Letters to the editor

Clarity needed

We Canadians are presently observing the “changing of the guard” in Ottawa.

This implies radical changes in policy direction in many areas, including agriculture.

May an 80-year-old geezer, who has spent a major portion of his life attempting to improve the farmer’s status in society, make a few observations on what some of those changes should incorporate?

Our farm corporation recently received the CFIP Claim Summary for the 2002 claim year. I have no way of knowing whether their figures are correct or not because I basically don’t know what in hell they are talking about.

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Though I studied the instructions in the handbook and guide carefully, I can see little relationship between the instructions and guidelines there and the methods used in calculating the CFIP (Canadian Farm Income Plan) payment. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly stupid or unenlightened man and so must conclude that if I don’t get it, there must be thousands of other farmers who don’t get it either.

Let’s have some clarity here so that more than a few government accountants can understand what’s going on.

It appears to me that the various aid programs … are based on the 1968 Task Force Report on Agriculture’s flawed assumption that a large proportion of farmers must be removed to make farming viable in Western Canada.

Thus various guidelines have been set up that serve to distribute the majority of available aid money to those few larger farmers or farm corporations who need it the least, while the smaller operations are discriminated against.

This system is entirely backwards. If you provide a struggling small farmer with aid money, I will guarantee that within a week he will have returned it to the economy by paying down accounts or purchasing much needed repairs or supplies.

When you consider the well known fact that when a farmer spends a dollar on his operation, he generates $7 in economic activity, you discover that by concentrating on smaller farmers, the government makes a lucrative investment in agriculture, rather than a costly handout.

If meaningful change is to be effected in agricultural programs, there will have to be change in personnel in the department of agriculture.

I entirely agree with Mr. Karwacki, leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal party, when he indicated during the recent Saskatchewan election campaign that to bring about necessary changes to the agriculture aid programs, it is not enough to merely replace the minister. The officials who were architects of the programs must be removed as well.

– R. Don Robertson,

Liberty, Sask.

Many goodies

What do we get for nothing? Here in Saskatchewan, we’ve just gone through a festive season (the election) whereby we were promised all kinds of goodies – very few of them healthy but tasty….

Let’s look at a promise of 15 percent cut in education tax to farmers. On a 160-acre farm assessed at $22,000, mediocre land, saleable at $40-$60,000, able to produce wheat $15-$20,000, oats $12-$16,000, barley $18-$22,000, canola $20-$24,000, the education tax cut would be $66. These figures vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as well as with the type of land.

The government would cover the 15 percent. Any and every business building is equitably assessed as well, we hope. The business pays the full share plus the farmers’ share (15 percent), makes for good friendship.

As is natural, the business must increase income to pay for the added cost. This … raises the cost of service or produce, therefore collects more GST and PST. The GNP goes up.

The working class needs more money to pay for the produce. As well, the farmer also pays more. Who won or gained? Would this have created more jobs for record keeping perhaps? Would it bring more people home to Saskatchewan? I doubt this very much, but you, the public, decide.

I’m certain that many may find fault and error with the above. Let’s hear what it is.

– E. O. Oystreck,

Yorkton, Sask.

Hopper enemies

Farmers have at least one thing in common: all detest grasshoppers. Some would like to poison them into oblivion while still others are strongly opposed to this practice, arguing it interferes with nature.

Poisoning, they maintain, also eliminates any natural enemies the hoppers might have, the question being should we eliminate grasshoppers or promote their natural enemies? Maybe we just need a few grasshoppers to control grasshoppers?

Oldtimers used to say they had a seven-year cycle but poisoning has probably disrupted this. Interestingly, Alberta Agriculture research scientists recently reported the classical migratory grasshopper, having endured hundreds of (grasshopper) generations, is suddenly disappearing in parts of Saskatchewan, also southern and eastern Alberta.

Even the experts can’t understand why.

The next time you are out there, stop and think about what you might really be doing.

I know of some farmers who still claim to control grasshoppers by spraying the outside round or two. Now anyone knows a hopper can jump 25 feet, 35 times a minute, and don’t think they don’t know where the middle of the field is.

But amazingly this practice seems to work, except the hoppers keep coming back into those outside rounds and they have to keep spraying them over again.