CALGARY – The Canadian Wheat Board last week helped organize a conference designed to promote the idea that it is interested in encouraging grain processing industries in Canada. Along the way, some speakers from industry suggested the wheat board is as much a part of the problem as the solution. Wheat board controls are not […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
Millers should tap into Canada
CALGARY – There is strong growth potential for the Canadian flour milling industry if it is innovative and efficient, an American flour milling industry expert said last week. If Canadian per capita consumption of flour grew just half a kilogram from its current 60 kg level during the next 12 years, it would create a […] Read more
Canada food makers urged to push harder for Japanese market
CALGARY – Years of work by the prairie beef industry to break into the lucrative Japanese market should soon pay off, says a trade official from the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Ron Davidson, an embassy counsellor, told a conference on agriculture value-adding last week that the Japanese market is opening up to imports. And Canadian […] Read more
Global warming mostly bad for agriculture
While the prairie oil and gas industry has been in an uproar this autumn over the possibility of federal carbon taxes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, prairie farmers are being warned of potential repercussions. Failure to control greenhouse gases could be catastrophic for prairie agriculture, according to an Environment Canada study on the possible prairie […] Read more
The race is on: barley breeders can’t rest on laurels
CALGARY – Canada’s position as one of the world’s top producers and exporters of quality malting barley and malt is on the line as the regal barley variety of the malt business nears the end of its reign. Harrington two-row barley, developed at the University of Saskatchewan 15 years ago and the strongest factor in […] Read more
UGG members hear rail deregulation warning
CALGARY – Those who think deregulation is the answer to Canada’s grain transportation woes should think again, Canadian Wheat Board chief commissioner Lorne Hehn told a roomful of deregulation advocates last week. The former United Grain Growers president went to the 1997 UGG annual meeting to take on the railways and the advocates of commercializing […] Read more
UGG delegates prepare for end of wheat board
Delegates to the United Grain Growers annual meeting last week approved their usual resolution demanding an end to the Canadian Wheat Board marketing monopoly. They repeated well-worn arguments about how government regulations are a drag on entrepreneurial free spirits. They even went through the motions of demanding that arch Liberal enemy number one Ralph Goodale […] Read more
Canada’s negotiators against CWB
When former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan heard about the recent anti-marketing board confessions of a Canadian free trade negotiator, he had a quick response. “I knew that,” said the free trade critic, bureaucracy basher and now Liberal Senator. “I knew those bastards would have sold farmers down the river if they could.” And he warned […] Read more
Flood volunteers praised
The House of Commons and MPs paid tribute in October to the armed forces personnel and volunteers who traveled to Manitoba in the spring to help combat the Red River flood. Thirty military personnel and 40 volunteers were praised from the floor of the Commons and later at a reception. “Those of you who are […] Read more
Farmers reject coddle charge
Agriculture leaders lobbying on Parliament Hill last week were confronted by an echo from the past as an MP told them many Canadians consider farmers too coddled and subsidized. House of Commons finance committee member Nelson Riis told farm leaders Oct. 30 that many previous witnesses had suggested further spending cuts are possible to the […] Read more
