SASKATOON – Aruna Gnanadason’s warm, accented voice speaks clearly about the millions of women she represents around the globe. The grey-haired mother of two has traveled far from her home in southern India since her appointment as co-ordinator of the women’s program for the World Council of Churches. The council represents 320 denominations, mainly Protestant, […] Read more
Stories by Diane Rogers
Farm Women’s Bureau rewrites its mission
SASKATOON – With most of its money-granting powers removed under the 1995 federal budget, Agriculture Canada’s Farm Women’s Bureau has been asking its constituents for a new role. Federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale met last month with leaders of farm women’s groups to discuss the bureau, said Agriculture Canada official Heather Lingley. She told the […] Read more
Workshops inform women on laws, rights
SASKATOON (Staff) – A coalition of five Canadian groups is asking farm women to define their legal problems. The process begins with two workshops in Saskatchewan in February. Co-ordinator Shannon Storey said the five-year project is at the midway point in trying to uncover which legal issue “has the biggest effect on farm women’s economic […] Read more
Women urged to get involved
SASKATOON – Farm organizations and government can’t find enough farm women to work on various committees, say the provincial agriculture minister and a Sask-atchewan Wheat Pool official. The pool’s second vice-president Barry Senft and Eric Upshall told a lunch gathering marking the start of Saskatchewan’s Farm Women’s Week last week that few farm women are […] Read more
Statistics day moved to May
SASKATOON (Staff) – Statistics Canada is likely to be a little less popular with farmers this spring. The 1996 census forms are expected to arrive May 14, right in the middle of seeding. The department calculates it will take 40 minutes to fill in the agricultural census. This data collection occurs every five years and […] Read more
Agriculture minister anxious to go to class
SASKATOON (Staff) – Of all the farm policy issues, Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister is particularly keen to take a hands-on approach to one. Eric Upshall told farm women at a provincial conference last week that he wants to get into classrooms and tell children what agriculture is about. He said he wants “to put a human […] Read more
Power of the pitchfork wielded by farm women too, says SWAN
SASKATOON – The square bale of hay skewered with two pitchforks sits prominently near the speaker’s podium in a downtown hotel room. Decked with blue and pink ribbons, the pitchforks are an amusing yet sharp prod about the theme of this winter meeting of the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network – women as a visible part […] Read more
New columnists look forward to readers’ questions
ROSETOWN, Sask. – Despite her retirement, Emmie Oddie’s influence will continue on these pages. Two of the women who have taken up the column replacing her were Oddie’s former students in the college of home economics. Barb Sanderson and Betty Ann Deobald say they’re in awe of their former teacher’s stature in the Prairies. But […] Read more
Healthy business environment can lead to prosperity
SASKATOON – Keep your town’s rich people contented so they will stay, says business consultant Alan Scharf. But Scharf also took the opposite tack and urged rural businesses to pay their employees well, a tactic usually resisted by most chambers of commerce that prefer as low a minimum wage as possible. Keeping people and their […] Read more
After 50 years of answers, prairie icon retires
REGINA – When your mother isn’t handy, who do you ask? For five decades prairie women have turned to Emmie Oddie, The Western Producer’s farm living columnist. But the author of “I’d Like to Know” has decided to retire next week at the age of 79. Emmie Oddie didn’t set out to be a prairie […] Read more
