Wild Rose Agricultural Producers won’t be telling Alberta farmers how to vote in the upcoming barley plebiscite.
But president Ron Leonhardt said the organization will be providing information and Canadian-American price comparisons that should deflate some of the wild rhetoric coming from anti-wheat board activists.
“There have been too many of these statements made, and when you look at them they don’t hold up,” said Leonhardt about claims of bonanza grain prices lying just across the border.
“There isn’t millions and millions of dollars to be made every day.”
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Wild Rose, in the middle of a campaign to boost its 1,900-farm membership, will try to give farmers a more rational basis on which to make their decision, Leonhardt said.
“I think producers have to make those decisions themselves,” he said.
Wild Rose is taking a stronger stand against the province’s decision to drop out of the Net Income Stabilization Account program.
Leonhardt said producers across the province in November membership meetings were confused about government action and didn’t know how the changes would affect them.
Wild Rose is calling on agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski to reconsider the decision and to clarify the situation for producers.
“We believe Alberta should have stayed in the program,” said Leonhardt.
Alberta producers are also concerned about high interest rates on loans from the provincial Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, rising propane prices and the weakening of rural Alberta in the provincial legislature.
