A coalition of prairie farm groups has issued a series of questions they say farmers should think about as they consider life without the single desk. The questions cover the impact on price premiums, pooling, risk management, market power, producer cars, short-line railways, transportation and freight rates, access to the elevator system, inland terminals and […] Read more
News
Pro-monopoly lobby compiles questions
Senators want to prevent restrictions on sugar beet product
The Canadian Senate agriculture committee took the unprecedented step last week of intervening in an American regulatory proposal and demanding that import restrictions not be imposed against a Canadian semi-processed sugar beet product. In a letter to a senior bureaucrat in the United States Department of Agriculture thta is considering a tariff against thick beet […] Read more
Coming Events
Nov. 16-17: Peace Region Farm Women’s Conference, Grande Prairie Inn, Grande Prairie (Melinda,780-494-2627 (evening) or Cindy, 310-0000 then 780-538-5287 (day) Nov. 16-18: Fall Fair, Trade Centre, Prairie-land Park, Saskatoon, 306-931-7149 Nov. 17-18: Trade show, Esterhazy, Sask, 306-745-2479 Nov. 17-19: Christmas Preview,exhibition grounds, Lloydminster, 780-875-9013 Nov. 18: Christmas Market, Community Centre, Forestburg, Alta. (Michelle, 780-582-7330) Nov. […] Read more
Markets will fight poverty
More government financial support is not the solution to rural poverty, an official of the conservative think-tank C.D. Howe Institute told senators last week. Markets, rather than government interventionist policies, should decide which rural communities survive. “Money is probably not the answer, in other words, short-term government assistance to households,” Finn Poschmann, director of research […] Read more
Ag Notes
Co-op gets award Farmer Direct Co-operative Ltd. of Regina has received a Saskatchewan co-operative merit award. The co-operative was established in 2002 to market certified organic grain and conducted $900,000 in business during its first year. Annual sales have since increased to $5 million. Farmer Direct now has 65 members and four employees. Recipients of […] Read more
Two prairie provinces to hold CWB vote
Saskatchewan and Manitoba will go ahead with a producer plebiscite on the Canadian Wheat Board’s export monopoly if Ottawa doesn’t hold a vote as soon as possible, say the premiers of both provinces. At a Saskatoon news conference Nov. 10, NDP premiers Lorne Calvert and Gary Doer said they would prefer if the federal government […] Read more
Mailbox
Wanted: Several copies of Homesteader’s Handbook. Will pay. – Emily Worrell, 630 Franklyn Rd., Kelowna, B.C. V1X 3T8, 250-491-4525. For sale: Times Past to Present, 1981 – History of Allan, Sask., and area. Hardcover, 529 pages, 700 photos, $18 until Dec. 31, includes postage (in Canada). – Allan and District History Book, c/o Box 264, […] Read more
Official defends Options program
The Canadian Farm Families Options program is not a disguised attempt to persuade poor farmers to leave the industry, a program administrator insisted to skeptical opposition MPs. “The program is meant to give them some breathing space while they consider their options,” Clair Gartley, director general of the agricultural transformation programs directorate at Agriculture Canada, […] Read more
McLellan in cross hairs over gun program secrecy
A former senior Liberal cabinet minister and her public servants were wrong to hide from Parliament details about costs for the controversial Canadian firearms program, the House of Commons public accounts committee has concluded. “The committee was greatly concerned by the selective use of accounting rules to obscure the costs of the firearms program,” the […] Read more
Liberals eye rural seats
The bloom may be off the Conservative rose in rural Canada and that offers Liberals a chance to gain back some ground they have been losing for decades, says the chair of the Liberal rural caucus on Parliament Hill. Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Ken Boshcoff said resolutions he expects to come from the Liberal leadership […] Read more
