Could not help but notice Sask. Wheat Pool’s full-page ad promoting the wonders of “Mobiload.”
The advertisement stated “it frees farmers up.” This probably could mean it frees the farmer up to do other work, on-farm or perhaps off-farm.
This letter is not written to knock new technology and/or labor-saving devices. Nor does it wish to suggest we go back to horse-drawn implements.
However, looking at the broad picture, our agricultural policies having been “freeing up” farm families for a long time.
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Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Greed and the availability of modern machines to produce grain, and to operate large livestock, poultry and dairy farms with a minimum of labor have made this possible.
Many are now quietly wondering, where will it all end? … Are we going in the right direction? This surely must also be the question the world’s 800 million unemployed and underemployed are asking themselves.
– Leo Kurtenbach,
Cudworth, Sask.
Organic farming
To the Editor:
Once again the field inspectors from Organic Producers of Manitoba Co-op are on the road checking established and transitional organic farms.
With summer sun and breezes there are many areas blessed with showers, crops are appearing healthy and advancing rapidly. The inspector, usually an experienced farmer, reviews the organic farm records as well as the fields and crops. It’s usually an easy matter to determine if the fields have been chemicalized in any way.
Hearing the songs of many birds, viewing the long lines of treed shelterbelts and noting the heading crops, one can miss the major aspect of the organic farm.
This very week, a major TV program clearly showed how the organisms in our ecosystem are developing resistance to the many important and helpful medical drugs that have come along since World War Two.
Personnel in the medical field are mindful that their choice of usable drugs is being reduced as new forms of resistance begin to occur, sometimes alarmingly rapidly in bacteria, viruses and other life forms that tend to affect us humans.
A similar concern exists in agricultural circles as more weeds begin to show signs of immunity to regular commercial herbicides. Farmers are encouraged to keep an observant eye open for any signs of weeds with chemical resistance.
Geneticists are formulating new varieties of plants for commercial use that are resistant to some farm chemicals.
Perhaps some of these resistant plants could come back as resistant weeds to haunt the farmer later. We would hate to see some kind of a Frankenstein plant let loose on the land.
Further to this, the Federal Government seems intent on restricting the plants described as herbs, that may be grown and used, intending to put these plants in a similar code as pharmaceuticals. There is a warning note here.
Surely, now is the time to encourage the production of organic food items and support the organic farms and farm families. It is generally not an easy road.
Much of the research is done right on the farm through family farm meetings. Not a great deal of help is coming from the universities or the school system. A few agricultural representatives are fairly well informed and can be helpful. More are needed.
For those who are watching, the storm signals are already flying. There are signs that our vaunted, amazing, miracle-working pharmaceuticals are being outdistanced by those minute bits of life that we cannot see with the naked eye.
It is evident that we need now, more than ever, a reliable, back-up food and health system that will be there for us when the growing number of resistant diseases, weeds and insects shuts the door on our modern methods. This looming disaster can be averted, but we must act now!
– Francis Anderson,
Lowe Farm, Man.
Millions starve
To the Editor:
“No world food shortage but millions will starve” (July 27 Western Producer) is sad but true. David Hopper is wrong to blame poor distribution. If the starving people could show cash for food and cost of transportation, distribution would be no problem at all. Vernon Rutter is equally wrong to suggest scientific research will solve the problem.
More and more people throughout the world are losing the ability to earn their food and other necessities of life. In some countries that means starvation and death!
Even in Canada many of the unemployed have been forced onto welfare and the number of people needing assistance is more than five million.
As the jobless society is creeping up on us, more and more people will lose their ability to earn their keep and I would suggest that even countries unthought of will develop problems with starvation.
When computer technology has replaced most workers at the office and factory gates, then even farmers may become redundant, for machines and computers don’t eat.
– Ernest J. Weser,
Laird, Sask.
Busy guy
To the Editor:
I note by your Aug. 3 front page item that Mads Lund of Innisfail has only helping in the family market garden as a gainful occupation – except for milking 320 cows and caring for his mice and dairy goats and his European wild boars.
Since idleness is so bad for the young, I would like to point out to him that if he could obtain some pipe clay and some rye straw he could make clay pipes and straw hats in his spare time.
– Tim Seeley,
Peace River, Alta.
Handicap forum
To the Editor
Your Open Forum has reflected varied views from readers for many years. This column would be a splendid avenue for handicapped persons to share their problems and successes.
Injury requires medical treatment and mechanical aids, but equally important is spiritual and mental well-being (moral support for a start), sharing experiences and perhaps actions against manufacturers past and future.
If enough interest is shown, perhaps Western Producer would set up a special forum to merge western handicapped persons. Please pass the word to anyone, active or retired, who is handicapped and who may contribute pointers or just say hello.
Perhaps someone would relate activities of an injured or handicapped person who is no longer with us.
– Joe Ferdais,
Fort Vermilion, Alta.
Liberal pensions
To the Editor:
Well, the countdown is on, Sept. 11 being the last day that current Members of Parliament can opt out of the “reformed” Liberal pension plan.
The current government dragged its feet on pension reform until over two hundred MPs, mostly Liberal, qualified under the old rules.
The old rules were that if an MP sat for six years, he or she would immediately go on pension of $24,400 per year, fully indexed for life, even if they had another government job.
The MP’s contribution over that six-year period would be approximately $54,000. This means that after just over two years, the full amount of the pension comes out of tax dollars, for the life of said MP. In 1992 alone the government kicked in $158,000,000 to make up for a shortfall in the plan.
The “reformed” Liberal plan has cut the rate of contribution from five percent to four percent (still twice what is legal in the private sector). It has also ended some double-dipping and put in a minimum age requirement of 55 years of age. These are positive, but very small steps.
I don’t think most people would object to MPs having a pension plan in line with what is available in the private sector. However most people cannot understand why a person whom they have simply hired to be their voice in Ottawa should have a gold-plated tax-funded pension. …
All 52 Reform MPs have opted out of the MP pension saying it is simply unfair for taxpayers to pay for a gold-plated plan that is much richer than is legal, or indeed affordable to the people who pay the bills. A few Liberal MPs have also seen the light and opted out.
Now is the time when we should be asking our individual MPs if they will be responsible for themselves or a burden on the taxpayer as long as they live. In the case of the Battlefords-Meadow Lake, “where are you on this one, Len?”
– Delon Bleakney,
Turtleford, Sask.
Land Reform
To the Editor:
Are we better off than we were sixty years ago? In the 1930s we had people going through other people’s garbage for something to eat in the City of Edmonton and the same thing goes on even today. They would even steal your laundry off the clothes line.
Many were forced off the land into such intolerable conditions. We need land reform in the worst way, not acreage payments for large land owners. The U.S. will continue to subsidize grain exports till they have no one to grow the grain. A very bad policy. More people need to be kept on the land. Also in Canada!
– Paul Kuric,
Vega, Alta.
The monument
To the Editor:
I haven’t written a letter to this paper before.
We have been reading Western People for a few years now and have always enjoyed the interesting historical and lighthearted stories. Then came the Aug. 3, 1995, issue with “The Monument” by Jean Fahlman.
I am shocked and appalled by the content of this article. It is morbid and disturbing, ie. the part about her leaving her husband on the ground, scooping his body, dumping him, etc. …
I can’t believe this article was considered worthy of Western People. I hope other readers will write in and support my opinion as other Producer readers I’ve shown it to feel the same way.
I would like an apology from the writer and response to this letter. I don’t care if it’s only fiction. Isn’t there enough blood, guts and gore in the media?
Does the Western People have to be polluted with it too? This trashy article spoils the usual exceptional content of the Western People and I hope there will be no further articles like it. …
– Robert & Marla Rauser,
Paradise Hill, Sask.
One Language
To the Editor:
The (otherwise good) letter of Therese Lefebvre Prince (Bilingual Heritage), Producer, July 27, 1995, contains a rather snide remark that French Canadians could have joined rebelling Anglo-American forces in 1775 and we would all be Americans today.
Here is an equally snide remark: One of the causes of early American discontent was that England was too “soft” on the French, who harassed the New Englanders on land and on sea. If those early Americans, who seized Louisbourg from the French in 1745 with little help from the British, had had their way, they would have driven all of the French from North America. I believe the American government has recently reaffirmed that they are a one-language nation, as they want all to know that they will not tolerate a language hassle such as exists in Canada.
I also think it is unfortunate that all of those language treaties Therese quoted were ever passed. In the course of commerce, romance, and all it takes to pioneer a new land, undoubtedly a new language (such as the new Canadian race Ð the Metis) would have developed.
In South America, most of the populace acknowledge themselves as “mixed blood” (Indian/Spanish), and Spanish is the language used.
That, of course, is one foreign language imposed on numerous tribal languages, but the blending has been done over a period of several hundred years, and there doesn’t seem to be any conflict over it.
– Marion MacLean,
Melville, Sask.
Phone Surveys
To the Editor:
It is almost 9:00 on a Wednesday evening and the telephone rings. I am trying to get my four children to bed. The telephone call is another annoying survey from a herbicide company, the third in less than a week.
Of course the surveyor was hired by an independent polling firm, and cannot tell me whom she is representing.
I am asked if I have 10 to 15 minutes to answer the survey. My answer these days is, “How much am I going to be paid for my information?” The answer is always: “You don’t have time to answer at this time? When may I call you back?”
I will answer any survey, if I am paid for my information and time. I charge extra, however, for weekends and especially for calls that just happen on Sundays at noon.
Since I have an off-farm job to supplement our family’s income, I absolutely resent being polled or surveyed on Sundays or evenings, since this is the only time I have to spend with my family.
Since herbicide companies are benefiting from my information, I will continue to charge “consulting fees” for my expertise.
I recommend to you, my fellow farmers (gender non-specific), to do the same.
These herbicide companies benefit financially from your responses. They pay for pollsters to conduct the surveys. The herbicide corporations are worth millions or billions of dollars.
All you have to do is review this past year’s herbicide bill and ask yourself if your time and information isn’t worth something. Inform your herbicide dealer or representative about your feelings on surveys.
– Randy & Margaret Kargard,
Bassano, Alta.
Crow Loss
To the Editor:
As of the first day of August, the last vestige of the historic Crowsnest Pass arrangement, the Crow Benefit, officially ended. Except for a temporary transitional allowance to soften the blow the Manitoba and some Saskatchewan farmers, all grain shipping costs will come directly from the grain growing sector.
Even before the death of the “Crow,” farmers paid all costs of shipping grain east of Thunder Bay, via their marketing arm, the Canadian Wheat Board. This cost was shared by all farmers regardless of their shipping direction.
This last year, western farmers paid out some $200 million just to move 8.1 million tonnes and about $43 million over the previous year, giving the seaway a profit of $15.5 million, after 10 years of losses totalling over $74 million.
It should be noted, however, if just half that extra 1.7 million tonnes had been shipped through the port of Churchill, western farmers would have saved over $20 million.
That extra grain would have been well within the handling capacity of Churchill and would have been a record and highly profitable year for the port.
The Canadian taxpayer at large is off the hook with the death of the Crow, quite possibly the only country in the world where such a condition will exist.
The United States have their Export Enhancement Program, European exports of grain are heavily subsidized by government. Other world countries pump vast amounts of money into food production and supply.
So, while our non-farming taxpayers may applaud the politicians for killing the “old bird,” they might also reflect that the farming community provides other Canadians with hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs in industry and commerce, not to mention a significant contribution to favorable balance of trade with other countries.
It has been estimated that agricultural dollars have a multiplier effect of about six to one. Let us not forget about the killing of another old bird. Remember the one that laid the golden eggs?
– D. A. Lindsay,
The Pas, Man.
