Organic zealots
Paddy Doherty, the spokesperson for the national organic committee, is using the oldest trick in the fear-mongering book when he defends a zero tolerance policy for organics. And he certainly shows who he is speaking up for when he says that “organic consumers don’t want it.” (WP, April 27.)
What he is commenting about is Europe’s decision to allow one percent GM kernel contamination of organic grains.
I don’t understand why Mr. Doherty wants to make it harder to ship organic grain to our overseas customers. Isn’t he supposed to be speaking for the organic sector as a whole?
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Last time I checked, the consumers and the farmers themselves don’t always have the same interests and the same things at stake. It is easy for the consumers to say to a survey that they are afraid of their food. But, as Loblaws knows, most organic shoppers are not so extreme when it actually comes to their buying habits. They have been known to eat chips and pop. They even have their own pop, although the fructose corn syrup in it usually is not organic.
These internal debates have gone on for years in organics and now Canada is late in making a national organic standard. We have been busy disagreeing, it seems. The Europeans even gave us a year extension to come up with a national standard. And now some of us want to snub our noses at the EU’s reasonableness?
Why not take the offer when it’s a good one?
The organic rules are supposed to make organic acreage grow and prosper, not make growing more difficult with a zero tolerance policy. …
Their farmers were growing without fertilizer or herbicide. The last thing they need is another troublesome rule making business risky.
I would like these organic zealots to explain to the farmers what is the point of that fear-mongering other than to scare consumers into buying organics? These fear-driven consumers aren’t getting the true story about organics.
Organics is a great agricultural production system that has a great future, but only if it is allowed to flourish as a business. The family farmers are actually less well positioned to deal with a zero tolerance policy than a big company. The risk is the growers, not the buyers. And if nobody wants to grow because of risk, then the buyers will buy from Australia, North Africa or China.
Wasn’t the whole point of the proposed Canadian organic regulation to meet European import requirements so that we could sell them grain? If there is a zero tolerance policy, don’t they know that the farmers will take all the risk of having their grain rejected at the elevator or on a ship? …
– Mike Larsson,
Agricultural Trader,
Sainte Anne de Bellevue, Que.
Talk to farmers
With low grain prices, high energy, fertilizer, land taxes, transportation and trucking costs that are having such an impact on farmers, it’s strange that all the Western Canadian Wheat Growers have to talk about and write about are the two organizations that really work for farmers.
They want to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Grain Commission.
The Canadian Grain Commission assures proper grades, rights, etc. and monitors the inward and outward movement of grain that assures good quality control and is essential to those who ship producer cars.
They also want bonding and licensing to be made optional. They had better talk to the many producers who took the option of “marketing choice” and lost thousands of dollars when the choice went broke and they had no bond to cover them.
When the Canadian Wheat Board markets their grain, they get paid.
I think it is time they made public just how many active producers they speak for. The WCWGA disbanded a few years ago for lack of members and funding. Is there a new source of funding in place? I see some familiar names getting appointed on Agricore United, ADM board of directors.
The Canadian Grain Commission and the service it provides has always been the envy of U.S. producers. This seemed to come to a head after the Russians rejected some cargoes out of the Gulf when they were buying large quantities from North America and they found gravel, glass and other contaminates.
They set up a meeting in Washington to investigate the possibility of setting up a similar organization in the Unitd States.
They wanted a farmer that belonged to a farmer-owned co-op and familiar with the commission to attend. I was on the Grain Standards Committee and also on the board of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. I just forget how but I was asked or delegated to attend.
The room had more grain industry people than producers and there were comments from the floor such as “we don’t need any third party interfering in our business of buying and selling grain.” You guess the outcome.
Now we are hearing the same (from) grain companies here in Canada (WP, May 4.)
I hope farmers make their views known in the upcoming review.
– Avery Sahl,
Mossbank, Sask.
Farm worry
(In the May 11) Saskatoon Star Phoenix:, Environment Canada predicted a hotter than average summer.
While this may not mean drought, the news had many in the ag community worried. Seeding into the best moisture conditions in many years, it is hard to imagine a drought. But the reality is this cash-strapped industry needs desperately a perfect year and a profit margin to bank up losses from the past.
What is most worrisome about the prediction is the reality that programs set in place to manage risk in Saskatchewan no longer make any sense.
For many areas hit with consecutive years of drought, then frost and poor harvest conditions netting low grades, the reality is that both crop insurance and CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) are failing to provide any meaningful risk management insurance. As a safety net they do not break the fall.
What the CAIS formula does not calculate is that a five-year Olympic average kills the margins if five of those years were bad. On the opposite side of the equation, five good years can protect three additional years.
And crop insurance averages when taking into account multiple years of drought see insurance levels in many cases at less than half to one-third of expenses. Plus no hail insurance in the event of a stormy season. Farmers in Saskatchewan have reason to worry about the forecast.
Calls to address the failing in the programming formula fell on the deaf ears of the federal Liberals.
For the province, it seems more convenient to blame the feds than to deal effectively with the problem at hand.
We now have hope the Conservatives will move to address the formula, thus inspiring the province to follow through.
Both governments will argue they are investing billions into program spending but the reality is the programs are not effective at managing the risk farmers face today.
The reality is in event of a disaster the failure of risk management will find too many families falling into program gaps. The failure of programming has the potential to create more pain in an already difficult industry.
Let us hope nature does not force this hand.
– Vicki Dutton,
Paynton, Sask.
Money programs
I read with great interest a pamphlet called Agriview, printed by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food. In the second paragraph on the first page written by Mark Wartman, he says the government is giving $52.8 million toward school tax reduction. All this tells me is they have been charging us too much all along.
He also says there is all this money for crop insurance and CAIS but doesn’t say it only applied to those people who belong. I hear lots of complaints about CAIS sending money, then wanting it back.
On crop insurance, it’s measure and remeasure and then audit.
The non-farmers think we’re living off the government, so I wish the government would tell us how much the farmer gets and how much administration gets.
Why is the farm stress line here if things are so good?
Then further on there is the Canadian Agricultural Skills Service program to retrain us, more government administration.
When is the government going to ask farmers what they want…?
– Warren Iverson,
Glaslyn, Sask.
