Broader insight
Regarding the Western Producer June 30 article by Garfield Cox entitled “First Aid needed for family farms,” I’d like to comment. First I’d like to embarrass Mr. Cox, if it’s possible.
It is this mentality of debt and loans which keeps us in this situation in the agriculture industry.
The problem is one of approach. We have special interests influencing our government leaders leading us to believe that we have the entire industry represented. Actually these groups such as the slaughterhouse people and the mega feedlot people are really pursuing their own interests, and the welfare of the family farm is not part of it.
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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?
What we have to start thinking is that we need a policy for the country. From that idea the policies can quickly be formed in the interests of maintaining a healthy industry in Canada.
This idea of increasing slaughter capacity or allowing already dominant players in the slaughter sector to acquire larger market share is the opposite to what is the best interest of our country.
I suggest that the primary producer will not get a better price until there is a balance of players in the market sufficient to provide adequate competition and market access to drive up the price.
Slaughter capacity increase implies many things. As far as addressing the family farm immediately, loans are the most damaging thing these people could get. Outright financial support is what families need when their prices are way below break even … . Getting into deeper debt would only create a worse problem.
With direct financial support must come a policy of eliminating any monopoly advantage such as the large slaughter share two players in Canada have. At the same time the government must take the view that they must assist the industry in broadening their markets ….
With encouragement, we have the people with the interest in solving the problem. …
– Jake Drozda,
Valleyview, Alta.
Hog ops
I am responding to Elaine Hughes’ July 14, letter entitled Down river.
The article states the Saskatchewan pork industry’s current production is 2.3 million hogs per year. That is correct, although in actuality less than half that number of animals is on farm at any given time if you factor in the highly efficient growth of pigs.
It also states that the provincial government is relentlessly pursuing a green and prosperous economy that includes expansion of the hog industry. Why shouldn’t it? Is our agriculture sector so healthy that we can afford not to reap the benefits of an integrated agricultural system?…
A byproduct of pork production is manure. Hog manure is a valuable resource as a nutrient for crops. All the hog manure produced in Saskatchewan only provides enough fertilizer to cover one percent of total farmed land. By injecting manure directly into the soil, the primary mode for manure application, runoff into surface water is all but eliminated because of reduced soil erosion and improved soil structure. The notion that there is a payload of slurry flowing through the countryside is hogwash.
Using a natural nutrient instead of manufactured fertilizer also helps to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. Producers implement nutrient management plans to maximize the recycling of manure nutrients by crops and to minimize the losses of nutrients to the environment. By using this available resource, a farmer can fertilize his crops for two years at a cost of about $75 per acre. According to available information on climate change, all of agriculture contributes just under 10 percent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. It appears fashionable, though, to blame us for 90 percent of the problems.
Our industry, like any other, is well aware that water is a precious resource. In a single day, the entire Saskatchewan pork industry uses less than 10 percent of the water that the City of Saskatoon treats in a day. …
The Saskatchewan Agricultural Operations Act requires all intensive livestock operations to have plans for manure management and storage, waste and animal mortalities. We follow the rules because it’s the right thing to do.
To insinuate that intensive livestock operations pollute or otherwise destroy surrounding land and water resources is simply not true.
Why would anyone intentionally pollute the surrounding air, land and water resources when their quality of life and livelihood depend on maintaining a healthy environment?
– Shirley Voldeng,
Naicam, Sask.
Techno risk
The world’s leading economic powers represented by the G-8 have just released a communiqué in which they acknowledge that global warming is a manmade phenomenon.
We, the human species, have the ability to change the climate of the planet, an action inconceivable 100 years ago, a reality contested 10 years ago. Sadly, immediate economic needs would appear to distract from any sense of urgency in addressing the consequences (or) long range consideration of actions taken today with political, economic, military expedience.
I mention this in light of an article published in the July 7 edition of the Western Producer titled “North Dakota’s GM flax worries some producers.”
There is a concern that introducing genetically modified flax could lead to cross contamination of conventional flax and a loss of market share.
The industry assures us that there is nothing to worry about. These are the same platitudes we were given when GM canola was introduced less than 10 years ago. In that space of time we have learned that GMOs can alter blood composition in rats, (Monsanto defends GM rat study results, WP June 2).
Cross contamination is a reality. Our ability to control and contain has been debunked.
We have absolutely no idea what the consequences of introducing designer plants into the environment will have on future generations. We risk much for short-term economic gain in the hands of a few.
As a farmer, I am outraged that farmers are always being placed in a position of embracing new technology for the sake of economic efficiency, that the emphasis is not of safe healthy food. As a consumer, I wonder how far this will go before we wake up and say enough.
We’ve started down a road whose conclusion none can know.
– Wayne James,
Beausejour, Man.
BSE science
With the recent case of BSE found in the United States, I felt compelled to write this letter. When the news flash came over the radio, it was clear that the media and all the powers that be still support the thoughts that BSE is a contagious disease caused by a semi-living protein and eating “tainted meat” can cause vCJD, the human form of BSE.
First there has never ever been a single published peer reviewed study that even comes close to confirming this notion. Secondly, with the growing mountain of evidence that supports the theory that BSE is an environmentally driven condition, we must seriously consider the work of Mark Purdey. Essentially Mr. Purdey has shown that when there is a copper deficiency, and an excessive amount of a less favourable mineral/metal, which in many cases is manganese, common proteins in the brain change shape and become detrimental to health. This he feels, as I do, to be the root cause of BSE. I became interested in his work because over the last 15 years I have been studying the effect excessive manganese has on tooth, bone and general calcium metabolism. Through extensive well testing in this area I have come to know that there are water sources in this area that have up to 15 times more manganese than the highest level that the Environmental Protection Agency allows for consumption. …
I want to make mention of the latest proof that BSE is an environmental disease. The irony is that the information comes from the people that are maintaining that there exists an infectious, contagious brain protein.
In order to investigate the infectious, contagious hypothesis, there requires a supply of this affected brain protein. They have found that the best way to create these abnormal brain proteins is to essentially take normal proteins and then manipulate the copper and other minerals associated with them. … Essentially they are doing in a test tube what Mark Purdey has described is happening in nature all along.
I fear what may have started as an innocent miscalculation is now being used to break the backbone of the family based agricultural economy. … I urge you all to educate yourself and your neighbours and become vigilant in exposing the truth about this issue.
– Dave Warwick, DDS
Hanna, Alta.
Managing labour
The quality of life in our country is directly related to how we combine labour and resources. People work to make resources useful. If we do not work, or work unwisely, or work destructively, our quality of life will be affected.
A tree in the forest needs labour to make it useful. Picture a meal on the table, a car driving down a road or an oil refinery working. These are examples of the combination of labour and resources.
Money should only be representative of these ingredients. It is foolish to allow a shortage of money in a country to be the limiting ingredient in what a country does or does not do.
Imagine a sports arena with the hockey teams warming up pre-game. A crowd of people is lined up to purchase tickets. However, only one half enough tickets have been printed so only half the crowd gets to see the game. A shortage of money should not be the determining factor in what happens in a country.
We worry if there will be enough money for our health care or pensions in the future. The correct concern is if the country will be managed well enough so that there will be people willing and able to do the job of taking care of the sick and elderly.
The excuse for our roads or infrastructure not being as we want them to be should not be a shortage of money but rather that we are not managing our labour properly to do the job.
We are thankful to the oil companies for investing in our country so we have all these jobs, not realizing that the ingredients for a successful oil industry are already here.
Foreign ownership of a country is redundant when there is a proper understanding of labour and resources.
What other conclusion can be drawn, than that it is an act of treason for a government to borrow money from outside the country?…
I suggest that the people in Alberta should examine the Social Credit party on its understanding of economics. Ultimately, despite all the political tricks and smog, we, the voters, can still decide how our country is run.
– Laverne Isaac,
Medstead, Sask.
