The Western Producer takes a weekly look at some of the stories that made headlines in issues of the paper from 75, 50, 25 and 10 years ago.
75 years ago: May 15, 1941
William Allen, the former head of the University of Saskatchewan’s farm management department, was among 122 missing following the sinking of a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. He had been returning to his post as Canada’s agricultural commissioner to Great Britain. Allen was widely known in Saskatchewan agricultural circles. He had directed the province’s soil survey in 1935 and was in charge of the first major debt survey in rural Saskatchewan in 1936.
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Determining tariff compensation will be difficult but necessary
Prime minister Mark Carney says his government will support canola farmers, yet estimating the loss and paying compensation in an equitable fashion will be no easy task, but it can be done.
The dominion bureau of statistics was expecting Canadian farmers to reduce their wheat area by 25 percent, or seven million acres, if they stuck with the seeding intentions that they had expressed April 30. Encouraging a reduction in wheat production was a major part of Ottawa’s new wheat policy.
50 years ago: May 12, 1966
George Hutton, who had been Manitoba’s agriculture minister since 1959, announced he was retiring from politics to fulfill a lifetime ambition to become a Lutheran minister. However, he said he first wanted to work for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization for two years and had applied for a post in Asia.
The Farm Credit Corporation reported a record year in long-term mortgage lending. FCC chair George Owen said the demand for credit had risen sharply with 11,238 loans approved in the most recent fiscal year worth almost $209 million.
25 years ago: May 16, 1991
A House of Commons study found that almost 48,000 farmers were in danger of losing control of their farms because of unmanageable debt.
The Canadian border officially opened to U.S. wheat imports under the new free trade deal, and it appeared as if the border would also open to American barley. Growers didn’t seem too concerned.
10 years ago: May 11, 2006
The new Conservative government’s first federal budget offered $1.5 billion in new agricultural funding, but it wasn’t good enough for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which said it was much less than the $6.1 billion that was needed and wouldn’t be delivered soon enough.
Manitoba cattle producers accused the provincial NDP government of running a dictatorship because of a proposed mandatory, non-refundable beef checkoff to increase cattle slaughter capacity in the province. Glen Campbell, a producer from Onanole, Man., said the proposal was a “blatant attempt” to destroy the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association and replace it with a government controlled cattle marketing commission. The checkoff was introduced in 2006 but eliminated seven years later. The cattle producers association is still around.
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