Same gruel
… Here we are, back to the future, with another NISA (Net Income Stabilization Account) style farm program that didn’t fix farm incomes in the past and this program won’t either.
What’s with this Conservative government with all these western rural MPs and come to power with no clue to solving the number one farm problem: income. Why do we elect these jokers with no real policies or real solutions?
The cash injection (prime minister Stephen) Harper talked about, $400 million, is about $2,000 per farm on average so what the heck is that going to do?
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Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
There was an interesting article in the March 15 Producer stating that between 1985 and 2005 farmers lost $7 billion without government support. …
Agriculture is in crisis in this country as rural Canada sinks into decline, rural populations decline and farm families hang on with off farm income and living on their equity. Our so-called new government has nothing more than the same old gruel to dish out.
Farmers must be paid at least cost of production prices for what they produce or we will never solve this problem. Input costs continue to spiral out of control and with high and even higher future oil prices, farmers cannot survive or continue producing unless grain prices reflect these costs. It cost over $200 per acre to produce wheat (Manitoba Agriculture figures) and with an average yield of 30 bushels per acre we need $7 per bu. just to break even. And these costs are going higher.
We cannot and will not thrive on these types of hand-out programs. We must have a price and should have years ago moved to guarantee farmers a cost of production price as a base price for farm produce or face the continuing decline and death of rural Canada. We must stop this insanity.
– Terry Drul,
Oakburn, Man.
Take heed
The letter written by Mr. R.A. Johnson, Mayerthorpe, Alta. (Open Forum, March 15) prompted me to write a letter. Mr. Johnson said that he is in his 80s. I can relate to this as I was born in 1923, the same year as the Western Producer.
Mr. Johnson said that his parents had to sell wheat as soon as it was threshed because they had bills to pay. This was in the days before the Canadian Wheat Board so that wheat was sold cheap. If you could have held the wheat till the following summer the price was much better.
The people had to sell after threshing because there was an unwritten law that said the threshing bill was to be the first bill to be paid as the thresher man had all his expenses to be paid.
After the CWB came into being we got an initial payment at the beginning of the crop year and a final payment after July 31, which was the end of the crop year.
Like Mr. Johnson said, what can be more fair than that?
Younger farmers will not remember the days before there was a CWB so please take heed. The CWB will be squeezed out of business because they have no elevators and no terminals. We will be at the mercy of the multinationals.
All the countries that Canada has as wheat customers are really well pleased with the services that they receive.
The CWB has looked after all our business at a price of 10 cents per bushel. This is very reasonable compared to some of the expenses we have.
– Harry Froyman,
Vanguard, Sask.
Underground lines
… In response to a letter in the Feb. 15 issue from Raymond Nadeau of Fort Macleod, Alta., he was addressing an ongoing controversy in Alberta. He wrote regarding underground power with the suggestion of putting high voltage power transmission lines underground instead of using the usual manner of stringing them across country where they are always objectionable to someone.
True, underground lines could utilize existing right-of-ways (roads, railways, pipelines, canals, etc.). However, I wonder how safe they would be underground.
Given what electricity can do, these high voltage lines being capable of lifting a steel granary right off a truck, and of how we are warned that we shouldn’t park equipment or vehicles under them because of the extreme electromagnetic field created.
Mr. Nadeau mentioned the European practice of burying their electric lines but there is no mention of how strong the voltage is. With the high-tension power lines that are now causing such opposition here in Alberta, would we feel a tremendous unease when we walk across our driveways where an underground power line could be running? Would our vehicle stall? What would happen to someone picking up cans and bottles out of the ditches?
Of course, these same ditches are often water filled. What if frost heaves the ground, breaking the wires? I would like to know the safety issue before casting my support for putting power lines underground. On the farm, it’s a great idea. Across the country might be a different situation.
– L. M. Feldberg,
Wetaskiwin, Alta.
Strike mechanism
In early January 2007 I signed an agreement to sell some of my produce for some of the highest prices ever. Part of the agreement was that I deliver to the rail site during the last two weeks of February and first two days of March.
All timelines indicated a positive outcome to the delivery point until a 2,000 plus membership union decided to go on strike against Canadian National Railway. Because of the labour disruption all deliveries were delayed.
Spring thaw along with the necessary road bans have now arrived causing a further delay for delivery….
This strike not only disrupted people’s lives during the two weeks but has also had a ripple effect into the future not only for people wanting to move their product but also those requiring the product on a timely basis. Too many sectors of society are injured not only during strikes but also for quite a substantial time period after.
Modern society should not have to put up with the current strike system resulting in innocent bystanders being injured.
Society should place a totally new strike mechanism in place. I suggest a system where a union gives 48 hours notice of a strike or the business gives a 48 hour notice of a lockout. At that point a government representative or an accounting firm steps in and operates the business.
The business functions as if no strike or lockout was called. All workers report for work as per their regular work hours. During this lockout or strike period the business and union would be negotiating a settlement.
Also all profits the business would make plus all the salary the workers would get would be taken by the government representative of the accounting firm in charge. These profits and salaries would be split up and placed in such things as the Canada Pension Plan, Canadian Agriculture Income Stabilization, or various charities.
The aforementioned system would be a total plus for all sectors of society plus the only ones injured would be the two main combatants. After all, why should innocent bystanders be injured for someone else’s gain?
– Delwyn J. J. Jansen,
LeRoy, Sask.
Emperor speaks
It is rather ironic that the Harper government has gagged the CWB from publicly defending its single desk sales mandate.
The rationale is that since all farmers do not support the single desk, then the CWB should not be spending farmers’ money on something they do not support.
It is a weak position, because it dismisses the fact that the majority of elected CWB directors, eight out of 10, support the single desk. So the emperor is really saying that, even though the majority do support the single desk, the CWB cannot advocate its legislated mandate.
Where the emperor’s position really gets illogical is when his members of Parliament take out radio ads and newspaper ads, which advocate that producers need more choice and thus suggest the end of the single desk.
So, although farmers cannot defend their position through the CWB, taxpayers’ money through Conservative MPs can be used to attack the CWB – even though the CWB minister indicated the government would not use public funds to promote their choice position.
I guess the rationale is that the emperor has spoken and the country now dismisses the idea of freedom of speech and democracy with this new minority elected emperor. And the newly passed Accountability Act is all show and no substance on this issue.
– Kyle Korneychuk,
CWB Director,
Pelly, Sask.
Hate mail
Derogatory, unethical and personal attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board and its supporters have been going on for years. But this week they hit a new low.
It was revealed in the Alberta legislature that government of Alberta, department of agriculture computers were apparently used for sending threatening hate e-mail to a farmer-operated pro-CWB website.
However, the CWB haters using those Alberta government computers are just as technologically illiterate as they are market illiterate. They did not understand those hate e-mails could be traced. The website operator reports they came from Alberta agriculture department computers.
Confronted in the legislature, agriculture minister George Groeneveld denied he has any responsibility, moral or otherwise, for hate e-mail coming from his department’s equipment.
Since each computer has a unique serial number, it should be easy to isolate the individuals responsible and see that they are sent packing. However, Mr. Groeneveld promised no action.
This makes it appear he is comfortable with people using government equipment and time to spread hatred. If your readers want to see our Alberta tax dollars at work, simply go to www.savemycwb.ca and click on Rats in the Grain.
– Ken Larsen,
Benalto, Alta.
Poor treatment
The Saskatchewan Party is hammering the NDP for all its worth, and rightly so, over the Carriere episode. The treatment of the nine women affected was unbelievably bad.
Perhaps even worse was the treatment of the 300 wives and husbands who lost their spouses through the workforce. These people paid into an insurance which was not fully honoured by all provinces. In the case of the disenfranchised widows, the silence of the opposition was deafening.
What was the political inference that prevented the opposition parties from hollering just as loudly?
Is it that you attack issues that are sure to get you elected or re-elected?
– E. O. Oystreck,
Yorkton, Sask.
Stay in shade
Weather, temperature, climate are earthly elements all humans, animals and plants have in common and must deal with every day they are alive.
It was always said the weather is something we can do nothing to change and if you don’t like the weather today, just wait a few hours and it will change.
Recently there has been much concern and media attention about anthropogenic (man made) global warming, or AGW. A few years ago most of the concern was about global cooling. Many people are confused and don’t know who to believe or what to think. …
Here are a few points we all need to consider. First, you have to follow the money. Learn who will benefit financially or political by promoting this theory, true or untrue, and might try to turn this important issue into a money or vote-getting sacred cow. There could be a lot of money to be made and politics to be played on this AGW issue.
Now even the proponents of AGW are saying we might not know if there really is global warming or cooling for 100 or even a 1,000 years. That is easy to say but a difficult claim to prove. Who of us will be around even 50 years from now to say they were right or wrong?…
As a life-long farmer I fully realize we must take care of our land and environmental resources that feed our people. We farmers use humongous amounts of energy to produce our food so we are deeply involved in the care of our environment.
Some politicians are talking and promoting a carbon tax on all fossil fuels. In production agriculture we farmers buy retail, sell wholesale and pay the freight both ways with very little control of our input costs or commodity prices. A carbon tax could drastically impact production agriculture (and) might do very little to mitigate or solve a real or imagined problem, and another pot of money for politicians to spend.
The biggest danger of all is that the issue of AGW becomes a political football to be kicked around in the political arena. …
Remember, the unchanging reality of weather is that it will always change. Meanwhile don’t panic, don’t worry too much, stay informed, stay involved and stay in the shade.
– Kelly Shockman,
Lamoure, North Dakota
Tunnel vision?
The University of Saskatchewan has played a very important part of our farm’s well being. I have been a yearly financial supporter, though small, towards the College of Agriculture.
I have previously written a letter to the dean of agriculture expressing my dissatisfaction with two economists, Richard Gray and Murray Fulton, siding with Canadian Wheat Board monopoly supporters. This is not their job.
Richard and Murray’s analysis comes from pure speculation where mine is fact. My situation would apply to every grower who has grown durum in the last three years. I have documented proof of our farm losing thousands of dollars in durum revenue by being forced to store durum for up to three years before being able to sell.
Also by having to store durum, a perishable product, we had to pay to treat insects in it….
I could comment much more but it seems a waste of time to talk to someone like these two economists and other monopoly supporters with tunnel vision and a lack of respect.
Now I will talk with my pocket book as I will terminate my financial support to the College of Agriculture until such a time the college removes these two from the economics department and gives direction to their faculty to teach basics rather than putting opinions in peoples’ mouths.
Let those of us paying the bills decide on an individual basis how we want to operate our business….
– Ray Hilderman,
Strasbourg, Sask.
Drastic steps
I am pleased to note that an ever-increasing number of people are becoming conscious of the reality that our present rate of natural resource depletion, with its ancillary environmental damage, is unsustainable.
Preserving our planet’s ability to sustain life for future generations would mean giving up many freedoms. The private auto will have to go the way of the dodo. The mining of hydrocarbons will have to be reduced to a level necessary to sustain only essential heating, public transport and agriculture.
The production of nuclear waste will have to be curtailed. Wasteful use of potable water will have to cease. Luxury homes will have to give way to high intensity housing.
Planned obsolescence will be a thing of the past. The manufacture of consumer goods would have to be geared toward durability and necessity. Garbage will have to be reduced to a bare minimum, with emphasis on recycling.
This is to mention but a few of the drastic steps that would need to be taken. In other words, growth would have to be renounced and replaced with recession. Band-Aid solutions, while resource depletion and environmental damage are allowed to intensify, will not save our planet.
I have grave doubts that humankind, especially the affluent, will ever be prepared to deviate from their present destructive course. It seems that human selfishness and greed are destined to continue to triumph over compassion and common sense.
– William Dascavich,
Edmonton, Alta.
Energy use
The need to expand agricultural production in many parts of the planet, in order to facilitate the expansion of the land energy base, was one of the most impelling causes for many of the wars in recorded history. Agricultural production is an integral part of that energy base.
Increase in the production of food allows an increase in the world’s population.
For thousands of years food production for the most part was directly related and limited to the energy supplied to our planet by the sun.
In the 1950s and ’60s the world experienced the green revolution, which increased the production of food by 250 percent. By far the greatest increase was made possible through the use of fossil fuels to produce fertilizer, pesticides and hydrocarbons for irrigation.
To produce one kilogram of nitrogen requires the equivalent of 1.4 to 1.8 litres of diesel fuel. This does not include the national gas feedstock. In the U.S. in 2001, that amounted to a demand use of 96.2 million barrels of oil.
It is probably safe to say that this figure would roughly parallel the use of energy in Canada and other agricultural industrialized countries. In the U.S. (1994 data) the production of nitrogen represented 31 percent of agricultural energy use. This does not include all agricultural uses, nor does it include the energy costs of packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets and household cooking and heating.
Industrialized nations of the world are using up approximately 10 times more energy than is produced in food energy. All that energy has been made available by new technologies, making it possible to extract fossil fuels from the bowels of the Earth…
According to the world’s oil experts, at the present level of continued use throughout the globe, we would totally exhaust that supply of oil before the end of this century. The impending monumental change would have an impact on every human being on Earth, particularly urban populations…
– Leo Kurtenbach,
Cudworth, Sask.
