Letters to the editor

Peace bridges

To the Editor:

Re “The crumbling bridges of Peace Country” in the Western Producer of April 10: As an employee of the Municipal District of East Peace No. 131, I answered some questions from a reporter from the Western Producer regarding a bridge in the Harmon Valley area that affects usage of part of the South Harmon Valley road.

The questions I answered and the statements I made do not reflect the position of the Municipal District of East Peace No. 131 Council, for which I am apologizing. I stated that the Municipal District of East Peace No. 131 could not drop $375,000 on a bridge that one farmer needed.

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This bridge affects several farmers severely and others are inconvenienced by it. School busses have to be rerouted and bulk fuel trucks, etc. have to find alternate routes. Other comments that I made regarding the Hawryluk family were not said in any way to hurt them.

To the Hawryluk family and to anyone else that this may concern, I offer my personal apologies and I hope that they will accept this apology.

– Jim Schneider,

Transportation Co-ordinator,

M. D. of East Peace No. 131

Good start

To the Editor:

Congratulations to the new Minister of Agriculture in Alberta for accepting the results of the Federal Government plebiscite on Wheat Board control of export barley. His comments in the Western Producer issue of April 3 about now concentrating on developing feed barley markets within the province is fair game.

Mr. Stelmach was also quoted as follows: “Every time we spend valuable time debating, we’re losing markets.”

For far too long, farmers have been divided and losing ground as a result. The former Minister of Agriculture must take his share of responsibility for the continual turmoil.

Makes one ponder who were the real beneficiaries from actions to keep farmers divided.

– George Burton,

Humboldt, Sask.

Manure feed

To the Editor:

Environment Canada would like to shovel chicken manure off on ranchers, or rather into their livestock via commercial feed. It’s a cheap source of protein and one way to dispose of the huge stockpiles of manure from the 400-500 poultry producers located in the Fraser Valley.

Only about seven percent of the manure is sold as fertilizer. The rest is piling up and leaching into the valley’s soil, contaminating about 25 percent of the wells in the Langley and Abbotsford area. Therefore, poultry producers are being pressured to dispose of their excess, but uses are limited mainly due to environmental regulations.

Last fall in a joint project, Environment Canada and Agriculture Canada experimented with pelleted chicken manure on a dairy farm near Chilliwack …

Poultry manure is about 30 percent protein, and the dung used was first composted, then sterilized at high heat, pressed into pellets, and mixed with silage before being fed to 32 Holstein steers.

Using poultry dung in cattle feed has been practiced in the U.S. for 30 years, with no reported problems … as long as it’s heat-treated properly.

In Britain, the beef market suffered an 80-percent drop because feed mills changed the way they heat-treated sheep byproducts. Scrapie, a sheep disease, survived the new processing treatment, and when the contaminated byproducts were added to cattle feed, cows contracted Mad Cow disease.

Last March, scientists linked Mad Cow disease to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a fatal disease in humans.

British farmers are now suffering because they fed these contaminated pellets to their cattle.

In Canada, if a farmer demands to see the list of ingredients in a commercial feed, the feed outlet must provide it.

However, Canadian regulations don’t require the ingredients be stated on the feed labels attached to the bags.

When a farmer picks up feed at the local dealer, will he know if he’s fattening his butcher calf on poultry dung?

Were the majority of farmers in Britain aware their commercial feeds contained sheep offal, and were they consulted before the feed mills changed their processing methods? Probably not. Still, in the public’s mind, British farmers are guilty …

As a rancher, I was concerned that Canadian producers could also be set up for a fall so I contacted the Environment Services Branch in Vancouver about their new experiment with poultry manure. …

It seems Environment Canada has passed the files – and the buck – to Ag Canada, but it won’t stop there; manure rolls downhill. Although environmentalists and bureaucrats have initiated this program, they’ll be the first to put the gun to our heads if something goes wrong. And if we accept poultry manure in our cattle feed, we’ll provide them with the ammunition.

If your readers object to the use of poultry manure or animal byproducts in cattle feed, they can write to Agriculture and AgriFood Canada. Direct to: Linda Morrison, Plant Products Division, 59 Camelot Drive, Nepean, Ont. K1A 0Y9

– Glenda Smith,

Quesnel, B.C.

Education tax

To the Editor:

I attended the SARM convention, held March 11-14, where many resolutions were passed regarding the new assessment, property tax, education tax, etc. It seems there is going to be quite a shift of education tax from different classes onto agriculture land.

Since we are already paying 65 to 70 percent of our tax dollar to education, this doesn’t seem quite fair to me.

After paying multi-thousands of dollars of education tax throughout the years, my land seems to be no “smarter.”

Through your medium, I would like to request assistance from all R.M. Administrators in Saskatchewan by contacting me at 32 Scott Crescent, Weyburn, Sask. S4H 1T6, fax (306) 848-2007, providing the amount of their 1996 (and 1997 if available) education tax, as well as the number of students from K-12 in their R.M.’s. Possibly Division Councillors could help out with this and even the ratepayers could call the administrator with student numbers.

You will find some very shocking results with some R.M.’s paying over $20,000 per student.

I would appreciate it very much if you would provide me with this information before Nov. 1, 1997. Thank you.

– Ron Lutz,

Councillor, R.M. 67,

Weyburn, Sask.

Rail policy

To the Editor:

Our wonderful Federal Government has done it again! We can’t get our grain to market.

Why did they sell CN when they could have nationalized CP and amalgamated the two; electrified the mountain area and created a highly efficient rail movement such as government-run Brit Rail, Swiss Rail, Rail France and Japan Rail?

We are the only developed country with no national transportation system.

We, the taxpayers, paid for every inch of CP-CN track and gave away half the downtown area of most of our cities, subsidized them with the Crow Rate for 70 years, then gave ownership away because the PC-Liberal government of the day said they weren’t in the business of running a railway.

Now we give away CN, CP splits off its real estate to Marathon Realty and the government wants to give them the hopper cars.

Back to the Dirty ’30s.

I drove through U.S. lately and couldn’t believe the number of new grey with red CP logo hopper cars there, 30 to 40 at a time.

For 130 years we have flip-flopped from Liberal to PC and back. They have taken us from the richest country in the world to third-world status.

Can’t you just believe this Charest magician?

He says he’ll cut taxes and increase benefits, just like his buddy Mulroney – doubled the national debt in 10 years.

ChrŽtien lied about the GST and free trade, and the West lost millions over the Crow demise.

For 50 years, the NDP has been the party of protest, and got us old age pension, workmen’s compensation and medicare. Maybe it would be a good idea to elect a few NDP and give some opposition to this dictator.

– G. Ferguson,

Cochin, Sask.

U.S. farmers

To the Editor:

Re Kelly Shockman’s article, “Canadian, U.S. farmers similar:” I have written letters of a similar vein to the Producer and Hoards Dairyman, and I urge all farmers no matter what crop they grow to read Mr. Shockman’s article in the Producer of March 17.

It is my belief that we in Canada are in greater danger of becoming redundant than the farmers of the U.S.

We in Canada have had many sectors of our agriculture paid on the basis of production costs administered by various marketing boards the U.S.

The processors are waging a war on these boards so they may gobble up our family farms by their huge food conglomerates who have lobbyists paid millions of dollars to achieve their objectives. You may think this view is out in the clouds; then read an article in the Producer of Feb. 20, “Good news for dairy is bad news for sugar,” in which the writer states that unless the U.S. government can break down the supply-management system it will not allow more of our sugar into the U.S.

The amazing fact to me is that the U.S feels so certain it can break down our agriculturual system for its own benefit that they are quite open about it, with various Senators and Congressmen stating their objectives in public.

To further reinforce my view, look at an article in the Producer March 13, “Supply management frustrates Ontario frozen food maker.”

Mr. Garner states he cannot buy eggs, cheese, cream and chicken at a competitive price.

Competitive with whom? The U.S., where processors in the south pay their workers $3-$5 per hour with no benefits, long hours, no overtime and poor working conditions.

Mr. Garner wants to buy eggs from the U.S. at so much cheaper prices.

What he failed to say was that the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta some time ago issued a warning that U.S. eggs had so much bacteria that they should be pasteurized before being eaten (reported in the Producer at that time). Also, some of their chicken processors’ operations are so riddled with dirt and disease that U.S. TV has done programs exposing these conditions.

These are the products Mr. Garner wishes to introduce to the Canadian consumer.

It has been pointed out to us that we are one tenth the size of the U.S. and I should imagine our companies on the whole are much smaller.

If we in Canada grant the U.S. access to our agriculture, we will be swallowed up in a matter of years.

Our prices are higher simply because our production costs are higher, i.e. our processors pay their labor twice what the U.S. worker gets doing a similar job.

Our average agricultural worker is paid enough to give them a reasonable standard of living, agricultural machinery is 30-40 percent higher in price than the U.S. and our taxes are much higher.

What have farmers done to help themselves? They formed co-ops which have grown so big in both the U.S and Canada that the farmer has no say in how they are run, with boards in some far-off cities controlling what the average farmer will or will not get.

Do I have any answers?

Not really, only if the grassroot farmers don’t band together to take back the control of their farm products, if they don’t form one body to represent all farmers of Canada, which works with their U.S. counterparts, the family farmer in both countries will go the way of the dodo, to become a part of history.

I know there is so much work to do on the farm, and so few hours to do it, but unless we give time and thought to these problems, we will, in time, have no farm to worry about.

– Merv Coles,

Nelson, B.C.

Sales scenarios

To the Editor:

I am writing this letter in response to the letter by Mr. Harry Froyman of Vanguard, Sask. In your letter you are trying to show a scenario of grain marketing in the year 2004, without having the CWB.

Why are you taking the year 2004? You should take 1996 and show your “what if” scenario on facts we can relate to. I am talking about the canola market of today.

Looking at our own experience, we have marketed our canola successfully without the CWB for the last 15 years, and no, I don’t speak a word of Japanese. We just compare prices between our elevators and sell to the elevator where we get the best deal.

Or, if we choose to sell by loading producer cars, we just sign a contract with our agent and he even does all the paperwork related to producer cars. That’s how far our marketing risk goes.

We deal with local people and not like you were trying to suggest with some foreign buyer out of a strange country.

You mentioned that without the CWB there will be lab charges for quality control, insurance and demurrage costs.

Well, those costs are being paid by farmers already, especially the last one.

Marketing our canola (or any non-CWB grains) does take a little more time than just selling to the Board but this way we keep better informed about what is happening in the global marketplace. We try to stick to some fairly basic marketing rules, like selling all our grain when prices hit historical high levels.

Not like during the summer of ’96 when the CWB carried about four million tonnes (18% of total ’95-96 wheat production) of unpriced wheat into the ’96-97 crop year and missed some very good prices.