National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells used a Parliament Hill appearance last week to accuse agriculture minister Chuck Strahl of being misleading in trying to justify a mid-election campaign change in the Canadian Wheat Board voters list. He asked the House of Commons agriculture committee Oct. 26 to investigate the background to the minister’s decision […] Read more
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Witnesses question voters list changes
Cities may need to accept farms in their borders
VANCOUVER – Harold Steves didn’t choose to be an urban farmer. When the city moved out and houses surrounded his farm on the edge of Richmond, B.C., he became one. He jokes that he’s either the last rural farm in the city or the first urban farm. It’s a situation in which many farmers in […] Read more
Water rise worries farmer
An Outlook, Sask., farmer is concerned a sewage lagoon constructed near his land could become a liability if he sells the farm. Wayne Martinson contends the lagoon was completed in 2002 without an adequate liner and is seeping effluent onto his porous sandy land nearby. He cited an increasing water table now up to ground […] Read more
Feud focuses on who represents who
Two Saskatchewan politicians with competing visions over the future of the Canadian Wheat Board argued last week over which had the bigger polls. During an Oct. 25 meeting of the House of Commons agriculture committee, Conservative MP David Anderson accused New Democratic Party provincial agriculture minister Mark Wartman of not representing many of his farmer […] Read more
Technology lets plants turn off thirst
A new yield protection technology helps plants handle the heat on dry days without producing ill effects under normal growing conditions. Performance Plants Inc.’s system, known as Yield Protection Technology, will be genetically inserted in corn and soybean seeds, following a licensing agreement with Syngenta Seeds announced in October. The technology works only during drought, […] Read more
Sask. promises better roads
A multi-year, multimillion-dollar strategy designed to make Saskatchewan’s transportation system more effective will soon be unveiled by the provincial government. Highways and transportation minister Eldon Lautermilch said the strategy will be announced “in the next short while.” The government announced its intention during the Oct. 26 throne speech that opened the fall sitting of the […] Read more
Feds on side over rural postal service
MPs voted unanimously last week that the government should order Canada Post to maintain rural mail delivery at current levels despite protests from rural employees and contract workers that their work conditions are unsafe. The Oct. 25 vote ended a debate in which rural MPs complained that despite a decade-old moratorium on rural post office […] Read more
New holiday planned; tax lowered
A new statutory holiday and a two-percent provincial sales tax cut highlighted the opening of a new Saskatchewan legislative sitting. The province will implement a February Family Day beginning in 2007. This puts the number of statutory holidays at 10 and makes Saskatchewan the jurisdiction with the most such days, alongside Nunavut and the Northwest […] Read more
When big farmers go small
VANCOUVER – Mike Jones raised 60,000 hogs and 250,000 chickens before he became a farmer in his own right. The North Carolina farmer produced livestock for the large corporations that made his home the second-largest hog farming state in the United States after Iowa. But when he was able to buy his own farm two […] Read more
Sask. promises full contribution to CAIS program
Saskatchewan intends to fully fund its share of the 2007 CAIS program, the province promised in its latest throne speech. In the past, it has committed some money to the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, pro-rated payments going out to farmers and then topped up the funding once payments were finalized. In July, Saskatchewan agriculture […] Read more
