Unfair election; Just fantasy; Confused priorities; Bad times?; Enjoys WP; Cold weather
Unfair election
According to some readers, the Canadian Wheat Board election wasn’t fair.
Only an acre-based vote would have given farmers who make a living with farming more say in it. But the whole election is irrelevant anyway as it is impertinent not to give an individual producer a choice how he wants to sell his product.
In today’s electronic and communication age, it would be no problem to come up with a dual market system. But the CWB doesn’t like competition and acts like little kids when it comes to that issue.
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Some readers say Canada’s highly regarded grain. It’s more a myth and CWB slogan to play important than anything else.
Subscribing to farm and grain merchant news from overseas, I can tell you that they very rarely name Canada when they talk about world grain production. We only produce about four percent of the world wheat production and that includes the non CWB provinces and a lot of the wheat goes to the States, which I consider local trading area.
Do we need a board for that? Why do farmers in the CWB heartland push the rotations with off-board crops to the limits? How to pay invoices in fall with only board grains?
Looking at the past and what it has done to a lot of farmyards, there isn’t much to lose. Why be afraid? But with the socialists and their past record in Saskatchewan and the separatists running the country, pretty soon everything will be OK, right? Please fasten your seatbelts for the ride to come.
– Frank Hamel
Olds, Alta.
Just fantasy
When it comes to agriculture, the self-imposed isolation of Alberta is breathtaking. Jeff Nielson’s election to the Canadian Wheat Board is a case in point.
Mr. Nielson contends it is “inevitable” that farmers will lose the collective bargaining power they now have with the CWB.
As anyone with a mutual fund can tell you, the financial melt-down shows the Reagan-Thatcher project of deregulation has blown itself apart in a cloud of greed and self-delusion.
The CWB was created by farmers to address the real world we live in, not the shallow fantasies of neo-Conservative stock market shills.
The only way we can lose the CWB is if the Harper government allows its mentors in the Bush administration to bully them into selling out western farmers at the World Trade Organization.
If Mr. Nielson objectively looks at the CWB’s operations, he will find that his views on the grain trade are really just another ideological fantasy like free trade and an ever rising stock market.
At least two other CWB directors, who were elected with the same ideas as Mr. Nielson, had the intellectual integrity to admit the evidence showed they were wrong. Time will tell if Mr. Nielson truly has an open mind and the courage to follow it.
– Ken Larsen,
Benalto, Alta.
Confused priorities
The prime minister seems to have his priorities confused. The financial update that caused such an uproar offered no reassurances to Canadians losing jobs or uncertain of credit for business loans. Yet the speech addressed the future of the Canadian Wheat Board.
The CWB is an unknown entity to most Canadians and, with total sales of about 0.25 percent of Canada’s GDP, hardly an economic priority.
It seems unlikely that the Conservatives are simply committed to their ideology, since strong support for supply management was promised in the same sentence as “freedom of choice in grain marketing.”
It could be that producers of milk and feathers, mainly in Quebec and Ontario, demand some benefits in exchange for their votes. Perhaps the beneficiaries of a weaker CWB are particularly effective in their exchanges with political parties. After all, Mr. Harper’s professional experience outside elected office was as a political lobbyist and advertising executive, not an economist.
The transnationals may be less forgiving than voters. We can only hope the will of farmers, who voted in four pro-single desk directors, will prevail.
The CWB is as necessary now as it ever was. And it serves farmers better than ever. Buyers are failing to take delivery of non-board grain contracted at the high prices of a few months ago. U.S. farmers must envy us, as they are in worse positions.
Those who contracted grain to VeraSun, the biggest ethanol producer in the U.S., must be ready to deliver their grain, but the bankrupt company has the option of voiding contracts within weeks of the delivery date, some in 2011.
The CWB is not exciting, maybe it doesn’t offer the highest prices, but it honours its contracts and we always get paid.
– John Vandervalk,
Nobleford, Alta.
Bad times?
It’s a disgrace how our governments are acting. The rural areas are suffering from poor grain and cattle prices, yet the government is willing to help the automotive industry to the tune of $3.3 billion because 30,000 people will be out of work.
How did this industry get into this financial crunch? It’s because of the highly paid CEOs who took advantage and spent beyond their means. Let’s trim the fat in some of these companies, including our own corporate companies here in Saskatchewan.
The Sask Party wants to raise our power. They just raised the energy. Where does it stop? What does it cost us to send the bill to the rate review board?
The Sask Party has paid the large part of our debt. How did this debt accumulate as the government keeps stating they’re in good times, but what about the farming or rural areas? It’s very difficult out here with the recession going into a depression.
Farmers, whether orchard, vegetable, hogs, sheep, cattle, chicken, turkey and grain, we still feed the world very cheap, as we get very little for what we produce. Yet you go to a grocery store and it’s expensive, but the urban people say if there’s a shortage, they’ll go to the grocery store.
AgriStability was developed to help the farmer in tough times and the process is a year behind….
Another thing, how does the government of Canada allow this coalition to happen? It’s all about Quebec and we can thank Pierre Trudeau to give Quebec the unique society. Now they think they should have everything or they will separate. Well, let them go. If the coalition gets in, the prairie provinces or Western Canada will have to separate because the opposition leaders don’t even know we exist.
– Elaine Cozart,
Brownlee, Sask.
Enjoys WP
We enjoy many articles and features that are in each issue of The Producer. Two items that were in the Nov. 27 issue were especially noteworthy: The Last Roundup, Barb Glen’s column, and Ryan Taylor’s account of dealing with his parent’s age and medical problems. I’m sure many of us could relate and empathize with both situations.
I also enjoyed Ryan Taylor’s column about his daughter’s baptism. This man may be a U.S. state senator but he can certainly relate to rural readers.
– Mary Risseeuw,
Strathmore, Alta.
Cold weather
With three weeks of -30 C temperatures … there will be many smaller farmers with older tractors and lack of warm winter storage with having to start up diesel motors this tough winter.
I operate a JD 4020 and 5020 during winter for all tasks, snow clearance, loading grain complete with front end loaders. When I need them, no matter what temperature, they have to go.
My advice, which I have practised 20 years since arriving in Canada, is to ratio 25 percent gasoline with either winter or summer diesel plus a good diesel conditioner at 200 percent recommended amount. This eliminates any fuel gelling, will not harm your injectors or motors and if the tractor is properly plugged in to a good recirculating heater with the help of a magnet heater to the oil pan, a booster-charger on hand startup with a little ether to the air intake will be immediate on six cylinders. You will save much wear to the starter….
What I have said will be shunned by some but works wonders in reality. Give it a whirl. You won’t be disappointed.
– Nick Parsons,
Farmington, B.C.
