Barry Wilson

OTTAWA – The Agriculture Canada bureaucracy is much smaller this year than last but so far, government cuts have not hit the departmental workforce as hard as predicted. Agriculture Canada’s fate was one of the surprises when the government last week published an analysis of its efforts to cut the size of the public service. […] Read more

OTTAWA – Attempts to negotiate a new long-term dairy policy have fallen behind schedule, in part because of growing animosity between industry players. In its March budget, as compensation for announcing the end of the dairy subsidy, the government said it wanted a new long-term policy by Aug. 1. Now, even an end-of-December target date […] Read more

OTTAWA – Western Canadian dairy industry leaders are close to a deal in which dairy farmers from Manitoba to the West Coast will share revenues and the advantages of growing markets. “We have an agreement in principle to share markets and revenues but my idea is that we still have a few issues that need […] Read more

OTTAWA – What began as a trickle is turning into a flood as Prairie farmers warm up to the challenge of telling the federal government what they want done with the Canadian Wheat Board. By the end of last week, 700 farmers had contacted agriculture minister Ralph Goodale’s office with advice. Close to 200 of […] Read more

OTTAWA – In 1994, the Canadian co-operative sector had never looked so healthy, according to federal government records. Memberships were up by more than 150,000 from a year earlier, the volume of business increased more than eight percent in the year and the value of assets grew by more than half a billion dollars. Yet […] Read more

POINTE-AU-PIC, Que. – The next few years will be crucial in determining if farming can survive on Vancouver Island, says a British Columbia farm leader. Judy Thompson, of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, said the loss of the federal feed freight assistance subsidy could be devastating. Half the island’s chicken producers are considering either retiring […] Read more

POINTE-AU-PIC, Que. – After conceding that federal policy changes helped create farm sector “chaos” in recent years, Canada’s top agricultural bureaucrat last week offered farmers a kinder government face. Deputy agriculture minister Frank Claydon promised a “no-surprise environment” for a few years, free of the policy changes and trade uproar that marked the past few […] Read more

OTTAWA – Agricultural minister Ralph Goodale will be one of a handful of government ministers targeted by Reform for aggressive pressure this fall as Parliament begins its last session before an election, says a Reform strategist. Reform will be trying to pin the agriculture minister down as the country moves toward the next vote, Reform […] Read more

POINTE-AU-PIC, Que. – Farmers increasingly are being driven to ignore environmental rules as the obligations become more onerous and government compensations less lucrative, farm leaders have warned. They were angry about growing wildlife crop damage, rumors of less government compensation for diseased animals and proposals that farmers be more responsible for habitat protection. “There is […] Read more

COURTENAY, B.C. – Allen McWilliam sounds almost incredulous as he describes the success of the hog operation that is the mainstay of his farm, tucked into the forest on the east coast of Vancouver Island. “It’s become reasonably profitable and it doesn’t really make sense that we can raise pigs on Vancouver Island,” said the […] Read more