Figure it out
To the Editor:
I keep hearing comments from people in government about the low number of farmers applying for AIDA. It’s too bad that governments, both in Regina and Ottawa, haven’t figured it out. Maybe they need to ask the people it is affecting.
The problem is, for those people that had a crop in the fall of 1997, 1998 was a pretty good year. There was very little of the 1997 crop sold before Dec. 31, 1997. The majority of the 1997 crop was sold in the last seven months of the 1997-98 crop year and the price was good. Hence the good year in 1998.
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Why would people apply for a program they know they are not eligible for?
Yes, there are those that had a poor crop in 1997 and I hope they get some money out of AIDA. For the rest, it is 1999 that is the problem. Whether you had a crop or not in 1998 there is no money to put the crop in the ground for 1999. We need help now because the price for the 1998 crop is so low (ie. 1999 income).
Hopefully someone in Regina or Ottawa will figure it out soon.
– Glen Nunweiler,
Kindersley, Sask.
Treat farmers fair
To the Editor:
Hello to all consumers of food.
We are well into 1999, we are still surviving on the farm. Yes, farmers are still in trouble in the midst of a price downfall, for all of our commodity. Plus with the high cost of all of our machinery, taxes, fuel and all other inputs.
To me and many other farmers that is a crisis. Add to that … trying to fill the AIDA forms out. Now that’s stress.
These forms are – I truly cannot find a word for them. All the information that is asked for in these forms, our dear governments have in their computers from all the other forms we have to file. So then why is it so hard to fill them out? “They” want it broken down in such an unreasonable state.
Again “their” computers could I am sure do that … For the AIDA program there are four booklets; a 26-page forms package … an 11-page 1998 Program Handbook … a 15-page 1998 Instructional Guide … a 23-page 1998 Supplementary Guide and Forms. Oh, those poor trees.
We, the rustic peasants, endure and tolerate this type of help and just go on seeding and raising raw food so we can keep on feeding the world without a word.
Now that’s not stupid, that’s loving, caring and passive. That’s truly brave. While our government was debating how to help the agriculture crisis, many farms were lost and there is still no real help for the family business of farming. It has just sent more farmers to seek employment elsewhere just to keep the farm going.
Is there help from our government? I do not see that there is. Instead they manifested forms, which created jobs for other people, once again at the farmers’ expense. It is just another instrument to again take advantage of caring family farmers without a kiss or a thank you ma’am.
Boy do we feel used … Agriculture does create a variety of well-paid occupations for all but the rustic … the farmers, who are busy producing food to feed all these people who believe that the ranchers and farmers are making money, because of what they are paying for it over the counter. While in reality the farmer is getting a mere pittance for their raw produce. That is not only feeding you, it is creating your job.
To the people wanting employment, if the farmer was paid fair for the commodity that they produce they would stay on the farm working and not be in the city working too. Just so that they can keep on farming.
Now that would create jobs. Now that would be brave of the government to support and treat the farmer with grace and dignified behavior. …
Over the past six months I have spoken and written to a number of our representatives of federal and provincial governments and their personnel. (Remember these are the people we elected who get a nice paycheque each month no matter what they do.)
Well I got the impression that maybe a few may care but most just try to give the farmer the guilt trip. They intimidate, shame, threaten and scare you, me, the people with “you want to jeopardize our health plan and our children’s education?” … Well to the people’s honorable financial advisers and Finance Minister of both governments, there are other areas that can be cut back on. …
This caring image that Canada has is not in effect for Canada’s own children and farm people, plus money being poured into the agricultural area for research and developing new technology this may help the farmers and it will help the farmer if we have any farmers left.
Can we elect people that care about the family farm? When we are fast becoming the insignificant minority. Please give us back our faith and trust in our Canadian system of administration. Please show that we have a caring Canadian government for all the people of Canada.
We, the farmers are not asking for it all, we just want an adequate, sufficient and fair price for our commodity. That commodity that is so very important for the survival of all mankind, the food we grow with God’s help to feed you and yours. Pray for mankind.
– Vera Boisson,
Kinistino, Sask.
Changes needed
To the Editor:
Many years ago while instructing agriculture students, a university professor had this to say about the relationship between farming and the living standard in most countries of the world: “The living standard in a country is directly related to the efficiency and productivity of its farmers.”
Canadians enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the entire world. To a greater degree this can be attributed to the fact that prairie farmers are the most efficient and productive farmers in the entire world. It is indeed ironic when you consider that we are doing the best job in the world, yet here we are facing bankruptcy and will eventually be forced out of farming unless some radical changes are made to happen.
Let us consider the following facts: The 1999 net farm income for Saskatchewan farmers is expected to drop to a disastrous $59 million. The five-year average is $592 million annually.
Let’s approach it from another angle. In 1978 a farmer was able to pocket 46 cents out of every grain dollar. In 1998, 20 years later, a farmer is left with only nine cents per grain dollar for himself and his family to survive on. It will be much less or non-existent in 1999.
A bushel of grain today has only one-tenth the buying power it had 50 years ago. This is mainly due to the fact that during the same period of time the cost of farm inputs, taxes and farm services have increased tenfold.
It is an indisputable fact that when someone takes more, someone must take less. It seems so few farm organizations or governments are doing anything meaningful to correct this injustice.
However, it was very gratifying to note that at least one farm organization understands the problem and is speaking up for farmers. On April 22 District 4 of the NFU passed the following resolution: Whereas: Prairie farmers have been experiencing severe economic problems for many years that are getting more severe each succeeding year; during the last 20 years farmers have lost 80 percent of their profitability simply by staying in business.
Whereas: Thousands of farmers have faced bankruptcy and have been forced to leave the land and their chosen occupation; the rural Prairies are rapidly becoming an uninhabited wasteland without hope or a future for its inhabitants.
Therefore be it resolved that we urge the federal government to set up a royal commission to do an in-depth study to ascertain the real reasons for the economic crisis being experienced by prairie farmers and to formulate a plan of action that would assure that prairie farmers receive economic justice for their efforts.
– George E. Hickie,
Waldron, Sask.
Dear Europe
To the Editor:
I need to know where to write and to whom in Brussels about the upcoming GATT talks.
I have written Lyle Vanclief and all his sidekick sends me is the Canadian position at the trade talks. If a world price for grain without subsidies is their answer to our solution, I’m not impressed and neither is any oilman or tax-hungry government.
It’s quite apparent something smells and I’m not dragging Europe into poverty along with us. A world market board works for oil and it can work for food.
Anyway I wish to write Europe and support them in their actions, as whatever comes out of all these talks has to benefit everyone and not just Canada and the U.S.
– Rudi Vogel,
Lacombe, Alta.
Milgaard deal
To the Editor:
(David) Milgaard accepts deal. Too bad it took 23 years to find out he was innocent but never found out who lied and took 23 years to find out he was innocent.
We must have a rotten system (which is) protecting the real crooks again.
– Lloyd V. Scott,
Shawnigan Lake, B.C.
Compensation
To the Editor:
The article “Prairie icons take concrete shape” (May 13) is a timely and interesting item. …Illingsworth’s comment about sympathizing with those in the Rabbit Lake area, some 50 miles from a delivery point, is one that I (or rather my two sons and their wives) can well understand being 55 miles from the Pioneer terminal west of Crooked River and 65 miles from the SWP facility at Tisdale, which is also home to the giants of ConAgra, Louis Dreyfus, UGG and Cargill, but who are all still farther away.
As our recently constructed, 165,000 bushel facility at Weekes (1986) was pronounced closed two years ago, though it was reopened after much pressure to a three-day-a-week schedule, and as our three ton single axle and somewhat larger tandem axle trucks were scarcely up to the challenge of hauling the produce from 3,000 (plus) acres, we have for the past two years resorted to custom hauling.
Which is all right as it is the trucker’s machine that has to take the abuse from our somewhat less than perfect roads. …
But, as in the name of progress, the wood to concrete change is inevitable, so I am suggesting a compensatory measure, which could be obtained by the CWB … which could ease the situation some by issuing categorized permit books, with variations based on distance from delivery point, of say 10 to 15 miles, and in the final payment make a small extra allowance by way of a few extra cents a bushel on the basis of the extra distance involved in each category.
This money should come from the Federal Treasury, and be from extra taxes levied on the railways and the grain companies who after all are the main beneficiaries of this transportation revolution.
Now I realize that there will be some tearing of the hair at the mention of taxes, but as there has already been a lot of hair tearing over our elevator system, a little more should not hurt too much, so along with sundry other grievances a little extra baldness won’t be noticed. I also realize that this would not be of any benefit for the growers of non-board crops, but this could readily be solved by those growers requesting the CWB to include their crops under Board jurisdiction, which I presume might cause more hair tearing.
This for me would not be a worry, having regard that most of my hair is already gone, and furthermore I would applaud extra business for the CWB.
– Philip Lindenback,
Weekes, Sask.
W.I. history
To the Editor:
I wish to comment on the story, “Potato Valley” in Western People, May 6, by Karen Morrison. I enjoyed the Ronayne family story very much, but I take exception to three words.
In the paragraph about Mrs. (Molly) Ronayne and her “long-time work with the local Women’s Institute, and its parent group, the Associated Country Women of the World …” the three words to which I object are “its parent group”. ACWW is not the parent of WI – quite the reverse.
The first Women’s Institute was founded by a farm wife, Adelaide Hoodless on Feb. 19, 1897 at Stoney Creek, Ont. It was the death in 1888 of her youngest child, 18-month-old John Harold, that stirred Mrs. Hoodless to the work which she carried out for the duration of her life.
She set to work to find out why he died and why at that time one child in five died, and she studied ways to lessen this suffering. When she learned that her baby’s death was caused by contaminated milk, she felt responsible for this terrible tragedy and determined to do all in her power to help others … and to bring within reach of all women the education necessary to prevent similar tragedies….
Adelaide Hoodless launched an educational movement for women, with plans so sound that the objectives of 102 years ago are still adaptable to today’s changing conditions.
Word of this first WI meeting spread like wildfire. Other women’s groups soon formed, first in Ontario, then throughout the other provinces. As the number of institutes increased, local branches in each province formed their own provincial organization, to help in co-ordinating the work of the individual branches.
In 1919, the provinces formed a national organization, the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada, with Judge Emily Murphy its first president.
A Canadian, Mrs. Madge Watt, first took the concept of WIs to Britain, where the formation of many women’s groups spread quickly, as it had in Canada.
By 1933 the Associated Country Women of the World was formed with its first world conference held in Canada. ACWW conventions are held triennially throughout the world. Headquarters are in London, England.
So, rather than say that ACWW is the parent of WI, Karen Morrison might say ACWW is a granddaughter of Canada’s Women’s Institutes….
I am a proud member of Northern Circle WI, of Saskatchewan WI, of FWIC and a life member of ACWW.
– C.R. Harris,
Marshall, Sask.
Back off
To the Editor:
Even at my age of 86 I can still be completely astonished by Liberal governments. This is a government with fewer prairie MPs than I have fingers on one hand, chilled out of the West since the years of Clay Gilson and Jean Luc Pepin. They seem committed to never learning anything politically.
David Collenette, Ontario Liberal in charge of transportation, said opinion is very split on the Estey recommendations. He is counting railways and grain companies more than once. If they phoned out, they would find the majority of farmers are opposed to Estey.
I assume the Ottawa papers tell them every time western farmers get the chance, they vote in favor of the Canadian Wheat Board. Ralph Goodale, lonely Saskatchewan Liberal MP, promised farmers they would be in charge of major CWB policy issues after the new board members were elected. That new board looked over the Estey recommendations and said they couldn’t go there.
But guess what? That’s where Collenette says we’re going. I’ve never voted Liberal in my life so you’re not going to get me. But for God’s sake, save yourselves. Back off, back off, back off.
– G.A. Hopkins,
Saskatoon, Sask.
AIDA fix
To the Editor:
I heard Mr. Romanow’s announcement along with the premiers from the other provinces that they are asking the Feds to fix the AIDA program.
The only way AIDA can be fixed is if there is a cost of production put into the formula for each sector.
But this would not address the farm crisis because both levels of government do not have enough money put into the AIDA pot to come near what is needed for this crisis.
All producers would still have to be pro-rated back to an empty pot.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Balcarres, Sask.
