Calf care
To the Editor:
I am writing this letter in regard to a comment printed in the Calving feature of your Western Livestock Producer supplement (Feb. 6). The article, titled “Colostrum a must,” included the following as its summation: “The biggest problem is with grain farmers who treat cattle as a sideline. If grain prices start to take off, as happened last spring, their interest can wane and calf mortality increases.”
As a prairie grain farmer who also has a cow herd, I found this comment extremely offensive and strangely unrelated to the entire article. The suggestion that calf losses last spring were due to a lack of interest on the part of such grain farmers is both absurd and sickening.
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In case no one noticed, last winter was one of the coldest in recent history, with record snowfalls, weeks of -30 C temperatures mid-calving, and subsequently a very late, wet spring.
It was a tough season for both grain farmers and cattlemen alike. While I agree that there probably were losses due to insufficient colostrum intake and mothering, in our case that was because our first 25 calves had to spend an hour each in our basement being toweled off and dried with my hair dryer so they wouldn’t freeze to death.
Knowing this, maybe it can be understood why I take exception to the implication that grain farmers neglected their cattle last spring. After all, a dead calf is every bit as costly to a grain farmer as it is to a cattleman. The price of wheat has nothing to do with that.
– Stacy Warrack,
Strathmore, Alta.
Coyote loss
To the Editor:
The fine of $2,300 against the three offenders convicted of the brutal assault on a coyote with their snowmobiles is hardly “an expensive lesson” (reporter Michael Raine, March 6) for such a crime against nature. Averaging only $766, it is a minor slap on the wrist.
It is discouraging to hear from David Coombes of Saskatchewan Environment “that this is not an isolated incident” and that there are several other cases awaiting, “some of them much worse in nature with large numbers of animals being killed.”
These atrocities remind me of the attitude of the 1960s when the snowmobile was first introduced and coyotes were pursued with malice. I recall the fur trucks from North Battleford parked on our main street, stacked high with the carcasses of coyotes and jackrabbits.
An average of ten thousand a year were slaughtered in Saskatchewan during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The prairie coyote was eliminated from much of its range.
Little did the “snowmogoons” realize, but they let a demon loose and brought about a major ecological impact that is still being felt. They opened a niche that was soon jammed with foxes. Foxes are not endemic to the prairie because coyotes are their mortal enemies.
The fox invasion has a tremendous impact on prairie wildlife.
Unlike the prairie coyote, a large sub-species which specializes in hunting jackrabbits and small mammals, foxes are opportunistic predators and take a wider range of prey.
Ground nesting birds were particularly hard hit; sharp-tailed grouse, burrowing owls, and Hungarian partridge all but disappeared. Foxes are known to be the principal predators of nesting ducks, and are responsible, along with drought and habitat loss, for their major decline during the 1970s and 1980s. Jackrabbits used to be abundant but they are uncommon now. These are but a few examples.
In effect, the snowmogoons also let the fox into the chicken coop and caused a significant impact on prairie farms. Farmers found that they could no longer easily raise free-range chickens. Foxes would attack even in the middle of the day. Many farms used to have a flock of chickens. Now, relatively few farmers bother to feed the foxes and good free-range chicken is only a fond memory.
It is heartening to see that people’s attitudes towards wildlife have changed a lot, but obviously we have a long way to go. Only a change in attitude will bring back some ecological balance. Only when coyotes reclaim their role as top predator, and foxes are excluded will there be some chance that the sharp-tails, the jackrabbits and the burrowing owl will return. There is some truth in the Latin phrase “Cave justitiam Naturae”- Beware the justice of Nature.
– K. J. Finley,
Luseland, Sask.
Farmers divided
To the Editor:
I have been reading the open forum in the Western Producer for nearly 50 years, and it sure is disappointing that farmers cannot co-operate because their opinions are so different and only some agree to help each other.
Sure enough, farmers complain about grain prices and grades; next about input costs too high and so on; but no one seems to talk about fairness or parity price which would be a fair deal for small or big farmers.
But fairness is out with the wind forever, never mentioned again. Some years ago at a farmers’ union convention, the farmers decided to demonstrate their dissatisfaction. The farmers bought bread in a store at 90-95 cents a loaf and were selling it to people on the street for four cents a loaf, explaining to the people this is our profit after expenses (taxes, fuel and machinery maintenance.)
Even if the farmers donated their wheat, consumers will still be paying 86 to 90 cents a loaf of bread. Those people in business say their cost of operating goes higher and higher; so it is for the farmer, nothing is given to him for free. As the economic outlook is now, there may not be many small or medium-sized farmers left; it will cause more unemployment (farm work is self job creation).
In my memory, sure the years of 1930-1940 were difficult, but when you raised your eyes to the sun or the moon, you saw a future. But now I cannot see it, even though my eyesight is fair.
– Dmytro Lylyk,
Grandview, Man.
No jobs
To the Editor:
The assumption that tax cuts will result in job creation is a myth of political origin. There is proof to the contrary; for more than a decade the richest corporations have put the most employees out of work by using their wealth to install computer and technological devices for replacement of workers.
That is the most likely thing to happen to tax breaks; they can and will be used to acquire labor-saving devices, or they will end up in higher dividends for shareholders.
It is also false to suggest that there is some kind of dividend to eliminating the deficit. This is money governments will no longer have to spend and any spending cuts to remove the deficit must stay in place until new revenue is found. To claim that tax cuts are possible when the deficit is gone is a blatant lie broadcast by political sharpies to deceive unwary voters.
– Ernest J. Weser,
Laird, Sask.
Market power
To the Editor:
… For me, the issue is quite simple. Do we as farmers want to tackle the world market as 120,000 individual farmers all trying to obtain the “best market price” for our product? Or, do we wish to tackle the world market as a united group represented by one agency?
This past fall the propane industry clearly showed farmers the lack of control individual farmers have over market pricing. I think the choice is clear, a united farmer group is the only way in which family farms can survive and ensure world market prices are received by farmers.
This can only be done through the CWB. Anyone else who touches our grain must make a profit, this comes at the farmer’s expense. However, this does not mean that the CWB does not need some changes. But changes must be to the benefit of the farmer and ensure that the farmer has some control over the CWB and control over the farmer’s destiny.
The recently proposed legislative changes to the CWB Act will not benefit the farmer.
These changes will most likely have a more detrimental effect than the barley vote, regardless of outcome. Some of the changes to the CWB Act are:
1. Only one farmer-director position is guaranteed in the elected board.
2. The CWB will be able to buy wheat or barley from any person any place any time. It is possible that the CWB may buy grain from the grain companies at a price higher than the initial price. Who would this benefit?
3. The Minister of Agriculture can remove any kind, type, class, or grade of wheat produced in any area of Canada. There is no provision for additions.
4. The government of Canada will not guarantee initial price adjustments.
5. The government selects the chairperson and the president of the elected board and can direct the Board in any operation, powers or duties of the Act.
The “contract” between farmers and the Parliament of Canada is being broken and replaced by a contract between the Minister of Agriculture and big-business interests.
It appears that the legislative changes accommodate all of the changes requested by the Western Grain Marketing Panel report. The pro-CWB rallies this past summer and the thousands of letters sent to the Minister appear not to have been reflected in the revised legislation. A pro-CWB vote on the barley issue will give the Minister of Agriculture a clear signal for the upcoming federal election. Farmers still want a strong CWB engaged in orderly marketing – a CWB focused and powerful enough to maximize returns to farmers!!
– Kyle Korneychuk,
Pelly, Sask.
Scare tactics
To the Editor:
It is unbelievable in this modern age that farmers can be influenced by propoganda and scare tactics put forth by the CWB and its supporters. I believe the CWB could remain useful if they were competing with others on the same playing field. To say that if the CWB loses control over wheat and barley spells doom and gloom, is selling every farmer and agriculture marketer short.
It is true that prior to the formation of the CWB, prices were low. In that day, transportation was practically non-existent and there was no Internet or daily price available. Today there are many very well-educated farmers and business people who are more capable of making decisions which would benefit farmers to a great degree.
There is no doubt in my mind that if the CWB closed its doors tomorrow, there would be a new entity to replace it without the impossible controls which hinder the farmer. I believe there are many people out there who are more in touch with both the farmer and the potential buyers than the CWB would care to admit. If these people were allowed the same advantages the board now has, more farmers would benefit. I know for a fact that there is more demand for our grain than the average farmer knows. In a job I held previously, I talked with people from various other countries who wanted to buy grain. I had no option but to ask them to call the CWB. Many times they said they had called the CWB but couldn’t get any grain. This was at the same time as the CWB wasn’t buying any grain.
In fairness to the CWB, the quantities may have been smaller than they deal with; however, I knew of farmers who would have gladly filled those potential orders, but because it was controlled by the CWB, nothing was done. Is this what we are wanting preserved?
– Wendy Sorensen,
Didsbury, Alta.
Hog producers
To the Editor:
Raising hogs is an innate skill which many successful cattle, poultry and sheep producers are unable to imitate.
Brian Cotton (Feb. 20 Western Producer) stated that hog production is still profitable as he explained how in the past even a few pigs financed farming operations. This is very encouraging to suitable small and would-be farmers.
Jim Morris from SPI (Feb. 6 Western Producer) explained how corporate-sized hog operations are destroying the morale of modest-sized hog producers.
The reasons are obvious. A corporate-sized operation with its enormous economic base can easily outmanoeuver small operators and weather-depressed markets, which they can do to discourage small operators. Furthermore, corporate hog executives often make special deals with packers which put smaller producers at a disadvantage. Upright governments wouldn’t allow corporates to abuse grass root operations in such a way!
In the Feb. 20 Western Producer, the mega-hog-barn corporates pat themselves on the back by declaring they, through their “investment,” create jobs. What a deception!
If governments didn’t favor corporate interests, modest-sized hog operations would flourish. The mega hog barn described is a 600-sow farrow-to-finish operation which may have five or six workers. Under efficient management, a 50-sow farrow-to-finish operation has always been very viable, but corporate greed along with government blessing is changing that.
Frequent reports, coupled with common sense, reveal that small enterprises create jobs, while private corporations for mercenary reasons throw humanity on the garbage heap.
Furthermore, mega-sized hog barns, unlike small producers, generate environmental problems, yet “environmentalists” and “naturalists” who frequently fuss about irrelevant matters are strangely quiet about the mega hog barns. Public whistle blowers maintain environmental and wildlife matters are engineered by huge private corporate interests as a way to squeeze out smaller producers enabling for easy takeovers. The mega hog barn syndrome confirms the whistle blowers’ statements.
– Stuart Makaroff,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Liberal record
To the Editor:
The federal government would have us believe they have achieved miracles but they do not tell all. Not only are we further in debt, but 17 percent of our young people are unemployed; lack of grain handling facilities with ships charging demurrage waiting to be loaded; poor leaders controlling armed forces. To make a long story short, they are incapable of governing Canada. A stagnated bureaucracy that excels only in ridiculing Opposition members.
– H. W. Jackson,
Falher, Alta.
25-cent wheat
To the Editor:
Those prairie farmers who want to do away with the Canadian Wheat Board better think again. Apparently they don’t remember when farmers sold their wheat for 25 cents a bushel. That is the reason the Canadian Wheat Board was organized.
Surely those farmers have not forgotten when Saskatchewan pork and durum wheat was not wanted by U.S.A. after Mulroney had signed the free-trade deal. That could happen again should U. S. decide they don’t want Canadian barley and wheat. Should that happen, those farmers would then be wishing they still had the Canadian Wheat Board, but it would be too late.
