The board of directors of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association will approve a proposal that a private corporation be formed to collect and distribute money raised from a national cattle checkoff.
Once the checkoff is organized, the funds collected will be used for research and promotion.
At a recent board meeting in Ottawa, CCA leaders accepted a proposal that a corporation be set up to negotiate checkoff agreements with the provinces. Once all provinces have signed on, a national agency can be created and application can be made to apply levies to imports as well.
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The CCA board said using a corporation as a first step in the evolution toward a national agency seems like the way to go.
“This appears to be the least-cost and easiest process to establish,” said a CCA statement after the Ottawa meeting.
The product is cheap
Alberta Reform MP Leon Benoit figures Canadians could learn a thing or two from farmers.
In a recent House of Commons statement, Benoit said by February, Canadians have earned enough to buy their food for the year. And every year, as food becomes relatively less expensive, “food check-out day” falls earlier and earlier.
By contrast, “tax freedom day,” promoted by the Canadian Taxpayers’ Association as the date on which average Canadians have paid their tax bill and start working for themselves, falls in July.
“If farmers mismanaged food production the way this government has mismanaged our taxes, Canadians would all be starving,” said Benoit.
Wheat bought for Korean aid
The Canadian government is providing money to help buy 17,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat for North Korea.
The federal money will be supplemented by $1 million from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank in Winnipeg. That church-supported agency will send the grain to North Korea, which has suffered several years of floods and drought and faces severe food shortages.
The new federal funding, through the Canadian International Development Agency, raises Ottawa’s spending on the Korean crisis to almost $15 million.The threat of famine in North Korea has led the United Nations World Food Program to issue its largest food aid appeal in history.
