Nothing new
To the Editor:
In reference to your editorial in the June 1 issue, about “credible soldiers”, your writers should know that the Food Biotechnology Communications is not a new organization, nor is it an “arm’s length” organization.
The FBCN had its founding meeting in November 1993, and it has been pumping out, to use your military language, pro-biotech propaganda ever since.
It has relied on industry and Canadian government funding to do this (just look at its membership list,) with the active participation of the Consumers Association of Canada which, for some inexplicable reason, has been a faithful and convenient advocate for the biotech industry for a decade.
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Unfortunately, it is difficult for unaligned people – common citizens – to counter the increasingly well-orchestrated and well-financed ($50 million behind “why biotech”) campaigns of the biotech industry to misinform the public.
After all, we do not have a financial stake in the industry, only human health, environmental and ethical concerns with the blind activities of the promoters and technicians of the biotech industry.
Fortunately there are finally emerging some substantial scientific studies that reveal just how little we know about life in general and genetic engineering in particular.
Whether the industrial and academic promoters of biotechnology will encourage the wide dissemination of such studies, through organizations such as the FBCN, remains to be seen.
– Brewster Kneen,
Sorrento, B.C.
Blaming women
To the Editor:
Re: Verna Thompson column, I am probably too late to comment on the column written by Verna Thompson, “Reduce, reuse, recycle … and reminisce”, but in the course of the tongue-in-cheek article there is the statement, “blame it on women going out to work…”
Puleeez…the sentence prior to this statement really could do with a more in-depth enquiry.
“We have become a disposable society.” Indeed we have.
Have you ever looked into the advertising industry and the impact of all the different media advertising, which is repeated, hour by hour, day by day? For the benefit of whom?
Or looked at the effort and money spent by multinational companies to influence the marketplace?
A very interesting item on CBC television showed how large companies hire child psychologists to assist in tailoring advertisements to children.
Or wondered why people are now labeled as consumers, not customers, not users not stewards…. Someone or something that is consuming is not making any return for the item devoured/consumed.
Of course I resent the statement “blame it on women going out to work.” It appears to be a joke that misfired.
Why blame anyone?
I am part of the problem (I was even a single mother) and I am still part of the problem unless I stop listening to so-called modern lifestyle proponents and make my life simpler.
Try looking at www.simpleliving.net. There may be material for another article.
Keep writing, even if you tick me off.
– Eunice Ryder,
Prince George, B.C.
Working women
To the Editor:
I must object strenuously to the ill-thought-out and poorly executed denigration of all Canadian women produced by your feature writer Verna Thompson in her May 18 article, “Reduce, reuse, recycle …”
How dare she claim that working women are responsible for the proliferation of disposable garbage we recycle in Canada today. Especially how dare she insult her regular readers, the many western Canadian farm women who have recently been forced to take off-farm jobs to help support the family farm.
Most of us working women have worked to put food, clothing and housing around our families. Thank God we could once in a while order in a pizza or heat a frozen dinner. Otherwise the fare would be pasta and poor nutrition because we were too poor to feed the family.
Large food-producing industries supply these fast foods to meet a necessary demand and to make a profit.
Why not pick on them for creating garbage, and leave working women alone. …
– Mary Ann Kingsbury,
Nepean, Ont.
Excellent coverage
To the Editor:
You ought to be commended for your excellent coverage (June 1) of the inadequate farmers’ share of the nation’s grocery bill, including Minister (Lyle) Vanclief’s observation that the world price, and only that price, is to blame for the continuing income inequity.
The world price is still seriously being distorted by the U.S.A. and European subsidies (of whatever variety), but the Canadian government still keeps playing the same boy scout role in WTO (World Trade Organization) affairs, reducing Canadian farmers to the role of serfs.
It’s quite obvious that unionized transportation companies, suppliers of processors, corporate processors, other food handlers, as well as retailers and restaurateurs are all able to make a very good living and that the primary grain, beef, dairy, etc. producer, on whom they all depend and without whom they would not be able to exist, is being driven out of business. What idiocy!
It’s about time primary producers get organized and withhold their products for a while.
It would then be interesting to watch how the price of imported products would skyrocket.
– Albert Van Esch,
Burnaby, B.C.
FOF still alive
To the Editor:
When The Western Producer used to publish the Young Co-operator’s pages, there was also a letter exchange club called the Fraternity of Friends.
This club was open to any YC members who were Honor Co-ops (had 20 publications in the YC pages).
I would like to let your readers know that the Fraternity of Friends is still in existence and we would be happy to hear from former YC members.
Anyone who is interested may write to Box 221, Treherne, Man., R0G 2V0.
Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for your reply.
– Nadine Dobbin,
Treherne, Man.
Thank goodness
To the Editor:
I can understand why grain companies and the railways want the (Canadian) Wheat Board, one of the only organizations left to act in the interest of producers, removed from any involvement in transportation even though they are the ones that pay the bill.
They will then have a free hand in setting rates to pay once again for the overbuilt elevator system being built. By comments of Mr. Wellbrock of Saskat-chewan Wheat Pool and the CEO of Agricore, supposed producer-owned companies, they too have fallen in line.
Taxpayers have been putting money into the railways for years. A new basic rail network in Western Canada that they are abandoning, hopper cars, terminals. A new rate structure they were supposed to share with producers as a result of rail-line abandonment the government assumed a large debt of CN Rail that allowed them to go public.
They have had record profits, which has allowed them to buy U.S. railways and they’re still not happy and are resorting to blackmail by threatening to reduce service if they don’t get their way.
Open access and Omnitrax can’t come too soon.
They’re still smarting over the Saskatoon judgment that ruled in favor of producers that was initiated by the Wheat Board on behalf of farmers the winter their grain was left for other commodities.
The railways have been calling the plays at Transport Canada for years. Thank goodness our western government MPs and the government finally said enough to Collenette and his crew and farmers got some recognition in the new legislation, I hope.
– Avery Sahl,
Mossbank, Sask.
Label GMOs
To the Editor:
Chair Lee Anne Murphy of the 60-member Canadian General Standards Board committee considering GMO labeling says defining labeling standards could take up to 10 years and the industry is prudent to wait for them before labeling.
We now have the disturbing prospect of consumers continuing for 10 years to participate, without their knowledge or consent, in long-term testing of genetically modified food.
Post-market monitoring is not possible with unlabeled GM food. Therefore unanticipated deleterious effects cannot be traced back to the manufacturer.
I am not willing to engage in this human experiment, but without labeling I have no choice. I suggest a simple, clear, truthful, understandable label for genetically modified food, with costs borne by producers of the product.
It’s sort of off-the-wall, but just might work. Label genetically modified food “genetically modified.”
– Evelyn Fox,
Vancouver, B.C.
Third World status
To the Editor:
When it comes to serving Saskatchewan, the NDP, unlike the CCF, leaves much to be desired. Every rational person who reviewed the Saskatchewan Party by now realizes this is exactly the political force to avoid.
The Saskatchewan Party displays superb salesmanship whose objective is to grab power through criticism without presenting logical alternatives which don’t threaten our social and economic fabric.
Public debt is a villain which benefits stockholding international financiers by sucking the taxpayers dry. The Saskatchewan Party, like most political parties, ignores this form of robbery.
If that were not so, they would take action to institute an interest-free money creation system based on production of goods and services. …
Agriculture is in dire circumstances, yet the Saskatchewan Party, like the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, are blind as to what caused this dilemma….
Some Saskatchewan roads and highways are in terrible condition. The Saskatchewan Party seems to ignore the fact that food factories, large farm holdings, rail-line abandonment and inland terminals caused this dilemma.
Had the Saskatchewan Party and their kind been interested in nation building, they would work against such procedures. By neglecting to do their vital duty, such political forces in a subtle manner are encouraging the social and economic destruction of our province and nation that the elite may benefit….
Canada is drifting toward a Third World status simply because international private corporatism are allowed to destroy democracy.
– Stuart Makaroff,
Saskatoon, Sask.
CWB and organics
To the Editor:
(In) the June 15 Western Producer article headed “CWB wants advice on organic marketing”, reporter Sean Pratt states that organic producers want to “operate outside the rules and regulations of the CWB.”
I would like to clarify that we simply want to be outside of the CWB monopoly, and that is possible within the rules and regulations of the CWB Act.
The important point to understand is that there is not one bushel of wheat or barley grown anywhere in Canada that is exempt from the export restrictive sections of the CWB Act. The monopoly is simply established by the refusal to grant the required licenses.
Interestingly, certain selected producers or grains are granted licences. For example, licences are granted to all grain grown outside of the designated area, to pedigreed seed grain and to the niche market wheats such as spelt or kamut.
It is particularly noteworthy that even when the small grain growing, Creston-Wynndel region in southern B.C. was still included in the designated area, those farmers were allowed to export without a buy-back.
Organic producers are asking for nothing more than what many producers already receive. Organic marketing is incompatible with the CWB system. We sell into different markets that are not even accessible to the CWB and we have no effect on the CWB’s handling and transportation system.
We should be out and they have no legitimate reason to hold us in.
– John Husband,
Wawota, Sask.
Reply on pigs
To the Editor:
In response to Mr. Lindenback’s letter (Hail Porky, Open Forum, June 8), it seems that Mr. Lindenback, while reminiscing about yodeling cowboys and home on the range, has forgotten more recent events in the movie industry like Babe and Babe, Pig in the City.
Cows do give off methane gas; however, so do pigs and humans. I do believe that at one time the possibility of trying to harness the gas from lagoons was discussed.
Mr. Lindenback was also expounding on the manure runoff from cattle enhancing our summer tans by getting into streams and lakes. Effluent from hogs barns will also add a lovely shade of olive green, with a little slime so that tanning oil may be eliminated. In North Carolina they have also added a dinoflagellate (pfisteria) that is causing severe mental and physical problems in people, and have also killed the fish populations in some areas.
Perhaps you should read And the Waters Turned to Blood by Rodney Barker. The experts say it can’t happen here, but then it wasn’t supposed to happen there either. …
Lagoons are lined with plastic? All of them? In all our information from Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, lagoons are clay-lined and are allowed to seep six inches per year. The solids from the hog manure are to form a concrete-like coating on the bottom, but to my knowledge nobody has dived down in the bottom to examine them.
Straw covering on lagoons does help to control the odors, but it is costly and also plugs up the manure injection systems….
As for organ transplants, Mr. Lindenback, the medical people, while wanting more organs available for transplant, are also concerned that mixing species may also bring about problems with new diseases that may get out of control. Our “cousins” (the pigs), are intelligent animals, but I am curious from that statement why you would confine these close relatives to crates and treat them with such disrespect? Surely you would like your new heart to have some muscle. …
We all need to eat but I’m sure we could learn from other countries, and raise animals safely and humanely. Raising hogs outside creates more safe labor, requires more feed and produces safer, better fertilizer. Isn’t that what we need? It’s no more expensive because these huge barns and lagoons are not required….
– Yvonne Patrick,
Kelvington, Sask.
