Cattle groups
Re: “Beef groups plan united funding effort,” (WP, Feb. 14.)
Both of Saskatchewan’s major cattle producer groups have not signed on for the creation of a new check-off funded organization.
It would be more correct to say that the president and some of the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association have signed on without consulting the members they were elected to represent.
There has been a concerted effort by the above mentioned to form the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association without allowing the entire membership to review and vote on the proposal.
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Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Such a change to the SSGA will have a profound effect on the cow-calf producers in Saskatchewan and deserves more study by those affected.
Are we ruled by a study done by Framework Consultants of Calgary? This study was requested by the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association. Why are the cow-calf producers in this province obligated to a change recommended by a study bought and paid for by SCFA with check-off dollars?
What is this new bureaucracy going to cost us by way of increased checkoff? What will the office structure be? How will the crop district representatives be elected and what will the cost of that process be?
These questions and more were asked at the semi-annual meeting of the SSGA in January and there were answers for none of them.
Obviously the goal is to get the organization set up, gain control of the check-off fund and let the producers deal with and pay for the consequences.
It was made very clear at the semi annual meeting that the new organization is going ahead with or without the membership support of the SSGA.
As life members of SSGA, we are outraged that the membership is held in total disregard by these directors. If this is their idea of democracy, then we certainly do not want check-off dollars controlled by them….
Hopefully those concerned about the direction of the cattle industry in Saskatchewan will take it upon themselves to get information on this issue and attend the 95th annual convention in June and help democracy prevail.
Please note this is the 95th convention. For most of a century the SSGA has been the effective voice of cow-calf producers in this province. It has grown, changed and had difficult times, as all organizations do, but has endured the test of time.
It is our responsibility to ensure that our voice is not diluted or discarded.
– Ross and Heather
D. Beierbach,
Maple Creek, Sask.
Compromise
I am writing in response to Mr. David Anderson’s letter (Open Forum, Feb. 7.)
I don’t know if selling malt barley is better on the open market or under the (Canadian) Wheat Board, and I’m sure Mr. Anderson doesn’t know either.
If the open market on barley is anything like the open market on cattle, where two big American packing companies pretty well control the cattle industry in North America, then the open market deserves a bit of thought.
On the barley vote, I don’t understand why the producers weren’t given a clear choice on only two options: those in favour of selling on the open market or those in favour of selling under the wheat board as the only marketing agent.
Naturally a dual marketing system would be desirable, just for the competition alone, but it would take a lot of compromise on both sides to make it happen.
I get the feeling that neither the board nor the government want to compromise.
I think Mr. Anderson and his fellow MPs could and should spend more time on a working compromise between the board and the open market so the producers would truly have choice of how they want to market their grain.
– Albert Salaba,
Killdeer, Sask.
New low
(Federal agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz’s exaggerations and insults against the CWB and its farmer base set a new low that makes me uneasy. I hope we can do much better when it comes to rural parliamentarians.
First, Mr. Ritz snidely offered that he replied to “both” the letters he received from pro-board supporters. Later, he called some pro-board supporters “the tin foil hat and decoder ring crowd out there.”
Mr. Ritz followed up that nasty remark with a claim that single-desk supporters are telling him they believe the CWB has “betrayed” them. He says “those numbers and those calls are going up exponentially.”
I have to say I don’t believe that.
I suppose there haven’t been many letters from pro-board farmers to Mr. Ritz. But enough said. The explanation is found in Mr. Ritz’s own vitriolic and disrespectful words. What would be the point? I’ll work to retain the CWB and its benefits to my farm, but it won’t be by writing to this minister of agriculture.
Voters need to get him out of the public eye. What must prime minister Harper think of farm people to visit such a minister of the crown upon us?
– Wendy Manson,
Outlook, Sask.
Double fast
To understand daylight saving time, one should review history. Think of the trouble Canadian Pacific had in setting train schedules when clocks were set by a sundial.
Noon in Regina was not the same in Moose Jaw or Swift Current or Maple Creek. By dividing the world into 24 strips, everyone within each strip will have the same time. It works out when in the centre of each standard time zone one can stand on an east-west road on March 21 or Sept. 21 and see the sun come up the middle of the road a 6 a.m. and set straight west at 6 p.m.
We in Saskatchewan have problems. The line is not at our border. It would be awkward to have Regina in one time zone with Moose Jaw and Saskatoon in another. Those living near the eastern border would like their time the same as Winnipeg. Those on the west would like to time with Medicine Hat.
Every year, on March 21, if you are in a line with Saskatoon to Moose Jaw and look to the east, you see the sun rise about 7 a.m. We are an hour ahead, or fast time to where the original planners would have put us.
So, in typical Saskatchewan compromise, when the others go on daylight saving, for part of the year we are with Winnipeg, the rest of the time with Medicine Hat. If we move our clocks ahead another hour, will we call it double fast time?
– Lorne Jackson,
Riverhurst, Sask.
Remain strong
As Harper/Ritz government cannot make the changes democratically, they pressure the (CWB) by continuing their attack started on Jan. 29, one month before the Federal Court of Appeal hearing on Feb. 26 of the government of Canada’s appeal of July 31, 2007 re: barley marketing.
…It is critical for barley marketing to remain under the board and for the board to remain independent from government influences.
I believe it is well understood that the Harper government hates the CWB and wants it gone. The competition of a dual market and rigged plebiscites are a smoke screen to fool some producers and confuse others. …
Mr. Ritz is working for the good of multinational grain companies, not farmers and consumers. It looks like the Harper government is promoting their agenda by telling half truths.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Ritz listens only to a minority of the Western Canadian Barley Growers than to the majority of farmers of Western Canada. Most of the CWB board of directors are pro CWB, as they should be. Who ever heard of establishing a committee that is against itself?
I would encourage all of the board of directors and farmers to remain strong against the Harper government attacks and to not be pushed around by the directors who do not believe in democracy. All directors have an obligation to do what is in the best interest of the CWB and not to undermine it.
– Marcella Pedersen,
Cut Knife, Sask.
Price difference
After reading the Open Forum for the last few weeks, it appears that there are still a few die-hard Canadian Wheat Board supporters left out in the hinterland. I direct my comments to these poor misguided souls.
Watching the grain market since harvest has been a farmer’s dream come true. Every crop that was grown in Western Canada made a resurgence that has made all grain farmers smile.
But as the fall wore on, we watched what was offered to our U.S. counterparts and what they were receiving for their wheat, durum and barley. Prices are setting all-time highs in elevators in North Dakota and Montana, while we in Western Canada can only watch our computer screens and be envious of our American neighbours.
Berthold, N.D. Jan. 25, 2008, prices: Spring wheat: old crop – $12.50 per bushel; new crop – $9.50 per bu.
Durum: old crop – $21 per bu.; new crop – $13 per bu.
Barley: old crop – $6.50 per bu.; new crop – $6.25 per bu.
Questions were asked of our politicians and wheat board officials of why is durum selling for $20 a bu. in Montana and our latest PRO is in the $12 range and the answers were all the same: a load of B.S.
It seems that our wheat board officials think that all western farmers have brain damage or are just plain stupid. Anyone with a computer can go on-line and check prices at any elevator in the U.S. Bottom line, where’s the money?
To the wheat board supporters, I hope that you can justify these price disparities. The vast majority of us can’t afford to be socialists.
– Herb Axten,
Minton, Sask.
None so blind
(Federal agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz cannot understand the information provided to him by the CWB in regard to sales programs. (WP, Feb. 21.)
Reminds one of the theory that there are none so blind (as those who) refuse to see and none so deaf (as those who) refuse to hear.
The majority of farmers have been trying to tell Mr. Ritz the benefits of the CWB. Farmers elected directors to the board to work for them.
Mr. Ritz instead has his selection of farm groups who are made up of more industry people or cowboys who are looking for cheap feed grain.
Policies derived from ideology with no business plan are just so much hot air. Farmers once bitten by hot air are twice shy and not buying it. Ritz should clean out his ears and remove his shaded goggles.
– J. Leahy,
Fort St. John, B.C.
No million
When the Alberta government admitted they have spent $1 million to destroy the institutions my father and thousands like him built, some in Alberta who contacted me said it’s more than that if the truth were known.
The National Citizens Coalition, when (Stephen) Harper was its president, had on their website they were going to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board. His undemocratic actions ever since prove it.
I don’t have $1 million like the Alberta government, but I made up my mind to do whatever I can so that will not happen.
When I was 10 years old, I listened to the many stories farmers told about what it was like before the (Canadian) Grain Commission set grades and dockages and checked scales and heard disputes about grade, before the CWB where you got a price initially regardless of when you delivered and not watched prices fall after harvest when you needed money.
I heard one of our neighbours tell he would not take the fall price so he stored it. They kept writing him to put up more margin. He ran out of money, so the Winnipeg Exchange sold him out.
No wonder they called themselves the take it or leave it generation. Is this marketing choice?
I have done a lot of reading about that period of the grain industry and have been involved in many areas over the years: vice-president of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, elected to the Advisory Committee of the CWB, on the Grade Standards Committee of the Grain Commission, gave presentations to our customers at the grain institute and a member of the marketing panel.
So don’t talk to farmers about marketing choice. Our fathers and grandfathers have been there. That’s why they built the organization we have.
Now government wants to eliminate kernel visual distinguishability without anything to distinguish our milling wheat from other non-milling wheats with no regard for the legal consequences by our customers….
– Avery Sahl,
Mossbank, Sask.
Gov’t help
As a cow-calf producer, I would like to ask what our government is doing for us?
We have all learned to swath graze, bale graze, rotational graze, even feed chaff to try to cut our production costs, but at present prices we are still rearing calves at a loss.
We had a promise last fall of $165 million from the Alberta government, but up to this present time we haven’t had a cent.
Keystone Agricultural Producers in Manitoba has a dossier to prove Canadian fertilizer is sold cheaper in the U.S. than here but our government declines to investigate.
In Alberta anhydrous ammonia is shipped south and sold for less than we pay. Ivermectin is $45 south of the line, $180 in the local Co-ops and ag stores.
Farmers of North America brings us glyphosate on the Own-Use Import program for $5.50 per litre and competition is bringing local firms into line.
There are lots of other cheaper chemicals down there, with the same ingredients as ours, but the government and the chemical companies are getting together to try to stop us getting them.
Road fuel gas or diesel is less in the U.S. and where do they get the raw material? You guessed it, from the suckers who pay the higher price….
To add insult to injury, this week our esteemed Mr. Ritz is berating us for not investing in the biodiesel industry but taking a holiday instead. (WP, Feb. 14.) Does he not realize it is the first time in eight years grain farming has paid for a holiday?
If we invest in biofuel and a couple of years down the line the government changes its mind on the percent of ethanol or biodiesel in fuel, we will all go broke….
We need help, from a moral government with some backbone, as well as financial assistance.
We can work on a level playing field, but if the government, the multinationals and the old established co-ops are all against us, who do we turn to?
– M. Shield,
Daysland, Alta.
Biofuel boon
Re: “Biofuel issue gets little analysis from ag committee,” (Opinion, Barry Wilson, Feb. 21.)
Biofuels are good news for farmers, the environment and the economy. That is why this government is working hard to ensure that Bill C€“33, amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, receives timely approvals.
A recent article printed in The Western Producer suggests that the government of Canada is fast-tracking the approval of Bill C€“33.
We are not alone in this. All parties are supporting this bill, recognizing the importance of biofuels mandates in a national renewable fuel strategy.
In fact, when these measures went through a legislative committee that included each of the environment critics, all sides were strongly supportive.
The government of Canada studies are clear: biofuels reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, those studies show that including five percent renewable content in gasoline and two percent renewable content in diesel and heating oil will reduce Canada’s greenhouse gases by four megatonnes annually, equivalent to taking almost one million cars off the road.
The bottom line is that the full life cycle of ethanol production, from field to fuel tank, produces 40 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline’s life cycle….
This government understands that biofuel technologies are growing by leaps and bounds every day. So we are also investing in the future for our environment and our farm families with $500 million to develop the next generation of biofuel technologies.
These new technologies will take products such as wheat straw and wood chips and turn them into valuable commodities to create even cleaner-burning, renewable fuels….
This type of balanced action is good for our economy and provides a cleaner and healthier environment for all Canadians.
– Gerry Ritz,
Minister of Agriculture and
Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board,
Ottawa, Ont.
Latimer sympathy
…(There was) a letter (in the Producer) the other day about that wonderful humane man Robert Latimer. It is awful the way the ignorant God-fearing people have more influence than the really caring people do.
That poor girl was a virtual guinea pig for doctors and her father did the only thing he could to save her from more pain….
– Wendy Hooke,
Vernon, B.C.
Pill & cancer
Re: Dr. Clare Rowson’s Feb. 7 column stating that the pill “appears” to lower risk of ovarian cancer. I find it frightening that the medical world and the media never fail to report when there “appears” to be some benefit to taking the pill, but at the same time almost always ignore significant reports on the harmful effects.
For example, since 1969 breast cancer has been on the rise, increasing by 30 percent and accounting for 29 percent of all cancers in women. In July 2005 the World Health Organization issued a press release stating that they placed estrogen-progesterone contraceptives into its group I classification, the highest classification of carcinogenicity, increasing a woman’s risk of breast, cervical and liver cancers.
In 2003 the National Cancer Institute had found very much the same results, stating a “significant increase” in the risk of breast cancer, as well as an increase in cervical and liver cancers….
Most recently, in 2007 the Canadian Cancer Society included oral contraceptives in their list of risk factors for breast cancer. …
So I hope that Dr. Rowson and her fellow health-care professionals will step back and take a look at the facts. A study that shows oral contraceptives “appear” to decrease the risk of one type of cancer versus several reputable studies showing specific increases in several types of cancer is just not significant enough to justify the continued widespread use of this carcinogen. We must remember that prevention is the best medicine.
All the pink ribbons and Walk for the Cure campaigns are useless if health-care professionals continue to prescribe this proven carcinogen and ignore the consequences while lives continue to be lost.
– Mary Theuerer,
Spring Valley, Sask.
Back to 1900
The federal Conservative government’s plan to amend the rules governing the Canada Grain Act will push the industry back to early 20th century standards.
Ottawa plans to remove the requirement (that) the Canadian Grain Commission act as watchdog to ensure elevator companies treat farmers fairly. It’ll be back to the turn of the last century when the elevators were generally shafting the farmers.
It also takes away the ability of farmers to take grain companies to court. All we are doing is going back to early 1900s. They’re shafting the farmers now quite well. If the CGC isn’t there, it’ll be unbelievable.
The CGC tests grain and adjusts elevator scales to ensure fairness for farmers and their mostly foreign customers. However, if (federal agriculture minister Gerry) Ritz has his way, there’ll be no independent agency with the power to stop companies from underweighing loads or paying farmers a grade less for their grain than it’s worth.
The Canada Grain Act prevents companies from ripping off farmers. (In the early days) inspectors found elevators were shortchanging farmers by 22 percent. Now CGC adjusts scales regularly.
The proposed changes won’t just affect farmers’ bottom line directly. They could also injure their reputation overseas. With the CGC checking and guaranteeing precise weight and grade standards, now foreign buyers have confidence they’re getting exactly what they’re buying. The changes will mean the end of the CGC facilities in Melville, Moose Jaw and Brandon.
I am suggesting it will likely become a grain testing facility with no oversight ability, no power. All we’re doing is going back to the early 1900s. This is progress of this Tory government.
– Edward Sagan,
Melville, Sask.
Lost confidence
The Canadian Wheat Board: do we want it? Do we need it?
For 12 years I have farmed. For 12 years I have been the wheat board’s biggest supporter. Single desk has got to be an advantage in getting the best price. Buyers must deal with one seller, not many, competing against each other in a world of too much wheat….
For three to four years I tried to lock in better prices. Sometimes I gained a little, sometimes I lost when compared to the board average prices. This year, 2007-08, I tried again early in the year but noticed that the basis was very low, by historical values near the bottom.
This was a no brainer. With nowhere to go but up, I locked in only the futures price, leaving the basis price open. If the basis returned to normal levels I stood to make up to 50 cents a bushel.
The basis didn’t return to normal levels but continued to fall, going into negative values never before seen. I didn’t make 50 cents. Instead I lost another 50 cents a bushel when I had to lock in the basis in October 2007.
This made me angry so I wrote CWB and asked them how they established the basis levels so I might better estimate where it might go. The CWB was very good getting back to me with an explanation: Basis is based on pre-sold grain, which we have no way of knowing the value or quantity; future sales, and we don’t know those values either; world production, and the board has experts studying these but they don’t tell us their numbers; grades; exchange rates; and market prices.
You get the picture.
Futures are based on Minneapolis grain exchange prices which, you guessed it, don’t reflect CWB sales values because Minneapolis does not deal with many of the boards’ buyer countries. The basis is used here also, to reduce futures to Pool Return Outlook values.
In fact the wheat board basis is just a tool to adjust the Minneapolis futures price to CWB’s PRO prices. The only way to better the PRO price is to lock in a good basis value and try to link it to a good futures price at a different time of year. We have some of the information to do this. Doing both together guarantees you get only PRO values.
Of course you are gambling against the CWB, which gets to look at the books – the sales, the future sales and the use of its experts in weather and world markets.
If you do find an advantage, the wheat board can always add an adjustment factor on top of its risk and management fees to keep you from getting too rich….
The CWB has to be willing to trash their average board prices and give farmers the ability to really market their grains, or they have lost my support. Too bad because they have done a lot of good for farmers in other areas.
– V. Sloman,
Ruthilda, Sask.
CWB question
I … am a strong supporter of the Canadian Wheat Board and have been supporting and encouraged by the changes the board has made to improve marketing options and services for producers in the past number of years.
I would like to ask farmers who are undecided on the future of the board: if the CWB is eliminated, whose best interests will be served – producers or large financial interests?
My sense is that the CWB issue comes down to two key issues. No. 1 is a question of balance of power in the marketplace. Over the years we have witnessed a gradual elimination of institutions, organizations, legislative and regulatory bodies, all in the argument of giving farmers more freedom.
However, I believe the opposite to be true, and none is more crucial than the CWB and regulatory changes to the Canadian Grain Commission. If producers believe that by eliminating the CWB, greatly reducing grain control regulations, that this will lead to stronger farmer voice and profitability, consider the second key question is the issue of individual interests versus collective.
It is my belief that the two are directly joined. So farmers, we work together through the Canadian Wheat Board to better ourselves individually but more importantly collectively as farm families and farm communities.
These are guiding principles that have shaped and fashioned who we are as a rural community in Canada. Are we going to allow foreign financial interests, primarily American, to abandon these shared values? …
As a director on the Wheatland Rail Inc. Board, it would have been very difficult to save our rail line and retain producer cars without the assistance and direction of the CWB and grain commission. I would also point out that the major railroads and Western Canada Elevators Association have been working diligently to undermine this program so that farmers will be captive at the inland terminals. …
– Armand A. Roy,
Hoey, Sask.
Under his skin
It appears that in walking away from the talks on barley with (federal agriculture) minister Gerry Ritz, the farmer-elected directors of the CWB got under his skin.
This has been helpful because in a news teleconference and later comments in the House of Commons, a fired up and emotional Ritz disclosed the true intentions of the Harper government in regards to barley and the CWB.
Ritz said they want to kill the CWB and its ability to bargain collectively on behalf of farmers.
From the Feb. 13 teleconference:
Ritz: “Well, it means the board has sufficiently stalled things long enough that they’ll survive until after the election, when we come back with the majority. Then all bets are off.”
Ritz was more explicit during question period. From Hansard, Feb. 14: “Mr. Speaker, the member opposite should be careful because that high horse he is riding on (referring to the CWB) is not leading a parade, it is headed to the glue factory.”
On barley the minister was equally candid, saying the government wanted cheap barley so that livestock producers could survive and provide cheap meat for the big, foreign-owned processors.
From the Feb. 13 teleconference:
Ritz: “But we’ve got a struggling livestock sector out there that needs a lot more barley in the ground, not less, to try and bring the price down.”
Ritz’s heated comments ring true to the Harper government’s actions to sabotage and destroy farmer market power and turn the control of the Canadian grain industry over to their cronies at the multinational grain companies. It shows how false their sly, smooth talk of wanting to keep a strong CWB really is.
It must be a difficult task for Harper to try to keep his caucus caged and mouthing a non-threatening message until he achieves his coveted majority. I wonder what they say when they are not on the public record?
– Art Macklin,
DeBolt, Alta.
No limits
Why should the CWB or the multinationals control the farmer and what he produces? Why not a livestock and grain board run by farmers for farmers? Replace the people on the board if they don’t do a good job.
Right now the middle people are living very well off the farm produce. There is no end to the greed. As soon as the price of grain goes up, so does the price of fertilizer, chemicals, etc. There is no limit.
The consumer has all the say. We are only two percent of the population, however (when) the price of food starts going up, there will be a great cry to the government for assistance.
Oh well, the farmer gets welfare too. It’s called “get a job off farm” (maybe with) an oil company that is in control of the produce that makes biofuel and ethanol grown by that farmer. …
– O. Yanishewski,
Spirit River, Alta.
Gun rules
Re: banning handguns, who are they going to ban the handguns from? The honest handgun owners have more than enough rules and regulations to deal with. They are not the problem.
The criminals (and) gangsters will never have their handguns banned. They could make their own guns if they had to.
– Nickolas Rolan,
Surrey, B.C.
Bottom up
Has (Regina MP Ralph) Goodale been in politics so long that he has now turned into a dictator?
He and his Liberal party leader (Stephane) Dion waltz into a Saskatchewan riding and dictate to the people there as to who is going to be the future Liberal candidate in that riding without holding any nomination elections so that the people in that riding can’t vote for who they want.
We, the people, will not support any dictatorship garbage like that within our great country of Canada.
No political party or politician has the right to appoint people from the top down when Canadian democracy calls for party candidates being elected … from the bottom up.
It’s obvious that Goodale and his Liberal party have thrown Canadian democracy into the garbage can. It’s no wonder the Liberal party is spiraling downwards in the polls and in popularity….
Lets keep it Canadian, let’s keep it democratic, … with the … right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
– Lloyd Pletz,
Regina, Sask.
