The Western Producer takes a weekly look at some of the stories that made headlines in issues of the paper from 75, 50, 25 and 10 years ago.
75 years ago: June 27, 1940
An agreement was reached that would allow dairy producers in Sask-atchewan to acquire ownership of Saskatchewan Co-operative Creameries Ltd. from the provincial government and possibly merge it with the Dairy Pool to form a province-wide producer owned and operated organization.
It was reported at the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association’s annual meeting that in 1939 the association had accepted for registration six new varieties of wheat, four of barley, two of oats, seven of corn, seven of forage crops and 11 of garden vegetables.
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Association president F.L. Dickinson said such a large number of varieties in one year caused significant difficulties for seed growers.
50 years ago: June 24, 1965
The Alberta Research Council was continuing to study the feasibility of carrying grain and other bulk commodities by pipeline, seven years after it first proposed the “revolutionary concept.”
So far, $500,000 had been spent on hydrodynamics research.
But as the story said, “the prairie scene with elevators standing in rows beside the rail tracks is likely to re-main unchanged for some considerable time.” In the end, what changed the landscape was dramatic consolidation in the grain handling business.
A split appeared in the federal cabinet over the operations of the Canadian Wheat Board. Forestry minister Maurice Sauve, whose department was responsible for rural development, criticized the board’s marketing policies, saying the board sometimes juggled prices and quotas to the detriment of feed grain business in Eastern Canada and British Columbia.
Opposition leader John Diefenbaker demanded to know if Sauve’s comments, which were an English translation of a speech made in French, indicated a change in the government’s wheat board policy. Trade minister Mitchell Sharp suggested Sauve’s comments may have been unfairly interpreted.
25 years ago: June 28, 1990
Farmers were told that many of them were undermining the soil conservation benefits of air seeders by using them in multiple tillage operations. Wayne Lindwell, a tillage engineer with Agriculture Canada, encouraged produces to try fertilizing, seeding and controlling weeds in one pass.
Plant breeders’ rights finally be-came law, 10 years after legislation was first introduced in the House of Commons.
Opponents, including the National Farmers Union, the NDP and a coalition of church and third world action groups, argued it would increase farmers’ seed costs while increasing the power of multinational seed and chemical companies.
10 years ago: June 23, 2005
A Calgary company announced it had developed the world’s first live animal test for BSE.
Bill Hogan of Vacci-Test Corp. said he was confident the blood test would past international scrutiny so that the product could go on the market in the fall.
Flash forward 10 years and no validated live animal test currently exists for BSE. Testing must still be done on the brains of dead animals.
Unprecedented rainfall over two weekends resulted in what was being called 200-year flooding in central Alberta, while farmers in Manitoba called for compensation after hundreds of thousands of acres went unseeded because of heavy spring rain.
