Oats for horses
I read with interest the article on page 7 of the Dec. 10 issue of the Producer (“Substitutes steal pony oats market”) concerning the declining market for pony oats in the United States and other markets.
As the executive director of two farm organizations (Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission and Winter Cereals Manitoba Inc.) that deal in smaller acreage crops, I understand the concern that the Prairie Oat Growers Association has as they consider loss of a major sector of their traditional market.
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As a result, I understand why this change is taking place and the science behind the change. This is not an anti-oat movement within the horse and feed industry. This is an anti-starch movement.
Changes in feeding practices have led to significant reductions in the use of oats, corn and barley over the last decade. Following is an over simplified explanation.
Equine nutritionists recognize that horses were not designed to eat starchy grains. Horses are designed to consume forage and get their energy requirements through the digestion of fibre.
Feeding oats, corn or barley to horses shifts the digestive processes away from the conversion of fibre to volatile fatty acids that are absorbed and stored as fat for future energy needs, towards the digestion of starch to glucose as an energy source.
Horses have a poorly designed system for the control of blood sugar and a potentially inadequate system for removal of the byproducts of using glucose as an energy source. …
Performance horses that rely on glucose as an energy source often suffer fatigue caused by a buildup of lactic acid in the muscles.
As a result there has been extensive research done on feeding low starch (low grain) diets to horses in order to find alternative energy sources, improve health and performance.
The decline in pony oat consumption is a direct result of this endeavour by equine nutritionists to shift a horse’s source of energy away from starch.
There is probably not a horse feed manufacturer in North America that does not have some sort of fat and fiber or low glycemic index series of performance horse feeds.
This is not because the feed industry has found an inexpensive replacement for oats. This is because the buyers of horse feeds are following the science and trying to reduce potential for feed related metabolic problems.
Most science based low glycemic index horse feeds actually cost more than traditional oat-based diets. The decision to make the switch is not based on saving money.
Oat producers will have to invest in research to maintain market share. This research will encompass new processing methods to slow starch digestion and possibly new varieties with a low glycemic index that will again make oats the feed of choice for performance horses.
J.A. Davidson,
Minnedosa, Man.
China & wheat
I was heartened when I saw the (federal) minister of agriculture and (minister) responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board standing with the prime minister in China.
I thought he was there to apologize to China for the many dirty attempts to destroy the wheat board (which has) had a very long relationship with China.
They made the first wheat sale to them when they badly needed it and later signed a long-term grain agreement with them. Two or three years ago when I checked, we had sold over 125 million tonnes of wheat and barley to them and probably more now.
When I was on the advisory committee to the CWB, (China) had first chance at any tender.
When Bill McNamara, who was the chief commissioner to the CWB at the time, remarked when questioned by the press, (who) thought Alvin Hamilton made the sale, he replied (that he didn’t) give a damn who wanted to take the credit, but he and others from the board spent two weeks in China doing the deal. They got some needed grain and farmers would be getting some needed money to pay some bills.
This longstanding relationship (between) the CWB and China deserves an apology and a thank you. I never heard either one.
When China wanted to showcase itself to the world during the Olympics, every head of state was there. The prime minister of Canada, whose country has had a longstanding relationship with China back to Dr. Bethune and our farmers through the CWB, was conspicuous by his absence.
Avery Sahl,
Mossbank, Sask.
Nanny state
The proposed legislation from our (Saskatchewan) health minister states that moms and dads who drive their family car and have their children under 16 years of age with them will not be allowed to smoke.
If Mom and Dad do smoke, they would be breaking his proposed law and subject to fines or jail time if they can’t afford to pay the fine.
Here is that classic example of politicians legislatively alienating a whole constituency of voters by instructing them on how they should raise their families. Governments always defeat themselves when they get into the face of too many people.
Politicians are not yet allowed into the bedrooms of the nation. Should they be allowed to get into your family car with you and instruct you on how to raise your family?
If they are allowed into the family car, the bedrooms may well be next.
Stew Fettes,
Regina, Sask.
Pardon Latimer
Those who are unfamiliar with the incarceration of Robert Latimer, should click into the Robert Latimer website. … Consider the facts. Tracy (Latimer) experienced extreme terminal pain, suffering, deformity and multiple surgery from birth to the day of her death.
The Latimer family has gone through a 20 year journey of hell, which was created through no fault of their own. They extended the utmost in love, care and comfort while battling a hopeless illness that was about to take Tracy’s life.
This letter is written in defence of Robert Latimer’s resolution to his daughter’s despairing situation to end her suffering. Robert Latimer presents no public threat, bearing in mind there was not criminal intent in his action. …
Our prime minister, Stephen Harper, should grant Robert Latimer an unconditional pardon, thus allowing the Latimer family peace of mind …
John Seierstad,
Cedar, B.C.
CWB protection
With negotiations nearly complete on a new World Trade Organization agreement, prairie wheat and barley producers are concerned with the future of the Canadian Wheat Board. The current draft of the agreement would kill the CWB’s single desk marketing system by 2013, without ever having consulted with producers here at home.
We know that Canada’s negotiating team in Geneva hasn’t been given a mandate by the Conservatives to defend against the gutting of the board. And with a straight face, the government continues to claim that decisions on the future of the board will still be made here in Canada.
Under no stretch of the imagination is backroom secrecy in the prime minister’s office what farmers have in mind when they think of a made-in-Canada decision.
When I rose in the Senate chamber on Dec. 8, I asked the government if it had any intention of defending the CWB in Geneva, or if it would simply watch silently while foreign trade competitor countries moved to kill the CWB, their main competition.
The government leader in the Senate refused to answer that the government didn’t need to hear from prairie producers again because its position had been known last election.
Equally disconcerting was her audacity in saying that her government would “continue to work with the board to ensure that it serves the best interest of farmers.”
It is not up to the government, Liberal or Conservative, to decide what is in the best interest of producers. The only acceptable decision on the future of the CWB is one made democratically by western farmers themselves. Until then, the government has a duty to protect the integrity of the wheat board both locally and on the world stage.
Senator R.W. (Bob) Peterson,
Ottawa, Ont.
Continual calamities
It’s mostly frustration that makes me reply to the letter by Ann Coxworth in the Dec. 3 issue. It seems that if anyone has an opinion that does not agree with the global warming theory, they might as well have the plague.
The trouble is, I’m old enough to remember the string of inevitable earth changing calamities.
First, I recall, was the global cooling theory of the 1970s. They told us the earth was going to be in a grip of an ice age by 2020.
Then came the energy crisis. Without oil we were going to freeze even faster. Then things calmed down for a while. But we can’t have that, so it was back to the climate again, only this time it was warming.
Funny thing is, I recognize some of the same names who years before said the earth was cooling. Another energy crisis, $140 oil and we were running out again.
Well, not really. Here we are with $70 oil and yet the oil in storage is larger than it was in 1998 when the price dropped below $20.
Frankly this old bird is getting tired of running for the chicken coop every time someone says the sky is falling.
The only reason the warming theory has lasted longer than the cooling one is technology, not scientific, but that of the media. In the 1970s it was mostly newspaper, radio or TV. Not every household had a computer, cellphone and iPod, and facebook was a family album.
The global theorists realize that you don’t have to be right. Just have the theory that can sell the most air time. Just remember that in a week when suicide bombers killed dozens, the top story was “Tiger Woods hit a tree.” Go figure.
Alfred Fleming,
Irma, Alta.
Hayek and durum
Renowned economist F.A. Hayek earned a Nobel Prize by exposing the folly of central planning, that planners can never know enough to do it well. The latest Canadian Wheat Board blunder in durum wheat, one of the biggest in the board’s long history of mistakes, reconfirms his view. As long as the CWB retains its monopoly, we can expect more of the same.
Over the past two years, the market posted record-high prices in durum and the potential for great returns for farmers was clear. We have “customers over a barrel” bragged the CWB’s media maven, Maureen Fitzhenry.
Then in all its wisdom, the CWB decided to take only 74 percent of the crop offered to it by western Canadian farmers in 2008-09. Perhaps the central planners at 423 Main Street believed that by limiting supplies, they could goose the price even higher, or prolong the time prices would stay up, or maybe they fell prey to both conceits. …
What happened next? The board’s own pricing signals had encouraged overproduction of durum in Canada and the price collapsed. Returns this year are now projected at more than $4 per bushel below prices received last year. To repeat, that’s $4 per bu., not $4 per tonne.
Internally, the CWB’s mandarins must be regretting their decision to hold back durum sales last year. Externally, they’ve discovered something magical and new called “the market” and are now going to great lengths to explain all of the fundamental factors beyond their control that affect prices. …
The CWB is blind to its own complicity in the price collapse. But, as Agri-week recently noted, “the board has created a multi-year buyer’s market for durum and it will not be surprising if the bizarre durum discount widens further. Buyers the world over know all about the Canadian glut of durum and the feebleness of the board as a bargainer.”
We now have seven million tonnes of the stuff sitting in bins in Canada. Lo and behold, the total volume of annual world trade is seven million tonnes.
Normally the CWB captures about 50 percent of that trade, so it could well be that this year we move out only half of what we have. Durum growers might want to start thinking about pricing out some new bins.
Hayek had a lot to say about competitive forces and the inability of central planners to stay on top of them. He argued that they inevitably fail for two reasons.
First, information regarding supply, demand, individual preferences and the availability of resources is all extremely diffuse, with a lot of it never recorded. It’s not sitting nicely organized on some all-knowing, all-seeing planner’s desk.
Secondly, this information is not static. It’s constantly changing without any kind of warning. No matter how many planners we have, nor how many degrees they have hanging on their walls, nor how brilliant and well-intentioned they may be, it doesn’t make any difference. …
Some may shrug and think the same or worse would have happened had durum been in a free market environment. They would be wrong.
During the same period, free market canola saw record production, record prices and record exports with only a modest carryover when all was said and done.
As farmers, it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves that the folks at the CWB have no skin in the game. It’s not their livelihood that’s at stake when they make wrong decisions.
As Hayek would say, we should trust our own judgments far more and the planners’ a lot less. The collapse in durum confirms the lesson.
Rolf Penner,
Manitoba Vice President,
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association,
Morris, Man.
Remove shackles
The finer points of the CWB issue have become increasing complicated to producers and I am no exception. What I do know is that I am a captive of the system, and told that I would be worse off with the freedom to market my own wheat and malt barley.
I don’t believe it, since I enjoy marketing my other crops as I see fit, and as such the idea that the grain companies will somehow ruin my profitability under a free system is preposterous.
To claim, as they do in the recent advertising campaign, that the CWB monopoly equals farmer control is to add insult to injury, both because the reality is that if I sell my grain as I choose, I will most likely land in jail, as have others in our recent past.
Secondly, I’m the one who pays for the advertising – expensive full-page, full-colour layouts.
I’m tired of the manipulation and I’m tired of paying for a bureaucracy that costs my business money while it claims to increase my profitability.
The truth is just the opposite of the rhetoric. We will be more profitable without the CWB, and if our Conservative government can’t or won’t remove the shackles, let’s hope the World Trade Organization will.
S. Wilson,
Edmonton, Alta.
Farm romance
Re: “Farmers feed families, including yours”, (Opinion, Dec. 17).
You are ignoring or forgetting a very important issue. I don’t believe we are put on this earth just to serve. We are here at least in part to have a life that means something.
When farmers produce food for the world, they should be doing (it) because they enjoy it and get personnel satisfaction from it….
Sure, there are exceptions but for the most part I believe people are doing it because they enjoy it and that they are giving to society.
What you are proposing or promoting is humungous farms that have nothing to do with people except to produce food and treat people like machines.
It’s (a) pretty sad state of affairs if we are all treated like machines. What kind of news media would we have if you people were robots and there was no romantic side to your careers as correspondents?
When you talk about eliminating (the) romantic idea (of) small farms, you are talking about eliminating people and a society. So if you eliminate the farming society, what other societies of people do you think we should eliminate? …
Ken Leftwich,
Esterhazy, Sask.
