War is over
Jim Pallister should ask himself why in the world the Canadian Wheat Board would want to keep grain prices low, as he purports in a letter in your April 26 issue.
If that is the basis for his opposition to the single desk, perhaps he should also ponder what might motivate for-profit grain companies in their open market purchasing decisions.
By contrast, there is one main reason for the existence of the CWB as farmers’ own marketing organization: to maximize farmer returns. World War II was over 62 years ago, Jim. Maybe it’s time to live in the present.
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The reaction from the agriculture industry to prime minister Mark Carney’s first budget handed down November 4th has been largely positive.
– Bill Toews,
CWB elected director,
Kane, Man.
Views considered
Western Barley Growers Association has long supported an end to the CWB monopoly on food and export barley sales. We see this end as an inevitable step in a changing world. CWB directors and provincial governments are only going to waste our money in any legal challenge.
Fifty years ago, it was common for a prairie grain farm to sell three quarters or more of production through the CWB. Today, at least on our farm, the board gets one quarter or less of our sales.
There is little support for single desk selling of canola or feed wheat. Times have changed.
WBGA policy is to support the continued existence of the CWB as a voluntary marketing agency. Our directors may not agree on the potential success of the CWB as a voluntary agency but we agree that it remain an option for farmers who want it. Plebiscite results back our position.
WBGA gets calls from our supporters who say we should forget about trying to keep the CWB alive. They are disgusted with the lack of co-operation we get from hard-line single desk CWB directors.
Even though all WBGA directors and supporters may not agree on things like subsidized crop insurance and interest free cash advances, we recognize that most farmers do want them and our policy is to support them. The same applies to a voluntary CWB.
Our association invites comments from farmers and other interested parties. Don’t think that you are ignored or that your views are not considered when we try to establish policy.
– Tom Hewson,
Vice-President,
Western Barley Growers
Association,
Langbank, Sask.
Food over fuel
We have an unending supply of oil underground. In fact, some experts believe petroleum is not a fossil fuel at all, but some sort of a gloppy syrup, deep down in the earth under extremely hot conditions and is pushed up by intense pressure.
In the last 20 years, estimates of global oil reserves have climbed more than 70 percent despite record consumption and now a large oil sands find in Saskatchewan.
To produce biofuel will only mean competition between biofuel and the large oil companies and we know who will win.
There will also be a competition between biofuel and how to feed the people in the world. We don’t need biofuel as we have all the fuel we need and now millions of dollars will be spent to meet the target they have set. What a waste of money.
Every bushel of grain needed by the energy sector means one less bushel for making bread, producing eggs, hogs and cattle. The livestock industry is now in direct competition with the energy companies. We need to feed the people of the world.
In 2006, this year’s harvest was four percent less than demand. Production now has failed to meet demand and 2006 grain reserves are down to 60 days supply, the lowest in 34 years.
What happens if there is a crop failure in some part of the world? We have only so many acres to produce food to feed the people of the world. With the population increase, are we going to keep up with the demand? No.
Forget the biofuel industry.
– Arnold Helgeson,
Southey, Sask.
Nature knows
There was a day when the promoters of a cause had to spread their words of wisdom from a soapbox on some street corner, but now with the flip of a button can appear in everybody’s living room. I refer of course to Al Gore, David Suzuki, and others who would work us into a frenzy over climate change.
Climates have been changing for millions of years. Geological research indicates that the planet has experienced as many as four ice ages.
The eloquent Mr. Gore can sound very convincing, as he talks of tornadoes, floods, drought and other disasters, but fails to add that they’ve been happening since the beginning of time. Nor does he mention much about the rise of carbon dioxide emission in his own country when he held a position that made him the second most powerful man in the world.
David Suzuki sounds equally convincing, but does not mention the amount of carbon spilled from that bus he travelled across the nation in. …
Having been a planet resident for a mere 89 years, I can only reflect on a very short span of the time that life in some form has existed. I am able to reflect back some 50 years, and remember the fear mongers of that era telling us about how the greedy corporate sector was spewing carbon out of its smoke stacks, that would somehow effect the ozone layer, and block out the sun. All plant growth would cease, resulting in us all starving, unless we froze first.
The fear mongers of today … point to the certainty that the polar bear and penguin will follow the dinosaur and dodo bird into oblivion.
Let’s consider that one for a moment. All species of life have a natural desire to survive, and in order to do it will adapt to change. As the trumpeters on global warming are saying the temperature rise will be about one degree a year, it’s very likely that the endangered species would change their diet and habitat to adapt…
There are many opinions on the subject of climate change, and ways to halt our own devastation, without much agreement as to remedy. One thing that we can predict with certainty is that we are going to spend a lot of money, fixing a problem that only nature can change.
– Percy Lambert,
Moose Jaw, Sask.
Farm fatalities
The Alberta government has released the 2006 farm fatality numbers. Twenty people died on our farms and ranches, including six children under the age of 10.
In 2005, 20 dead, four children.
In the previous 10 years Alberta has averaged 18 dead each year with nearly a third being children. That’s like killing the entire village of Burdett, Alta.: kids, old folks and all.
During this year’s Agriculture Safety Week we were offered a free poster. If you add that poster to last year’s free CD and the free pamphlets, you get hundreds of dead, thousands of injuries, millions of dollars lost!
Alberta’s rural communities pay a high price for government appeasement of powerful, well funded vested interest groups, such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Alberta Chambers of Commerce.
In neighbouring B.C., during this same time span, they did more than posters and pamphlets, though they have them, and have reduced their agriculture death rate to a fraction of ours. Additionally, they have been very successful in reducing child deaths….
The Farm and Ranch Safety & Health Association is a proven plan that I have been urging our government to adopt or at least consider. I have provided much data, statistics, contact information and many offers of assistance.
Two years, 40 people, 10 children ago I advised then minister Cardinal and premier Ralph Klein (to adopt the FARSHA model used in British Columbia.) … It is a proven success and I am convinced this is what we need. …
The minister said thanks for the info and then went on to actively continue excluding farm workers, ignoring requests from health and safety advocates, labour leaders, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and government’s own internal sources to protect farm workers….
Meanwhile, the death, dismemberment, sickness, suffering and exploitation continue unabated.
A business model that depends upon the disenfranchisement and exploitation of workers and child labour is untenable, unethical, unseemly and unsustainable. It cries out for reform.
– Eric Musekamp,
President,
Farmworkers Union of Alberta,
Bow Island, Alta.
