Prairie pasta
To the Editor:
In reading the various articles and letters concerning the CWB’s New Generation Co-op policy decided upon recently, and the opinions of some of the directors of the CWB, it is clear that there is a great deal of misunderstanding of what Prairie Pasta has been seeking from the CWB.
Allow me to clarify a few things. Prairie Pasta initially requested a total exemption from the CWB but it became clear very early that this was not going to happen. Since then, we have suggested a CWB policy where Western Canadian Prairie Pasta farmer members would sell their durum to the CWB at the Domestic Human Consumption price, as all mills in Canada do.
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Then at the end of the crop year, if the mill paid more for the durum than the initial price, the CWB would pay the difference to the Prairie Pasta members as a final payment. If the mill paid less than the initial price, the mill would pay the difference to the CWB.
This would enable the CWB to treat Prairie Pasta equally with all mills, something that the CWB has indicated is imperative. Also, it would allow the members of Prairie Pasta to participate fully in the financial rewards of investing in processing their own grain production, something that PPP has stated is imperative.
Regarding the issue of fairness, Ken Ritter, chairman of the CWB board of directors, has stated: “It is important that all durum farmers have access to the same opportunity.”
On this, I couldn’t agree with him more. After meeting recently with Mr. Ritter and other CWB board members, I am confident that Mr. Ritter now understands that Prairie Pasta, as a New Generation Co-op, is an opportunity that can be accessed by all farmers in Western Canada.
The only restriction to membership is that each member must be a farmer and agreeable to the obligation to supply durum to his own mill.
In addition, I believe we have also convinced Larry Hill, CWB director for the Swift Current area, that farmers in his area could participate in Prairie Pasta since all farmers in Western Canada can participate.
At least one CWB director has stated, and it has been reported that, providing Prairie Pasta with what we want is the same as a subsidy. Others have gone so far as to say that this “subsidy” would attract retaliation from trading partners such as the U.S. How can it be a subsidy when farmers are allowed to receive for their grain what it is actually worth? Our U.S. farmer/partners do.
Prairie Pasta has agreed to participate on a committee established by the CWB to review possible ways to provide new generation co-ops with a workable policy, while maintaining the mandate of the CWB.
We have agreed to participate under the hope that we can assist in developing a CWB policy which would enable farmers to create their own wealth through further processing of their production.
In the meantime, however, Prairie Pasta producers will continue to develop a business plan assuming limited (if any) participation by Western Canadian farmers.
– David Schnell,
Prairie Pasta Producers,
Lampman, Sask.
Tax cuts
To the Editor:
The tax cut request by the premiers assembled in Quebec could not have come at a better time.
Now that the national debt stands at $600 billion and the combined provincial debt may add another $400 billion, who is going to pay, if not the taxpayers?
This combined debt is demanding up to $100 billion yearly in interest going to the money lenders. Whosoever these money lenders are, they like nothing better if the principal is not repaid. There never was a goose that laid more golden eggs than the taxpayers.
Mike Harris, the premier of Ontario, is hell bent to keep it that way. In his mind it is all part of the common sense revolution. Taxpayers being fleeced $100 billion in interest on our huge debt may question the common sense in all of this.
– Ernest J. Weser,
Laird, Sask.
Ridiculing farmers
To the Editor:
No doubt many Saskatchewan residents are now aware of a letter to the editor which appeared in the July 31 issue of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and written by Mr. Keith Boechler.
The letter raises doubt as to whether or not the recent blocking of traffic by farmers will indeed have any effect on the public. Referring to farmers, it states that “I couldn’t help but wonder if farm chemicals had taken their toll on their brain cells.” The letter also states that “if you cannot make a sustainable living farming, find another occupation.”
If such statements were directed at any other minority group, say Native, Inuit, Jewish or French, human rights supporters would have come down on the StarPhoenix with every available weapon in the book. But to ridicule farmers in dire need is a socially acceptable pastime.
This shows how poorly informed our urban residents are where agriculture is concerned. Perhaps only loud protests will ever change the present situation. As far as dealing with the comments of Keith Boechler, the recent traffic blocks and protests will attest that farmers will no longer be humiliated by city folks who fail to understand that Saskatchewan agricultural products account for over $5 billion in cash sales every year. This translates to well over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in this province.
– John J. Hamon,
Gravelbourg, Sask.
Protesting food
To the Editor:
We believe our letter in regard to genetically altered canola, or any other mutant food, is just one of a growing number protesting the bioengineering of our food sources.
We protest by writing this letter, but we also protest by not purchasing foods we suspect or know to be genetically altered.
This isn’t always easy and we’ll give you a personal example. We decided quite awhile ago to not purchase canola oil because we know a high percentage of the crops come from altered seed.
Unfortunately, one large container ended up in our basket, but instead of taking it back we decided to phone the 1-800 customer service number (Lethbridge) on the container to get more information on where the oil came from.
We naively put our question on their answering machine as the recorded message assured us that our call would be returned. We phoned twice and so far no answer. We’ve had to conclude the oil comes from genetically altered seed.
We want to see labels on all our foods telling us the ‘true’ identity of all the contents. With a family member who has potentially deadly allergies, this labeling is critical.
Better yet, maybe it should start with Canadian farmers. Please refuse to plant seeds that are genetically altered.
On a personal level we’ll stay with olive oil until we’re assured canola oil is pure. Mutant foods will never have a place on our shelves but we’re lucky. We live on an island where much of our food is organically grown.
We have a choice, but many others don’t.
– John and Rosemary Baxter,
Salt Spring Island, B.C.
CWB: God’s gift
To the Editor:
G.R. Undseth (Aug. 12 Open Forum) is the most recent voice declaring the Canadian Wheat Board as being antiquated.
The open market system existed long before the CWB became a reality. If age is the determining factor whether a marketing system should be allowed to operate, then eliminating the open market system is a must.
Anti-CWB advocates claim the Board was established on a government whim. The CWB was established in response to farmers explaining how the open market system has cheated them.
A common comparison was that after the CWB became a reality, No. 3 and even some No. 4 grain began to grade No. 1.
Now, as in the past, open market prices are unbelievably unstable and very unpredictable. The open market system is not acceptable unless prices offered vary no more than 15 percent in a six month period.
Prices may be locked in; even before seeding, but should the crop fail, bankruptcy is almost certain. The open market system never demonstrates mercy.
Comparing the CWB to the private corporate open market system, the CWB is God’s gift to farmers, yet the CWB is not ideal.
Open market echelons employ expert opinion makers to exaggerate CWB weaknesses in attempts to abolish marketing boards that they may feel free to intensify their efforts to abuse food producers in attempts to establish a private corporate food monopoly.
– Stuart Makaroff,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Close CWB down
To the Editor:
I was watching Charlie Rose the other night, an interview program on PBS, and his guest was Lester Thurow, the eminent economist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Charlie asked him what it is about the U.S. that sets it apart from other democracies like Japan and the Western European nations when it comes to economic growth and the creation of wealth.
His answer was simple, yet profound. The U.S. doesn’t have a problem with “closing things down.” American society is constantly building wealth because it does not get bogged down in trying to preserve that which no longer works. …
He used as a comparison the different approaches that America and Japan took to address their respective banking industry problems. In the late ’80s the U.S. went through its banking crisis and after a year or two of government hearings it was decided to radically restructure and it closed down over half the country’s S & L’s and banks.
Today the industry has recovered and is strong and working to create wealth once again. Japan in comparison has been unwilling to do this. Its banking industry is still in turmoil, because they continue trying to preserve that which has failed.
Like Japan, Canada has trouble with this concept. Even when failure is obvious for all to see, many still can’t see it or want to admit to it. …
A number of examples come to mind but the one that immediately comes to mind is Canada’s farm policies and more specifically the Canadian Wheat Board.
The Canadian Wheat Board is one Canadian institution begging to be closed down. A regulatory institution fronted as a grain marketing agency, it has been a part of prairie agriculture since the 1930s and the Marxist ideas, which these regulations are built around, go back to the 1920s when the pooling movement began.
The pooling experiment failed after only a few years and that should have been the end of that, but since we don’t learn our lessons well in this country, the government of the day instead chose to build on this failure. The creation of the Canadian Wheat Board with its eventual status as monopoly buyer and industry regulator was the result.
Leap forward to 1999 and this same institution still reigns over prairie farmers with Stalinist zeal. The newly elected board of directors, doing their best politburo imitation, have just recently provided us with another reason to close the CWB down.
They refused to grant Prairie Pasta Producers an exemption from the pooling system so that the member/shareholders of this enterprise could deliver their own grain to their own mill.
Prairie Pasta was proposing to build a $120 million semolina mill and pasta plant as a farmer owned and operated new generation co-op. …
Space limits me from detailing the many other problems unlikely to be resolved surrounding this malicious regulatory body, like its self preservation tactics in trying to prevent vital reforms in the grain handling and transportation systems. All of which would self correct if only we would finally learn what the Americans have known for a couple hundred years: That shutting down that which falls and replacing it with something that works is a lot less painful and much more effective than clinging to the past and trying to preserve that which no longer works.
– Bernie Sambrook,
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association,
Medora, Man.
AIDA
To the Editor:
Letter to Mr. Vanclief: This letter is in regards to your AIDA program.
When we first applied to this we were quite definite that we would get some kind of assistance. Our accountant helped us fill the forms, we were one of the first to apply. We patiently waited for four weeks, then had our first phone call to discuss some of the material to send more information to them.
We waited another eight weeks. We were positive we would be getting our cheque any day, with numerous calls on our part and a lot of patience we had our answer … a big no.
We called for a whole week afterwards before finally reaching the name on our letter. After discussing a few things with her, we realized that maybe a mistake had been made. They claimed that we had made too much money in 1998; coincidentally we claimed it was our worst year ever.
Once again we were hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we would still get a very much needed cheque, but sure enough we received our answer, still a big no.
How we questioned her … The inventory could not be used in the previous years yet it was used in the year 1998, we could not believe it. This program is not payable to any farmer that is in need.
Who will pay for the cheap food of the consumer? Unfortunately the farmer can no longer and our lenders have refused to provide. Who will compensate the 1999 taxes when the 1998 taxes are not yet paid? Who will pay the interest on the mortgage?
We are the future family farms. Now there is not much of a future. This disaster program is not much of a program. Media should not believe that farmers in need are being helped. The government should start traveling Western Canada so he can witness how our once proud farmer has become a very desperate farmer. I recommend something be done before the average family farm does not exist.
– Jean-marie and Donna Simard and family,
Eugene and Brenda Simard and family
St. Lazare, Man.
