SAFETY NOT PROVEN
Re: Nov. 29 producer.com story Sierra Club weighs in on neonicotinoid-bee death debate, by Robert Arnason.
The assertion that environmental groups and beekeepers can’t work together against the use of neonicotinoid pesticides because beekeepers use chemicals to control varroa mites is irrational and misleading.
The real issue here is neonicotinoid pesticides, which are not only killing bees but are increasingly being found in our soil and water. The widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides is both an agricultural issue and an environmental one and requires the active participation of all sectors to ensure the use of these pesticides is suspended until proven safe.
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?
Dan Davidson, President
Ontario Beekeepers’ Association,
Milton, Ont.
POLISHED, NOT REFINED
In reply to the person arguing against golden rice (Nov. 28 letter to the editor).
The technology was donated to the International Rice Institute by Syngenta. The IRI owns the golden rice varieties. The rice had to be polished to show that it was golden. If the hull had been left on, it would have appeared brown like all other unpolished rice.
Dennis Laughton,
Calgary, Alta.
SEED CONTROL
I have some real concerns over the proposed plant breeders’ rights legislation (UPOV 91).
Allowing seed companies to collect royalties on harvested grain? How much would that be? (Former prime minister Brian) Mulroney’s PBR legislation allowed seed-chemical companies to skim off billions of dollars over the years.
Take canola, for example. The seed companies took seed, which was developed by someone else, paid nothing for it, changed it slightly and voila, created a cash cow worth billions.
The article in the paper suggests royalties of $1 to a high of $4 per tonne. On an average canola crop, the royalty works out to at least $17 per tonne. The average price received for canola production is about 22 cents per pound. The average cost of canola seed is $10 to $12 per lb. That is proof that the seed companies’ greed knows no bounds.
The legislation would give seed companies exclusive control over cleaning, conditioning and storing of the seed. What exactly does that mean? To me that suggests that I have no control over my production, and them having control is sure to add extra costs to me. The amount of the royalty is not negotiable. You pay whatever the seed company decides to charge.
After the last PBR legislation, a few large chemical companies bought out all the seed companies. There is no competition between seed companies; they all charge about the same amount, just like the big oil companies. The cost of canola seed before PBR legislation was $5 per acre. The cost now is over $50 per acre. The cost of seed for a crop of barley or wheat ranges from $10 to $15 per acre. What might it be after the rules change — $20, $30 or $40?
Roger Brandl,
Fort St. John, B.C.
HUNTING ISSUES
Thank goodness deer hunting season does not last any longer. Perhaps it is too long.
The date was Nov. 22, 2013. I arrived at my farmyard home after 5:30 p.m. Sundown on that date was at 4:55 p.m.
I put my vehicle in the garage and upon closing the doors I began walking across my yard. I got halfway across my yard when gunshots erupted, a total of eight shots in just over a minute. Shot number three: bang, whiz, as the bullet passes me just to my right and hits a wood structure in my yard just past me. Shot number four exactly two seconds later: bang, whiz, as the bullet passes just to my left and just misses a fuel tank as it passes out of my yard. Shot number seven hits a tree in my windbreak as it attempts to enter my yard. Shot number eight was fired about 30 seconds later farther down the road….
The next morning, in the light, a dead deer was found in my field.
Anyone who hunts automatically knows all the wrongs perpetrated. They include: hunting outside legal times; firing a gun into a yard site; … shot number eight no doubt was fired from within a vehicle and if so then the previous seven were also; and, if it is not illegal then it should be, leaving the dead deer after shooting it….
After a number of days of consideration regarding this incident, I have formulated a few options to eliminate such disregards:
- Make deer hunting season open 365 days a year and allow anyone with a firearm to kill all the deer. After this natural resource is gone, then irresponsible hunters will have no reason to exist either.
- Put a GPS signal device in each deer hunting tag. With that mechanism, a hunter’s whereabouts will be known at all times. Any foul incident such as I was the proud recipient of would have its perpetrator known immediately and be apprehended.
Either you hunters all follow the laws that currently exist or the people in government should strengthen the laws such that a hunter sneezing would be illegal. Also, the conservation officer told me I was not the only reported shooting into the yard on that date.
Delwyn Jansen,
Humboldt, Sask.
EUTHANASIA WRONG
We are writing concerning a column by Gail Wartman in the Nov. 28 edition of your paper regarding euthanasia.
Euthanasia is murder, and therefore is always wrong. Besides that, it puts the decision of life or death in the hands of a third party. In spite of all so-called “safety nets,” there will be people who will fall through the cracks and be euthanized against their wishes.
We would like to pose a question to those who are in favour of euthanasia: if one person would be euth-anized against his/her wish, would your law still be worth it? If your answer is yes, we know you will sacrifice compassion for ideology.
What Canadians need is better palliative care, which is true compassion and which respects the dignity of all human life. Please contact your MP and demand improved palliative care, not euthanasia. Thank you.
Rupert and Mary Theuerer,
Spring Valley, Sask.
SENATE CHANGE
I would like to comment on the decision of the governments of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to abolish the Senate.
Although “the chamber of sober second thought” sounds like a cliché, I don’t believe it is. Without the Senate, a majority government would be a dictatorship: look how this present prime minister controls his MPs with an iron fist. They would pass any law regardless of the wishes of the people with any recourse.
The Senate needs changing. I suggest an elected Senate with no ties to political parties, just men and woman who have earned through life wisdom to help review and suggest changes to laws passed by the government of the day.
Who do you think would fight this concept the hardest? With this government, if the Senate were abolished, it would increase their power, while the Senate I suggest would dilute their power. However, it would increase the power of the people.
There is a saying: “Be careful of what you wish for, you may get/regret it.”
Mervyn Coles,
Nelson, B.C.
