Feast or famine
During the past few weeks all media sectors have been highlighting the runaway wheat prices. Some U.S. markets have wheats over $25 per bushel.
For almost a full decade now those same markets were sending signals to the farmers that wheat was not needed. During that same time frame, world wheat production was not meeting demand, resulting in the stockpile constantly falling.
Even last spring U.S. markets were not in favour of more wheat production but 365 days later, wheat is king. From peasant to king with no constant middle ground – that is open market. Feast or famine. Live or die.
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The (Canadian) Wheat Board just like the dairy board represents stability. No feast, no famine.
To be honest, the federal government should destroy the dairy board at the same time as the wheat board. Then all farm sectors can feast or famine.
Do you like starving? I did not for the last 10 years.
– Delwyn J.J. Jansen,
LeRoy, Sask.
Easy to insult
I was quite taken aback to hear (federal agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz describe the majority of farmers in my district as the “tin foil hat decoder ring crowd” for supporting single desk selling.
Minister Ritz, recognizing that one seller can command a higher price than multiple sellers doesn’t make us crazy. It makes us entrepreneurs, ones who care more about our bottom line than partisan politics.
I’m more curious as to what the minister’s comments say about him, actually. Sixty percent of the farmers in my district supported my campaign in the last CWB director elections. I campaigned on a platform of supporting the single desk, against an incumbent who supported the myth of the dual market.
I would think that another elected politician would support the democratic will of the farmers who voted for me. I guess, though, it is easier to insult the farmers in my district.
It appears that the minister is unwilling to accept that perhaps he should be listening to more of the 70,000 grain producers in Western Canada rather than the 130 members of the Western Barley Growers and the 400-odd members of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers.
Perhaps he should also be listening to the farmer-elected directors on the CWB instead of telling us to get the hell out of this government’s way!
– Kyle Korneychuk,
CWB Board District 7,
Pelly, Sask.
Societal blame
Robert Latimer was sentenced for his daughter’s murder due to society’s failure.
If the Latimers would have lived in town, it would have been less of a problem for one of them to look after their daughter because one person would be working.
Living on a farm a lot of time requires two people to do things outside and as one always had to be with the daughter, as I understand she could not be left alone.
The government and aid society should have provided them help with labour.
When (Tracy Latimer) was put into a home so the Latimers could take a holiday, she lost 10 pounds in a short time. … The doctors were to operate on her; she was to be a guinea pig and no way they could make her a normal person.
I’m sure it bothered her parents 24 hours a day to think of her future and it would have driven them to a mental stage due to no help from any society.
The prosecuting lawyer, judge and members of the parole board should have been taking turns looking after her for one week. Then they would have had a better idea of what the Latimers were going through of which was the cause of the murder.
I’m not saying Robert Latimer did the right or wrong thing, but I blame society for what happened.
– Nick Bobyk,
Kamsack, Sask.
Malt barley
Paul Orsak writes, “Our malting industry will wither …Barley production in Canada will shrink.” (Opinion, Feb. 28.) Contrary to what Paul says, these comments are definitely threats and this is fear mongering.
Paul also stated that the world needs a half a million tonnes of new malting capacity per year. He is right and this is good news for my farm. More beer drinkers translate into malt barley demand regardless of where the malt plants are located.
I would love to see a malt plant close to my farm. Modern malt plants require $100 million investments. Investors making these decisions have shown a tendency to locate close to their markets and we Canadians are drinking less beer, not more.
It is cheaper to transport raw grain than it is to transport finished product and locating close to the market allows the business to be more responsive to its customers.
Malt plants that do choose to locate in Canada have the best of both worlds. They can purchase from the CWB or if they think that we are asking too much for the barley, they can import from anywhere in the world. There is no prohibition on barley imports into Canada and the buyer does not have to go through the CWB to do that.
There are a number of malt plants in Canada now and with the increased demand for malt barley they will have a profitable future. They are not closing down and there is no reason to believe that the malting industry will wither in the face of increased demand.
There is nothing stopping Paul Orsak from investing in the value chain. Most farmers will choose to invest in their own farms and earn premiums through the CWB in this time of high commodity prices.
Canada is one of a few countries in the world that can actually respond to increased malt barley demand. Whether new beer drinkers are in China or Mexico, we will meet that demand. Barley production in Canada will grow, not shrink and with the CWB marketing our grain, we earn millions of dollars in premiums. As a farmer elected director of the CWB, I have seen the numbers. I know.
– Rod Flaman,
Edenwold, Sask.
Beef trade
Twenty years of free trade with the Americans has not been good or sustainable for the Canadian beef industry. We have ended up with an unsustainable and dysfunctional system controlled by two American beef packing giants. It is time to give up free trade for fair trade.
Why should Maritime produced beef be priced lower than beef in the West? We only produce 15 percent of the beef the Maritimes requires. It is mostly all consumed here. Alberta beef travels much farther to reach its markets. There is absolutely no reason any beef producer in Canada should get a lower price than another.
Beef farmers, if properly paid, can do a lot to keep the agriculture in their provinces sustainable. Animal agriculture maintains soil fertility, use of local rotation crops and balance of cash flow in the rural economy.
More importantly, grass-based agriculture and small farm enterprises based locally, as opposed to feedlot alley” out in Alberta, have a lot of potential to reduce carbon footprints and other environmental liabilities.
Beef farmers in Prince Edward Island and everywhere else in Canada need to demand a nationalized pricing and selling structure. The government can spew about the importance of buying local but all the beef producers tell me that won’t make any difference when the plants pay so little. There is no replacing an orderly marketing system.
A nationalized beef system would be a lot better for the planet. If we match our total consumption in Canada to our total production in Canada, it could eliminate the need for imports of foreign beef, grown in place of rainforests, and shipped in by massively polluting vessels. Why should we be eating beef from the other side of the world?
To pull off a democratic policy change like this, the P.E.I. Cattlemen’s Association will have to sever ties with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. So will the other provinces. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association only has one opinion, and that is the Alberta opinion.
The Alberta opinion is controlled by the American beef companies and the feedlot operators who feed cattle on contract for them, thus making the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association counter-productive to the eastern cattle people’s survival.
Big business has had their way with us for the last 20 years. I feel that we are much worse off as farmers and a society and it is time to reclaim our rights to a fair market.
– Ranald MacFarlane,
Bedeque, P.E.I.
Praise for Olga
It saddens me as a farmer to read the article “Farmers urged to fight CAIS errors (WP, Feb. 28) at a time in history when our media friends are making farming an acceptable word again.
There are lots of us who are using these higher price commodities to try to heal some of the past decades of financial disaster. (The Conservative) government has a leader who stood on a stage in Calgary the night he was elected and vowed to help the family farm.
Programs that are not understood by average people and most accountants should be illegal and certainly are immoral! (Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz’s) response to Olga Godin when she urged (him) to do what is only right makes me question who is pulling strings.
How much good could Olga do for hardworking farmers in this country if she had (Ritz’s) wage for just one month?
Locally, our largest general farm group, Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan, was seen chasing its tail when it should have been camped out on the federal agriculture minister’s lawn in Ottawa asking the hard questions about the fact that 78 percent of the expensive Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization requests were denied along with other condemning information by (auditor general) Sheila Fraser.
Nobody in the system had the courage to do what is right and beat the bureaucrats with it until they change their bizarre ways.
I do appreciate our new (Saskatchewan) government’s idea of administering our own program.
I suggest to (provincial agriculture minister) Bob (Bjornerud) that he look at hiring Olga Godin as a facilitator and maybe he could consider farm kitchen table service so we, the farmers, can have things explained to us before we chose to give CAIS any more information that may or may not qualify us for some much needed help.
What the heck, maybe this letter will remind Mr. Harper of his promise and maybe his government will beat Bob to hire Olga, so she could teach his CAIS people how to care about the welfare of others in this great industry we call farming without personally knowing them.
Way to go Olga. Thanks for caring.
– Randi Ellis,
Hazlet, Sask.
