Maximize savings
To the Editor:
Letter to transport minister David Collenette:
Arthur Kroeger stated in The Western Producer that he failed to generate a consensus on any of the major issues before him.
Railways, grain companies, and farmers did not agree on critical issues such as open access, final offer arbitration, hopper-car ownership, or the role of the Canadian Wheat Board. The most important issues under discussion remain up in the air.
I believe that Mr. Kroeger failed to reach consensus for a number of reasons. Most importantly, the Kroeger process greatly underestimated the gulf between the interests of farmers and those of railways. Farmers’ interests are very different from those of CN or Sask Wheat Pool.
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Worrisome drop in grain prices
Prices had been softening for most of the previous month, but heading into the Labour Day long weekend, the price drops were startling.
Farmers, facing the worst farm income crisis since 1933, are also in a much different situation than the grain companies or railways.
In 1998, the combined profits of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways totaled $586 million. This amount exceeded the combined 1998 net farm income of the approximately 80,000 farm families in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The 1999 realized net farm income in Manitoba is projected to be even lower and negative in Saskatchewan.
Farmers are dissatisfied with the Kroeger talks and anxious about Mr. Kroeger’s final report. Speaking with other farm groups, we find a general expectation that the Kroeger report will fail to reflect farmers’ needs….
Despite this lack of consensus, there is still an opportunity to make transportation changes that protect farmers’ interests and lower their costs. The failed Kroeger talks leave $224 million of farmers’ money on the table. The CWB and independent economists estimate that current freight rates are $200 to $224 million above the level that they would have been had quadrennial costing reviews and productivity-gain adjustments continued. This amount works out to approximately $5,000 for the average grain farmer.
If you are looking for consensus in the wake of the failed Kroeger initiative, may I suggest that you again consider the nearly unanimous support for the reintroduction of productivity-gain sharing. The CWB, Agricore, Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Hudson Bay Route Association, Keystone Agricultural Producers, the NFU, the Saskatch-ewan Association of Rural Municipalities, Sask Wheat Pool, Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, Winter Cereals Canada Inc. and United Grain Growers have all endorsed a resumption of costing reviews and productivity-gain sharing….
In the midst of the current farm income crisis, I urge you to pursue only those transportation system changes which maximize savings for farmers. …
– Cory Ollikka,
National Farmers Union,
Waskatenau, Alta.
Facing extinction
To the Editor:
The governments of Canada and the provinces use the excuse of foreign trade distorting subsidies for the current crisis in agriculture. However, the reality is quite different.
The crisis was created and made worse by the premature endorsement by our government of the elimination of subsidies to Canadian farmers. Once again, the excuse was debt.
Many farmers, especially the ones that take pride in being independent and competitive, have bought into the Canadian government argument that the ones to blame for the current crisis are foreign governments for their subsidy practices.
While this may be true to some extent, it shows a naivete bordering on stupidity to believe that our protests are going to effect changes in the policies of foreign, sovereign countries.
If pushed to the wall at the World Trade Organization, those countries that are politically wise enough to support their agricultural industries by subsidies will withdraw from the trading block, in the process creating another trading block.
It is time farmers in this country spoke with one opinion and many voices. The survival of farming as a viable business is at stake. We must demand a level playing field with our competition in other countries. If those other countries will not end their subsidies, the Canadian government and people must be made to realize that subsidies are a necessity….
Evolution is based on sustainability. If we as farmers cannot agree that a day’s work deserves a day’s pay, no matter how we receive it, then we are engaging in unsustainable behavior, and are doomed to extinction.
– Gordon R. Snow,
Evansburg, Alta.
Genetics useful
To the Editor:
I am amazed at the misconceptions that people have about genetically altered foods.
Since farmers began growing crops, they have continually tried to do things better and more efficiently. Genetic science has been a tool to assist in providing an abundance of easier to grow food for world populations.
In the early years of this century, Thatcher wheat was developed through breeding to protect the crop from rust. Cattle breeding produced better beef. Hog breeding produced longer, leaner pigs. The examples go on and on.
Is this not genetic alteration? Now we have tools to speed up the process, but the same process. If we can provide food at a cheaper price, these efforts should be applauded.
Are the poor going to check labels? No. They are going to look for the best bargains.
By developing genetic foods, we are helping not only the producer but also the consumer. We are also protecting the environment from unnecessary spraying.
Don’t remove the helpful tools that we farmers have to feed the world. We are able to make intelligent decisions that will benefit ourselves and the population.
– Dorothy Armstrong,
Star City, Sask.
Wrong tree
To the Editor:
In our last election the urban/rural split has intensified. No doubt the frustration of farmers who have to grow at or below the cost of production is to blame this time around.
I believe that farmers are barking up the wrong tree. Only the Federal Government has the key to the subsidy solution and they must now feel safe (because) the province hurting the most has a minority government and an opposition that has no political influence beyond our borders.
The Feds have sacrificed much of the powers of the dairy marketing board to get grain subsidies of U.S. and Europe removed, but they got nothing in return.
Their only honorable action now is to admit that prairie farmers are entitled to the same subsidies as the U.S. and Europe.
This is the issue that prairie farmers should have persuaded. Instead, they were locked in on a useless debate of the Canadian Wheat Board for it to be, or not to be.
In fact the Wheat Board may well be the last best friend farmers ever had. Had prairie farmers gotten their just share of subsidies in the last three years, then the prairie farm picture would not be that grim.
The election result has only weakened the prairie position in how to get the Feds to acknowledge their duty to prairie farmers after having gained no points at all in negotiations with the U.S. and Europe in trade talks….
– Ernest J. Weser,
Laird, Sask.
Short time
To the Editor:
The Wilkie Report Study Group engaged a proxy to take a written submission to Mr. Arthur Kroeger’s general information session held in Portage La Prairie, Man., on Aug. 30.
Our proxy reported that she spoke briefly with Mr. Kroeger while handing him our submission. He replied that our submission would be copied and distributed among the members of his commission.
She observed that few farmers were at the meeting to take part in discussions. She noted that several Agricore delegates expressed dissatisfaction with Estey Report proposals.
Our proxy expressed the opinion that the legislation was already written and that nothing new would come out of that day’s deliberations. As well, our proxy observed that since there was no consensus among the participants, Mr. Kroeger would take it as a licence to impose his way on the outcome of the proceedings and this would please the railways and grain handling companies, but it would not serve the interests of farmers….
As well, there appeared to be a concerted effort to distance the farmer from the Canadian Wheat Board, thus giving free rein to the grain companies.
Our proxy noted the short time frame encompassing the Kroeger hearings which caused farmers to be excluded because farmers are too busy to be involved when they must be attending to farm operations between June 1 and Aug. 31. The Kroeger commission report … will result in legislation before farmers will have been given a fair chance to defend their interests.
Our study group suggests that all individual farmers and persons directly affected by the farm economy write to their member of Parliament to take action to prevent the department of transport from instituting changes to grain handling and transportation based on the Estey Report regulations until the farm stakeholders are satisfied that their voices have been heard and that their interests are truly being represented by the federal government.
– Lois Weber,
Chair, Wilkie Estey Report Study Group,
Wilkie, Sask.
Preserve farmers
To the Editor:
It is now apparent that it has taken an absolute agricultural bottom of the barrel downturn to expose the way the system has been stacked against the farmer.
Farm aid programs like AIDA are designed not to pay out and lump grain and livestock income altogether, in the hope livestock income will negate the losses on grain and therefore negate a payout.
The completely unfair portion of school tax on farmland, which is becoming increasingly disproportionate to the revenue generating capacity of the land. The Wheat Board with its so called interest-free cash advance with its hidden cost of repayment by devalued barley in comparison to feedlot prices, and its retroactive interest charges.
The differed inputs that most elevators offer, due Oct. 31, guarantees deliveries of cheap grain or the option of retroactive interest. The freight costs that take almost half of the price of most grains. …
The farmers lived with these inequities but with grain prices at 50 percent, it’s impossible to support the revenues of governments and companies.
The farmer has been completely forgotten in everyone’s blind quest for revenue and control. Canada has to put the farmers’ interests first and foremost to all other interests.
The alternative is a complete annihilation of the family farms and the rural communities they support.
Quit playing politics with farmers’ lives and help preserve rural Canada.
– John Olinik,
Kelliher, Sask.
Food strike
To the Editor:
After the (Saskatchewan) nurses’ strike I started wondering why it is that. after hundreds of years that people have been farming. we are not a more united front.
The nurses are providing an essential service – care and nursing. Are we not providing … food? Where would the world be without their daily ration of grains, vegetables and meat?
The nurses are only asking for fair wages for the services they provide. Do we not want fair price for our product? Is that too much to ask for?
Everyone else is getting their fair market value for driving the train or loading it. How about those processors? The flour mills? The feed plants?
Why can’t we gather together and provide a united front like the nurses? Can’t we go on strike and withhold our product?
Wouldn’t we have a say if we all decided to hold back the food?
– Christa Marcotte,
Torquay, Sask.
Farm power
To the Editor:
Congratulations to all the farmers in Saskatchewan who finally have gotten together to do something on behalf of themselves as a group.
In showing your vote from rural Saskatchewan, you have given yourselves an opportunity of bringing your issues to those decision makers in Federal (Eastern) Canada, by the power of your vote.
In addition, another realization has been perceived. Here is a pure example that if all farmers work together and in one voice, as your vote has provided, you will be heard across the country. Including Ottawa.
Your actions have provided all of you the opportunity in finally seeing that power is what changes the leaders’ minds, and not the issues.
The farmers’ issues to date, as pertinent as they are, in my opinion has never changed the Federal decision makers minds. It is the power of those who make the request that will make an impression in the decision makers’ minds in Ottawa.
I believe the farmers in Saskatchewan have taken the initial first step in getting their attention. Now is the time to continue on your efforts and get together with all other farmers in all the other provinces and select a leader to speak as one.
– George Choboter,
Calgary, Alta.
Not Clydesdales
To the Editor:
As a city dweller I eagerly await Thursday morning of each week for the Producer to stay abreast of all the agro news.
Your picture and description of the new AgPro Grain Terminal at Trochu, Alta.,(Sept. 2) was interesting but the horses in the foreground ain’t no Clydesdales.
Even some city folks would know that.
– Don Morris,
Moose, Jaw, Sask.
Proposal problem
To the Editor:
The Canadian members of the Prairie Pasta group have requested an exemption from the Canadian Wheat Board buyback system, so farmer members can pocket the domestic human consumption price for durum.
They are asking that members be allowed to cherry pick prices in the often higher priced North American market.
The majority of farmers have repeatedly voted in favor of the CWB and single desk selling. Whether Prairie Pasta members like it or not, they are part of a group marketing plan under the CWB.
If you complete a buyback you have the right to market your own product. With a buyback, you are in effect purchasing the right to market your durum outside of the group. …
Why is this such a key business issue that this alone will determine whether the proposed facility is built in Canada?
Prairie Pasta has accepted that as a processor they must pay the same price as all other durum processors in this market. So the real issue is whether Prairie Pasta farmer members must participate in the CWB system on an equitable basis as all other farmers.
Not surprisingly, they want to be outside of the system, so they can receive premium prices from the North American market, while the rest of us take lower blended prices from the domestic and international markets.
This means non-member farmers will be subsidizing Prairie Pasta members. If the pasta plant is not economically viable on its own merits and will only be built at the expense of other farmers, then it shouldn’t be supported….
Prairie Pasta should stop using their proposal to dismantle orderly marketing at the expense of other farmers.
No one is against farmer owned value-added processing, but exempting Prairie Pasta farmers from the buyback will lower the durum pool account and give the majority of durum farmers lower prices.
– Ian Cushon,
Oxbow, Sask.
Cold indifference
To the Editor:
Canadians look toward the millennium with mixed emotions.
The past has created only a rapid deterioration in our lifestyle. In the beginning, farmers moved into prairie parkland to establish their farms by hand alone, but they prospered without railways, computers and powered machinery.
In spite of the years of research and scientific analogy we cannot survive on a farm. The most disturbing aspect confronting us is the cold indifference displayed by the federal government. We are reminded of the small boy playing hooky from school when the fish were biting.
– H.W. Jackson,
Falher, Alta.
