Secret summit
To the Editor:
Garry Fairbairn’s editorial, “Grain summit to meet in secret,” displays the sort of mindset that is standing in the way of solving the grain transportation crisis. His statement that “it’s time for some finger-pointing” suggests the best way to solve our problems is by forming a lynch mob.
Mr. Fairbairn attacks the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association’s transportation summit, and our criticism of the Canadian Wheat Board’s level-of-services complaint to the Canadian Transportation Agency.
I agree with Mr. Fairbairn that it would have been preferable to open the summit to the public. However, in the current environment it would have been next to impossible to get the industry players into the same room if we’d done so. Our summit is not perfect, but it’s a sincere attempt to get people working together.
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Topsy-turvy precipitation this year challenges crop predictions
Rainfall can vary dramatically over a short distance. Precipitation maps can’t catch all the deviations, but they do provide a broad perspective.
The railways are partly to blame for last winter’s grain transportation backlog, but they are not the only culprits. When rail service improved this spring, other elements of the system broke down. Trains couldn’t get to the port of Vancouver because of terminal congestion, the wrong grains were often in place, and ship arrivals were not properly timed to coincide with the arrival of grain from the prairies.
Even if the CTA finds the railways at fault, what does an order to provide better service actually mean and how would it be enforced? In our view, the best guarantee of better service is a system where everyone is accountable for their performance, with binding contracts, including agreed-upon incentives and penalties. But the CTA process has exacerbated an environment where the industry players are barely speaking to each other, let alone working to design a better system.
Furthermore, the CTA has no power to order compensation, meaning the CWB will have to seek recourse through the courts – a process that could literally take years.
Mr. Fairbairn seems to think that farmers have no right to criticize the Wheat Board, even when they believe it is not acting in their best interests. Do we not have the right to protect our own investments?
– Larry Maguire,
President, WCWGA,
Winnipeg, Man.
Lost line
To the Editor:
History tells us that as Rome burned, a Roman Emperor played the fiddle. Are we Western Canadians not fiddling away the opportunity to save some of our key connecting branch lines?
What are our Western governments, especially our Saskatchewan government, concerned people and Western organizations doing to prevent the loss of the 25 miles of CN railway track linking Prairie River, Tisdale, Melfort and Prince Albert directly to Hudson Bay, Sask., and The Pas to Western Canada’s closest port at Churchill?
In exchange for losing these 25 miles between Prairie River and Hudson Bay, Sask., producers will have to pay for an extra 350 miles, as grain would have to move south to Humboldt and Canora then north to reach the junction at Hudson Bay, only 25 miles from Prairie River.
This will add to the costs of the producer and reduce a pricing advantage of the Wheat Board.
After years of not using this 25 miles to Hudson Bay, CN has served notice of sale or removal of this mileage. … To retain the 25 miles of track between Prairie River and Hudson Bay and to ensure that full advantages of the route via Churchill are retained, Western people, Western municipalities must stop fiddling around this matter and exert every pressure, alone and with others, that these 25 miles in Saskatchewan are retained and used to the benefit of this and those who will follow us.
– Willis, Richford,
Norquay, Sask.
Not funny
To the Editor:
I was dismayed when I read Ryan Taylor’s May 29 column (Cowboy Logic). In it, he describes how he begins “inflicting a little motherhood” with a two-by-four board on a cow who kicks her newborn calf. I presume Mr. Taylor is being facetious in an attempt to elicit a chuckle or two. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor but I don’t find this funny. The livestock industry takes enough flak from animal rightists as it is. The last thing this beleaguered industry needs is for one animal rightist to read this column and accept it at face value. Can’t you just imagine the uproar?
I’m surprised that no one from your editorial staff edited Mr. Taylor’s comments or suggested that he rewrite the column.
As you and your staff should well know, most farmers take excellent care of their stock and will spend hours and even days with a mother and her newborn who need assistance in accepting each other. Two-by-fours have no place in the hands of herdsman who desire docile, contented animals.
Flippant remarks about animal abuse, regardless of their intent, are not humorous and can be harmful to the livestock industry. I trust that in future, both Mr. Taylor and your editorial staff will consider the potentially far reaching consequences such statements may have.
– Juanita A. Polegi,
Jedburgh, Sask.
Hog dispute
To the Editor:
We have recently been approached by representatives of Heartland who wanted to build a hog barn in our area.
We objected to the two proposed sites because of:
(1) a high water table and sandy soil. We believe the clay base they are proposing is not safe for several reasons, some of which are: shifting soils, frost could cause the clay base to crack, and the American experience shows they leak.
(2) We have a Saskatoon-berry U-pick and
(3) a vacation home that would be seriously jeopardized from the air pollution.
At one meeting, a member of the local Hog Producers Project brought in neighbors to oppose us. When we refused to give consent, they proposed a third site, one mile further away.
It is now three miles from the nearest of our farms, so they no longer need our consent, but near enough for us to be affected when the east wind blows. We consider this an insult. Heartland is well aware of the rift this has caused in our community. If they cared about the people, as we are led to believe they do, they would move out and let the wounds heal.
Does Heartland not know that sandy soil and a high water table is a risky location for a hog operation? Why did it take two meetings and a letter to get them to back down?
When asked at one of our meetings “What are the benefits to the community from the hog barn? The only answers that came up were (1) It supplied cheap fertilizer to a few farmers, and (2) they hired two people to run the barn.
We ask you, when Heartland moves into your community, to ask yourself, “Are these few benefits really worth the risks?”
– Ethel Liska,
Biggar, Sask.
Gypsum and soil
To the Editor:
The late great soil scientist Dr. William A. Albrecht stated that, “Food is fabricated fertility.” That being the case, I can’t understand why any agricultural researcher would even consider using aluminum sulfate as a means of trying to cut ammonia in barns, especially when there has long been a far better alternative – gypsum, also known as calcium sulfate.
Two of the challenges in proper soil management are that of keeping excess aluminum unavailable and keeping enough calcium available. An excess of aluminum can cause problems in the soil, crops, barns and houses. In regard to problems in houses (and institutions), researchers have discovered a buildup of aluminum in the base of the brains of Alzheimers patients.
Equally far up the food pyramid, the lack of absorbed calcium has been implicated in such problems as asthma, heart disease and cancer as revealed in Dr. Carl Reich and Robert Barefoot’s book, The Calcium Factor.
Robert Barefoot, a chemist with longstanding asthma, put his co-author’s prescription to work and got rid of his asthma. Part of Dr. Reich’s prescription dealt with taking sufficient vitamin D to help the body absorb the calcium recommended. The doctor asserted that the best form of Vitamin D was that which the body made by way of sunshine on the skin.
Back to the topic at hand. An article in a 1919 Soil Science Journal by Firman T. Bear and Robert C. Workman, entitled “The Ammonia-Fixing Capacity of Calcium Sulfate” stated in part that, “In those (samples) treated with CaS04 (gypsum) the quantity (of nitrogen) given off was 79.0 percent less.”
From my reading and some experience with using gypsum as a soil conditioner and source of both calcium and sulfur, one of the things that has been causing a lot of confusion regarding agricultural gypsum is that not all gypsum is actually CaS04.
Good agricultural gypsum is actually CaS04.2H20. CaS04 is virtually insoluble in water whereas CaS04.2H20 is much more soluble in water. From my reading, if individuals or organizations want to prove that gypsum is of little worth as a solid conditioner and or as a source of calcium and sulfur, all that needs to be done is to use the wrong form of gypsum.
As to whether the two forms of gypsum are of equal value in cutting ammonia in poultry and other barns, simple research should answer that question.
An added advantage of using gypsum is that it wouldn’t have to be imported, as there is lots of it within our borders.
– Chris Mermuys,
Montague, P.E.I.
Western zeal
To the Editor:
Pointing the separatist bunch to a special pasture and wielding the “bigot” branding iron to intimidate bunkhouse rebels, the gang of elites, with guns blazing, have again tried and failed to turn the herd back within the fences of yesterday. The separatist bunch reject the special pasture and continue to stampede in a circle.
Grassroots unrest is rampant in the rest of the herd. Acknowledging both need and opportunity, the rebels have saddled up ready to round up the strays and lead the whole herd to greener pastures ahead. Such is the saga on our Canadian plains.
It is not the style of the west to pussyfoot around sleeping dogs. Wide awake wrangling exposes issues, exudes answers and excites action. Rebellious ideas from the west have become the national wisdom in many fields such as health care. Spurred on by the fresh western zeal to reorganize a united space age Canada with equality for all, our new Parliament should not squander the opportunity.
– T. A. Howe, Q.C.,
Regina, Sask.
