Beef issues
Alberta Beef Producers have been very vocal in recent months demonstrating their opposition to the Alberta Livestock and Meat Strategy (ALMS) announced by agriculture minister (George) Groeneveld in June.
ABP is claiming to be the champion of cow-calf producer interests so perhaps with the annual fall producer meetings of ABP just around the corner, it would be worth reviewing their performance over the last year.
As producers sold their calves last fall into the worst market (adjusted for inflation) since the great depression, ABP handed out a leaflet telling cow-calf producers that they were lucky the feedlots were prepared to offer them such high prices. When the ABP annual general meeting in Calgary came around in December, it was further demonstrated how low the interests of cow-calf producers were on the ABP agenda. Once again two producer resolutions calling for a ban on packer ownership of cattle and a further resolution to allow BSE testing were roundly defeated.
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Beginning in November, due to the crisis facing producers, minister Groeneveld convened a working group of representatives from the ABP, Western Stockgrowers Association, Beef Initiative Group, Alberta Cattle Feeders Association and the feeder associations.
This group was known as the B5 group although in reality it was the B4 group because the ABP’s sole contribution appeared to be stalling and opposing any progress the group tried to make.
… I would suggest that the ABP’s opposition to the ALMS is more a campaign of distraction to avert producer calls for better representation and a change to the current levy distribution.
ABP remains an organization with its head stuck in the sand on beef policy. They continue to deny that corporate concentration in the packing sector is a problem, which will be compounded by the proposed takeover of Tyson’s Brooks plant by the Nilsson group.
They continue to cite the American market as the only one worth pursuing despite the fact we are constantly losing ground in our ability to compete in that market due to higher feed grain costs in Canada and a higher Canadian dollar. …
I hope that producers will reflect on these issues and make the effort to attend their local fall producer meeting this year. ABP will no doubt be setting the agendas so that most of the evening will be spent fanning the flames of opposition to the ALMS. I hope producers will not be fooled by this diversionary tactic.
Instead I would ask that producers consider raising the following resolution…: “Be it resolved that the levy currently collected and used to fund ABP become a directional levy whereby producers can allocate it to the producer organization of their choice.”
Time spent bemoaning the introduction of the ALMS is time wasted….
– Iain Aitken,
Rimbey, Alta.
BSE lawsuit
Many are aware of the BSE class action lawsuit by Crawford Class Action Services, on behalf of Canadian cattle producers (the plaintiffs) against Ridley Inc. and the Government of Canada (defendants.)
The lawyers for the producers will attempt to prove that Ridley Inc. and the government were aware that contaminated feed was spreading BSE throughout the Canadian cattle herd, and the government failed to act in a timely manner to control the spread of the disease.
However, most producers are not aware that all of us are automatically listed as plaintiffs in this class action battles. If you do not wish to be listed as a plaintiff in these legal cases, it is your responsibility to opt out by Dec. 12, 2008.
This is highly unusual as most class actions require the plaintiffs to opt in. The duty to become informed about the situation and make a conscious decision to participate should be your responsibility. For some bizarre reason, these particular challenges have reigned in all cattle producers without our knowledge or consent.
Ridley Inc. has made a settlement agreement with Crawford Class Action Services wherein Ridley “denies liability and wrongdoing on its part” but pays $6 million into a settlement trust fund. This cash will then be used to continue the case against the Government of Canada only. …
Any producer who unknowingly fails to opt out of the class action lawsuit will be permanently denied any future legal action against Ridley Inc.
Under any future settlement with the government of Canada, a similar “release of claims and effect on other proceedings” most likely will be issued. Again, if producers do not opt out, they will forever be unable to bring suit against the government on any matters relating to BSE.
What we must be concerned about here is that producers and the public have been sold a bill of goods regarding the true agent causing BSE, otherwise theorized to be an infectious prion protein and its method of transmission.
Should another “agent” or “agents” responsible for the disease be revealed, and our government is complicit with its distribution in the environment, producer/plaintiffs will be denied the ability to seek further restitution via the courts forever. …
No matter your beliefs about what causes BSE, failure to act will seriously limit your rights.
– Les and Kathy Czar,
Hanna, Alta.
Getting paid
Just had to reply to Oct. 23, page 3, “Farmers must tighten conditions of grain sales.”
It is sure interesting that the Western Barley Growers Association and Jeff Nielson, who want to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board, are telling us that the open market has to be watched because farmers might not get paid.
What this article and Nielson are not telling your readers is that all sales through the CWB are a guaranteed sale.
Also Nielson leads us to believe that this is something new. Not so.
The open market has always been a risk. Just ask all the farmers that have had loads of barley downgraded when it got to a feedlot or a small grain company. The same thing has happened with oats and canola.
Just ask the farmer that has waited for many days or even months to get paid for open market grain delivered to a feedlot, oat processing plant or a small grain company.
This is nothing new, and the more that we let the grain industry deregulate, the more farmers will have problems getting paid.
– David Bailey,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Hog waste
“Hog barns are responsible for only 1.5 percent of the phosphorus flowing into Lake Winnipeg,” (WP, Oct. 2.)
Originally, the Manitoba Pork Council announced a mere one percent pollution, but that was increased later to 1.5 percent.
There have been a lot of people, other than the hog industry, trying to establish, even Don Flaten, professor at the University of Manitoba, how this one or one and half percent could be taken as being verified from notes that the public has not been able to access.
I do not believe the Lake Winnipeg Stewardship Board ever released any figures of hog waste pollution to Lake Winnipeg. I suppose that if you are told something repeatedly enough times, after awhile it becomes factual in some people’s minds.
That is propaganda and the hog industry has been very good at doing that.
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
Farmers to blame
Overproduction, that’s what is driving prices down. Recently I drove north of Swift Current to Prince Albert and I doubt if there was more than 1,000 acres of summerfallow. No doubt the whole province is like this. All you see in farmyards is rows of hopper bins, piles of grain on the ground plus grain bags.
What is the point of this? To drive fertilizer and fuel prices higher. The only ones that are benefitting are grain companies and railways for handling more grain….
Last year everybody predicted it would take at least two to three years to catch up on the demand for grain. Now this year prices are soon half as much as what we got last year. I wonder how big the surplus would be if there wasn’t all the hailstorms and diseases in 2008.
Like my licence plate says, I love farming. But maybe I should just quit and apply for my monthly cheque before there’s nothing left.
– Dale Busse,
Neidpath, Sask.
