Hog help
As a Canadian pork producer, I am appalled that the Conservative government has failed on its election promise to support Canadian agriculture.
My family and I have been farmers for generations but I honestly don’t know how much longer we will be in the hog business.
The high Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar, along with a near doubling in feed costs over the past year, has been devastating for our operation.
We are at the point where we have to decide which bills to pay. Of course, feeding our hogs comes first.
Read Also
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.
I know I am not alone. There are 11,000 other hog producers across the country and they all face the same crisis, the worst in 30 years. We are losing money on every hog we sell.
All my family and I want is a short-term loan backed by the federal government so we can stay in business long enough to adjust to the increased Canadian dollar and feed costs. It costs the government nothing.
I care about my hogs. I wish the Harper government did as well.
– Clare Schlegel,
President, Canadian Pork Council,
New Hamburg, Ont.
CWB priorities
I was disappointed to see Garry Breitkreuz’s (MP Yorkton-Melville) misleading comments about barley marketing in some newspapers.
He wrote that “the CWB dictates how much and when farmers may sell their barley.
“That interference resulted in the sharp drop in prices when barley marketing choice was swept off the table.”
If you follow Mr. Breitkreuz’s logic, than he must also credit the CWB’s single desk for the sharp increase in barley prices in the five months since the federal court ruling on July 31, 2007.
Which is it, Mr. Breitkreuz? Was the CWB responsible for prices when they went down for two days or while they’ve been going up for five months?
The truth is, of course, that there are many factors that impact feed and malting barley prices, including world supply and demand, availability of cheap U.S. corn as an alternate feed source, production or quality problems in major malting regions of the world and the growth and development of new markets.
I wonder why, when there are so many factors beyond an individual producers’ control, Mr. Breitkreuz’s government wants us to give up the one tool that allows us to extract some additional value from the marketplace – our single desk?
I agree with him that farmers want more choices, which is why the farmer elected directors on the CWB, on which I sit, has made this our priority for the 2007-08 crop year.
But these choices have to be designed at putting more money in our pockets, not increasing the margins that the line companies and maltsters make off of us!
– Kyle Korneychuk,
CWB Director District 7,
Pelly, Sask.
Barley & CWB
In local newspapers David Anderson, MP for Cypress Hills, stated that the removal of marketing choice in barley resulted in the single greatest drop in barley prices in the history of Canada.
This loss occurred only for a 40-hour period, this period only when the courts made the decision that malt barley be reinstated through the Canadian Wheat Board. After 40 hours, the prices rose back to the same levels.
Economists at the University of Saskatchewan, in a thorough study, stated there would be $125 million loss a year to farmers if barley is removed from the CWB.
Farmers better be careful of listening to governments telling us how a change is so good for us.
Just think back to the removal of the Crow Rate for our grain freight. Freight rates have increased drastically to the point that at least one third of our grain (value) goes for grain shipping….
The federal government is spending a large amount of money on the Port of Churchill and the rail line to it, at the same time doing its utmost to completely get rid of the CWB.
The CWB tries to move our grain the most efficient way, which for a large portion of our grain should be through the Port of Churchill.
If our CWB is eliminated, which is a farmers’ organization, the large grain companies are certainly not going to use this port, but would ship grain to the West Coast, to the facilities which the large grain companies own, thus increasing freight rates drastically. This would make the Port of Churchill almost obsolete.
The CWB vote was a loaded question, not a simple yes or no like it should have been.
The CWB is highly respected by importing countries around the world.
If lost, the farmers are the losers and the multinationals are the winners.
– Bill Howse,
Porcupine Plain, Sask.
ABP fails
It’s time to say enough is enough. The Alberta Beef Producers have failed us, the producers, for long enough.
It’s time for us as producers to phone or write our Alberta agriculture minister and tell him to make the cattle checkoff refundable. If the ABP think they are doing us good, they should not worry, they could still get their money, maybe more prudent, not waste it.
I personally am not opposed to a checkoff but it’s my money, I should have the privilege of donating to an organization that better represents my interests. It should not be a tax of government.
If the ABP were to close its doors tomorrow, it would not affect my farm income one iota. I might gain $3 per head and that would be better than that stupid cost-of-production cheque.
So producers speak up, let’s get results for our dollars.
– Alex Broadbent,
Lac La Biche, Alta.
Age verification
I have read The Producer for many years. I must admit that some of the letters included have had a negative influence on my blood pressure, but there was one in the Dec. 20 issue that I must reply to. It is on the mandatory age verification of cattle written by Guy J. Fontaine.
As a cattle producer I have age verified all of my calves since the beginning of this program. However, I am against making it mandatory.
The first year I age verified my cattle I managed to get a small premium. Last year I sold direct to Highland Feeders of Vegreville, Alta., into their natural beef program, where the calves had to be age verified and have had no implants.
For that they paid five cents over the previous week’s average (approximately $35 on 700 pound steers). Highland said that they receive approximately a 10 cent premium on their fats ($135), but at least we got something.
Now let’s say the whole premium was because of age verification – not quite true, but it makes it easier to make my point.
The very instant that age verification becomes mandatory, these premiums vanish and 100 percent of the cost of the whole program is dumped entirely on the ranchers’ shoulders.
If you want to make something mandatory, start at the packing plant, because the way things are right now, no matter how much documentation is with the animal, if the teeth don’t look right in their opinion, those papers are ignored and teeth overrule.
If you want to make something mandatory, make it mandatory that the grading results for the slaughtered animals get back to the cow-calf producer, something that would sure help at bull buying time. …
While all this arguing over age verification goes on, the American owned packing plants are just sitting back licking their lips. If age verification is made mandatory these packing plants will be handed an age verified premium product that they will not have to pay an extra penny for. …
So Mr. Fontaine, if you want to flex your muscles, start where the real problem lies. Why was the 1999 age limit on live cattle export imposed when once the cattle are in the box, there is no age limit? It was imposed to supply these plants with a cheap supply of cull cows. Cull U.S. cows were rarely below 50 cents a pound this fall. Do the math.
If mandatory BSE testing had been imposed the week that the first cow tested positive, this whole mess would be behind us by now. We would have stolen those premium markets and we would be in the gravy, instead of the stew we find our beef industry now….
– Alf Fleming,
Irma, Alta.
Latimer travesty
It is unfathomable that there are people out there who seem gratified to see Robert Latimer continuing to serve his life sentence for the murder of his severely disabled daughter in 1993, following the recent decision by the National Parole Board to keep him behind bars.Â
Such a sentence is a national disgrace. …It’s very plain that the justice system all the way gave Latimer a bad rap, charging him with murder and not mercy killing. … Latimer certainly warranted parole. All of his psychological and parole reports said he was at low risk to re-offend.
After all, Colin Thatcher, a convicted murderer, was let out onto our streets on day parole.
And we, the taxpayers, are paying for the present charade of a parole board to even exist!
– Audrey Jensen,
Red Deer, Alta.
Wants choice
A new year has arrived and the CWB is still holding onto the monopoly for barley and wheat.
The CWB demanded a plebiscite on barley, saying let the farmers decide. Over 62 percent of producers voted for choice when marketing their barley, but as usual the CWB has no respect for the farmers’ wishes and the democratic process.
Malt barley has been consistently trading at $6 a bushel or better in all points in Montana and North Dakota since harvest. The pool return outlook at CMI Terminal at Naicam, Sask., for six-row malt is $4.07, a difference of approximately $2 per bu.
The PRO on hard red spring No. 1 wheat 13.5 protein is $7.23. Wheat is trading well over $10 per bu. for our neighbours in the U.S. and also to producers in Ontario.
The CWB is not returning a premium to producers as they so claim. They are selling our wheat and barley at a huge discount, yet in their own words “farmers of Western Canada grow the highest quality grain in the world.”
That is pathetic, when farmers provide the CWB with the highest quality product and we get the lowest price.
John DePape, a respected grain consultant from Winnipeg, has done extensive research in comparing North Dakota and Montana prices for wheat and barley to what Western Canadian producers receive from the CWB.
DePape’s research indicates that in the crop year 2006-07, western Canadian producers got short changed to the tune of $1 billion compared to what wheat and barley growers received in the U.S.
DePape predicts that the losses will be ever greater in the 2007-08 crop year.
The second huge loss is in the value added sector. Value is in processing the raw commodity, not in exporting the raw commodity. Under the CWB rules, it is impossible to add value to our wheat and barley.
We see our small towns in Western Canada die. We see our young people moving to greener pastures.
If we want to see real and sustained economic growth, every single producer should demand the end to the CWB monopoly. It has never worked and in these times of volatile markets we see the missed opportunities even more.
The new marketing scheme for barley put forth by the CWB is just more of the same old rhetoric. It does not give us price transparency, nor does it give us marketing freedom. It is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing….
– Charles Anderson,
Rose Valley, Sask.
Societal factors
Re: Pickton trial.
Robert Pickton, a pig farmer from B.C., becomes sacrificial lamb for the appetite for vengeance of a dysfunctional society.
The accusations from the victim’s family and some from the uninvolved public that justice was not served should be interpreted to read that vengeance pie was not served.
By laying all the responsibility on the offender, society gets off scot free.
All responsibility for the murders is laid on Pickton. If the offender is responsible for everything, society is responsible for nothing.
But Pickton did not come from another planet but was raised and conditioned by our society. He was a product of all the experiences that happened to him in his societal environment.
And what about the societal environment of the city of Vancouver? Specifically, why were there no opportunities for these women to support themselves and their children other than resorting to prostitution?
Every person and every situation has to be understood in the context of the history and total societal environment. If justice were to be truly done, we have to examine the societal factors that influence the victim and the victimizer.
The justice system is only interested in punishing the guilty with the hopes that the historically discredited system of punishment will bring about the New Jerusalem.
– Michael Mowchenko,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Wheat sales
Farmers got their final wheat payment for 2006-07 and got at least $1 a bushel less than they should have. On the cheque it says final payment, no premiums for the farmers.
In the spring of 2006 there were signs of drought in many parts of the world and yet the Canadian Wheat Board gave away your grain at below production costs.
Remember last January, when the CWB said a farmer in Ontario getting $5.50 for his wheat was getting less than a farmer through the CWB? Because the CWB was selling wheat for $6.95 a bu.
The farmer who went through the CWB finally got paid for his wheat 15 months later at APP $4.40 a bu. for the best wheat in the world.
How is this higher and where is the premium? …
This fall, every time a farmer locked in a fixed price for wheat through the CWB, they were at least $1 a bu. lower.
Farmers are getting shafted a lot more now than any farmer did in the 1950s.
I myself have lost up to $40,000 in one year because of the CWB and this is money that is not spread around Western Canada.
Why isn’t anyone giving the facts in these papers every week of the price differences? Keystone Agricultural Producers checked out fertilizer prices between North Dakota and Manitoba. Why didn’t they compare the grain prices between CWB and North Dakota the last 10 years?
Where are the premiums for the farmers? Are they scared of what they will find?
– Gordon Falk,
Killarney, Man.
Speak out
We all have a responsibility to help save our planet.
Family members were very excited when a large box arrived at their house, for they knew it was a gift sent to them by a relative who lived in the far away tropics. Inside the box was a live and strange looking bird; a bird of beautiful plumage.
A week had passed when a phone call from the relative asked: “How did you like the gift I sent”?
“It was great.” replied a family member. “We really enjoyed it. It was delicious.”
“What!” exclaimed an angry voice. “You ate the parrot? That was a very expensive bird and it could speak both official languages, English and French. It wasn’t meant to be eaten.”
“Too bad,” replied the family member. “It should have said something.”
As we anticipate our future and goals for the new year, this also might be a time to reflect on our accomplishments and some of the challenges that we have encountered and tried to deal with in the past.
One suggestion would be the polluted lakes and rivers in our province and the unrelenting greenhouse gas effects.
The message is very clear and simple: you, me and others have to begin speaking out to get the needed changes to save our water sources, our air and the environment.
The greed and ravages of corporate and industry to our resources must be confronted. The pollution and plunder must be stopped.
And don’t rely on others alone to do this job, for we all have the capability and obligation to contribute something.
We have to speak out.
For the sake of all humanity and those yet unborn, think of what happened to the parrot.
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
More measures
I want to clarify a statement that was made by Don Budesheim of Grande Prairie, Alta., in his letter “Metric division,” Dec 06.
In his lengthy letter that used complex mathematical conversions from the traditional Imperial system of weights and measures to the “SI” or metric system, Mr. Budesheim quotes me as having said or written that: “land measurements using the Imperial system are easily and evenly divisible by the magic number of 12 rather than 10.”
He further quotes me as having suggested that: “land would have to be redivided when the metric system came into effect some 30 years ago.”
Not only is Mr. Budesheim unfamiliar with the English system of weights and measures, he is also unfamiliar with the English language. I never implied that land be redivided. I was merely quoting what I had witnessed at a political gathering in Gravelbourg, Sask., a few months prior to the introduction of the metric system in or about 1977.
As for dividing by 10 and 12, the basic lineal measurement for the Imperial and customary U.S. system is the foot that was originally divided by 12 inches.
The basic lineal measurement for the SI (Systemes Internationale) or metric system is the metre that is divided by 10, 100, 1,000 etc. It seems to me that wasn’t really all that hard to fathom.
The method of measurements that Mr. Budesheim used to describe the township is rather odd. I live in a 1,200 square foot bungalow. For practical purposes, I measure on the outside extremity of the building. I don’t measure the inside of the exterior walls and describe the home as an 1,129.5 square foot, or a 104.93 square metre bungalow.
Incidentally Mr. Budesheim, how often do you see a residential home described in metric measurements?
– John Hamon,
Gravelbourg, Sask.
National disgrace
Re: Robert Latimer.
I want to add my name to the petition floated by the Civil Liberties Association and delivered to the federal government in 2001, which was signed by more than 60,000 Robert Latimer supporters.
The decision by the National Parole Board to keep Robert Latimer behind bars for an indefinite period of time is a national disgrace.
Without going into a lot of detail, one need not search hard or long to uncover flaws in judgments made by the above mentioned board through the years.
Considering the fact that Robert Latimer is an upstanding Canadian citizen with no previous criminal record speaks well for him. Obviously, the petitioners – more than 60,000 – found Mr. Latimer is no threat to society.
They question the dubious accuracy and vague assumption of the decision rendered by the NPB.
If another such petition is circulated, rest assured, it would swell to unfathomable numbers.
Consider 12 years of extreme pain and suffering felt by Tracy Latimer and family, a further seven years of pain by Robert Latimer’s imprisonment, both adding up to a total of 19 years. How much more pain should our government and society inflict on the Latimer family?
There can be no doubt that there must be a NPB review that will thoroughly examine decisions and recommendations made by the existing board.
Further, every elected member of the House of Commons, from the prime minister down, must bear the responsibility of ensuring that public opinion such as 60,000 petitioners are not totally ignored.
We now have the opportunity to bring this unacceptable situation to the attention of our elected representative when he/she arrives at your door soliciting your support in an upcoming election.
– John Seierstad,
Cedar, B.C.
