Chemicals bad
Congratulations to the governments of Ontario and Quebec. They have banned the use of pesticides for cosmetic use.
That is the use in cities, parks, golf courses, etc, and private yards just for looks, for example, getting rid of that last dandelion for the perfect lawn.
Pesticides were found too dangerous to be used so frivolously. Ontario based its ban on evidence from the Canadian Cancer Society and the Ontario College of Family Physicians. They showed links between pesticides and many forms of cancer, leukemia and birth defects. Children showed greatest susceptibility….
Read Also
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?
Over 20 million kilograms of pesticides are dumped on these prairies annually. Saskatchewan uses 36 percent of the Canadian total. Isn’t that way too much?
There are other ways to control pests. Farmers in other countries do it. Some are doing it here. Farmers need more research done on alternatives but the money all goes for chemical methods.
In its editorial of May 1, The Western Producer completely ignored the evidence of the health hazards which forced the bans in Ontario and Quebec. (It) only mentioned the ban as a warning for those in agriculture that the banners might come for them next.
By ignoring the facts of the matter, (it) then launched into a rehash of the same old arguments of the trillionaire pesticide lobby, e.g. that uninformed public opinion trumps science to gang up on innocent yield improvers.
Who’s ignoring the science? Bans would limit production, increase food costs, resulting in hunger and starvation.
The WP doesn’t go quite that far but close. Farmers would be helpless without their chemical tools. Isn’t it strange that in the last few years of record prosperity in the agri-food industry, farmers are still going broke? Maybe those chemical tools weren’t all the WP would have us believe.
While ignoring the research to the contrary, the WP tells us that there are no health worries because the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency has tested every chemical and found no unacceptable risk to human health.
Wrong. The CPMRA says it has a modest ability to test for pesticide residues in food. The testing for health risks is left up to the chemical companies themselves. Talk about the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
One would have thought that a reputable paper like the WP would have warned both farmers and the public about the health hazards that caused the bans in our two largest provinces.
However, it seems that the huge advertising revenue it receives from chemical ads is more important than the health of our people.
– John Howard,
Brownlee, Sask.
Higher returns
Western Canada’s farmers are receiving higher average returns for their wheat, durum and barley than their counterparts in North Dakota and Montana.
I don’t know where Glenn Sawyer (CWB Vision, Open Forum, May 29) is getting his pricing information, but U.S. officials have been saying that the majority of farmers in those states sold their grain very early, long before prices climbed to current levels.
For example, the North Dakota Wheat Commission has reported that the majority of farmers there sold their durum at about $7 per bushel. That’s far below the CWB’s May Pool Return Outlook of $12.06 per bushel for No. 1 CWAD, backed off to Saskatchewan.
Sawyer also repeats a misleading claim by the Brewers Association of Canada about the prices that farmers receive.
Malting barley producers in the pool receive an average of all prices throughout the year. Obviously, some sales will be made at prices above that average, and some sales will be made below. Canadian brewers account for about 13 percent of our malting barley sales. They are important customers, but their impact on overall farmer returns is limited.
Malting barley producers also negotiate directly to receive protein premiums, direct delivery premiums and storage payments that raise their final payout above the pool return.
Farmers are also accessing the pricing flexibility of Producer Payment Options for wheat and barley.
On the barley side, CashPlus, which offers farmers an up front, market-based cash price for their malting barley, is proving popular with industry and with farmers. Several selectors have filled multiple contracts through this cash buying program, and we’ve received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from farmers wanting to sign up CashPlus contracts….
– Larry Hill,
Chair
CWB Board of Directors,
Swift Current, Sask.
Industrial ag
Industrial agriculture has failed, according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture organization. It calls for a fundamental change in farming that better addresses food shortages, soaring food prices, hunger and social inequities.
The World Bank estimates that in the near future 33 countries will face social unrest and riots because of the food shortages and the high cost of food and energy.
Who is responsible?
The World Bank needs to accept its share of the blame for this crisis. During the last several decades, its policies have forced many millions of farmers in poor countries to shift their production from staple foods to feed their own people to export crops destined for world markets. This reduction in local food crops is a big reason for the food shortages we see today.
The shortages are more than a problem of production shortfalls. They are a problem of unfair distribution and economic inequality.
The transnational agriculture corporations that manufacture and control the goods and services that farmers must have to grow their grain must also accept a big part of the blame for this food crisis. I am pointing my finger at the suppliers of fuel, fertilizer, machinery, herbicide, seed and rail services, and more could be included….
We have the potential to produce much more grain but have been unable to do so due to the greed and power of a few transnational corporations. If this is allowed to continue, there will be much more hunger on planet Earth.
Laws must be legislated in individual countries and at world level that condemn profiteering on food as a crime against humanity punishable by fine and/or incarceration.
– George E. Hickie,
Waldron, Sask.
Goodbye Corky
I was just writing a thank-you letter to Corky Evans for his visit to our farming community of Pender Island, and tell him of all the wonderful feedback I have gotten from those who came to listen and be inspired by him recently, and then I found out he was ending his time in B.C. politics.
I was so surprised, because after talking to him and listening to him and reading his insightful speeches, I was sure his announcement would be to run as leader of the NDP. I know other people were wishing for that, too, but maybe he is just ahead of his time.
Just when he was on a roll, travelling the province talking to farmers and listening to what the agriculture sector needs government to do, just when he had all the experience, knowledge, and yes, even wisdom to get the job done…
I thought for sure he was going to take his own advice about running for office: “Just run like you don’t even care if you win, just say what you think, what is right, and make your opponent rise to the challenge, then hope like hell that you don’t win and you can go back farming, and then the other guy will have to live up to all the promises you forced him to make.”
All the best to you, Corky.
– Barbara Johnstone Grimmer,
Pender Island, B.C.
Wrong title
Re: “Farmers dig in against hog bill,” WP, May 29.
The title is wrong. It is not the farmers who are opposing Bill 17, it is the hog industry.
The big question that needs to be answered is why were these hog producing factories given the credentials of being farmers in the first place?
In simple language, the Manitoba government was too eager to accept the hog industry, without due consideration for the warnings and consequences from other countries and provinces who had previous dealings with the self-serving principles of such operations.
They did not listen. They also did not listen to the people of Manitoba. Now it is too late and they are trying to dig their way out by presenting a bill which will solve nothing….
Why was the hog industry allowed to hide under the skirts of farming?
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
Going fishing
I wish that the powers that be would implement a yearly pleasure fishing licence for all Canadians, for all of Canada.
No need for special fishing licences as regional, provincial, national parks or from province to province. We are all Canadians.
My stamp on my envelope allows me to send a letter to anywhere in Canada.
I wish that someone would pick up this idea and run with it.
Meantime, enjoy and good luck fishing.
– Valentine Pomedli,
Pilger, Sask.
State control
… After a lifetime involved in the production of grain in Saskatchewan, I feel there is something missing in this struggle between the free marketers and those who support state control.
Surely every surviving grain farmer in Western Canada is now aware that the system of expert marketing of grain out of Western Canada has been a colossal failure for the family farm.
The grain farmers of Western Canada have literally been on life-support systems for the last 100 years.
Any brief weather disasters somewhere in the world have kept the industry alive. I will challenge any politician, any of my old farmer union friends that this is not in fact true.
Let me drive anyone across the plains and I will show them one vast graveyard of vacant farmyards, empty schoolrooms and abandoned rail lines. This is the legacy of political interference in the marketplace.
The system was a political animal from its birth and never made economic sense. Face the facts, it has been the free marketing of canola, mustard, flax, canaryseed, peas, lentils, and chickpeas that have kept us alive.
Mark my words, the political forces that caused this commercial disaster for Western Canada are going to fight to retain control of this treasure house of grain….
Yes, we exported our grain, we exported our soil fertility, we exported our sons and daughters. So will we continue down the old road to oblivion and final humiliation or is this the point where survivors are prepared to stand up and demand freedom from state control and finally be masters of their own destiny?
– James Finley,
Saskatoon, Sask.
