know how bad it was...
No one else really cared or cares...
as long as people get their apples at a cheaper price at the grocer ...who cares where it comes from?
So our farm communities are way past crisis....they really are non existant...all that exists here at best now are "hobby farms" or run huge operations by corps.
That's it boys.
Whatever fantasy you believe exists is just that.

Hell ...if you grow produce...fruit ...vegetables....as a country..as a people at any kind of scope...to feed your selves....then you need to have ...at base...what?....canning plants and facilities ...at the least....to can and preserve your produce....
here was the last one in my country...
http://www.canada.com/cityguides/daw...2-1bf349c022ab
sorry ...took a bit to find an article...it has been a while since it's closure...
It's been YEARS since we had the ability to preserve our own produce..

We have NO facilities to preserve our own produce.
be it fruit or vegetable...
NONE.
AT.
ALL.

God help the States if their dollar plummets...which inevitably it will do since...there is only 1...
ONLY 1 canning plant now in North America...period.
In california...
So what is happening here is just the acid test for what is to come for the US....

So what happens when you have a country whose food needs are based upon...almost wholly ...imported goods?
Most people here in my country since the 80's ...for sure...haven't grown up near , on or at a farm...
we have a useless country full of useless city people, learning useless jobs, teaching the new generations useless things...and ultimately pay the price...

Only a fool, who doesn't know math at all, would become a farmer to "make a career out of it" ...make a living...you can't...not in my country...
it is a loss on top of a loss...there is no gain. Not in my country...
The few farmers I still know ...they farm to feed their family...nothing more.
I take it up again....I've learned from my youth...my childhood...it is about doing just that...feeding your family...nothing more. Escalating a farm operation past that is madness.

But do you produce other stuff? It will be easier to sell...export. Also more people will travel to your country and dump some money since its concider cheaper.

What is asparagus?

Dave, how difficult could it be to look it up?

Endso, I am sorry to hear you family's sad story. The grim reality of the last and this century is that sad stories like that are repeated over and over throughout the world. It's not just farms, the small businesses everywhere find it increasingly difficult to compete against mega corporations. Farms, corner shops, furniture manufacturers... even mobile phone OS producers, everyone either gets swallowed by a megacorp or goes to the dogs. The only way to escape the trend is to find a niche where the megacorp is not interested (yet). Here in the UK it means (some) services - and thus you end up with hundreds of freelance handymen, electricians and plumbers on every street, clogging up all available parking space with their white vans. Until some megacorp figures out how to tap on that source of income as well and kicks them all out.

I could but decide not to since you cant Trust the WWW this time thank you, pichlo.

They are excellent to eat.

How many days take IT to make One grow and ready to eat?

Asparagus? Years, not days. Asparagus is perennial and takes one or more years before you get your first good crop.