USE COMMON SENSE
I have only to think back to the times when science and our regulators were horribly wrong in their professional conclusions. Many people got sick, many people died, and many still suffer until released by death.
Babies were born prematurely and deformed. Many died. (The Justice Krever Inquiry into the Tainted Blood Scandal and the use of the drug Thalidomide.)
The conclusion and final awareness in all of this is “the human body was not designed to absorb exterior poisons.” Period.
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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?
The skull and crossbones warning is a sign of death. Perhaps not immediate, but over the long term it is still a fatality — a fatality that affects many people in our modern society who work with and are in contact with these products.
We would all like to know, how is the “acceptable” risk being distinguished from the “unacceptable” risk? And also ask, “acceptable or unacceptable to whom?” Obviously, sound science is an important concept, but it can be manipulated to protect vested interests.
Caution: “Read the label first” and “complacency” makes poor partners.
Furthermore, one of the very first duties of any government is to
“protect the public.” And while common sense must always be considered as paramount, unfortunately it is a flower that doesn’t grow in everyone’s garden.
John Fefchak,
LACK OF RESPECT
That is a very questionable statement. Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz states, “Every relevant farm group in Canada has come out in support of this important bill.” He is referring to Bill C-18 and more specifically, to adoption of UPOV 91.
In early 2014 in an Alberta Express publication, an author of a commentary reported the federal minister of agriculture had warned agricultural organizations that if they did not support Conservative agricultural policies, financial support would be eliminated and, better yet, their organization would be de-commissioned. If this misconduct did actually occur as the author reported, then farmer support for the omnibus bill C-18 is in question, or any other policies, for that matter.
I am appalled by the total lack of respect for agriculture, the agricultural community and the intellectual abilities of Canadian agricultural producers, by Gerry Ritz and the bureaucrats at the ministry of agriculture. It would appear as though they consider agricultural producers, as the adage goes, simply “dumb farmers.”
Maurice L. Parrent,
WALKING THE PLANK?
In reference to former colleague Bill Toews’ letter in the Dec. 4 issue, it was good that we got a refresher on the history of Marquis wheat, yet Toews was well overboard with his other comments.
It was a board decision to go ahead with the laker (grain ships) purchase, fully knowing that changes to the CWB Act and its monopoly over western Canadian wheat and barley were in the works. I voted against the purchase, as we did not have the government’s support and were going to have to finance these purchases out of farmers’ pool account funds. We didn’t ask farmers for their permission to use their monies, yet we fully knew at that time from our own legal counsel and expensive external council that all assets — pre-Aug. 1/12 and post — would be assets of the crown. Simply put — did farmer money go towards the purchase of the lakers? Yes. Can farmers claim compensation if sold? No.
Bill Toews and Stewart Wells were at the board table when we all fully acknowledged these facts, yet now they can’t remember? Western grain producers have moved on, some are drifting in seas of greater obscurity.
In all seriousness, a name for the second laker should be WB Freedom, respecting freedom that western Canadian farmers have in marketing all their grains, and to recognize the farmers who were jailed for trying to sell their own crops.
Jeff Nielsen, former CWB director,
FUSARIUM CONTROL
Why does Alberta have a fusarium seed testing program? Well, way back in 1994 my attention was brought to a field of wheat in Three Hills, Alta., one of our drier areas, which had a 10 percent fusarium head blight infection. Seed had been planted that spring direct from Manitoba. This caused shock waves in the province and plans were discussed as to how to prevent this destructive disease from decimating Alberta cereal crops. We had in the past succeeded with canola blackleg, rat and Dutch elm disease programs and as of late we are free of rats, Dutch elm disease and we now have blackleg resistant canola. Could we do the same for FHB?
It took many years working with seed growers to get the FHB plan into place before its final implementation of seed testing all pedigreed small grain seed for the presence of FHB.
The program worked exceptionally well up to the present time in all wheats, barley, rye, oats and triticale. Alberta is by far the major supplier of malt barley, and FHB free wheats. Much of the FHB free Alberta wheats have been blended with FHB diseased wheats from Manitoba and Saskatchewan over the years to bring the toxin levels down from five or more to two p.p.m. so that the grain can be shipped for food.
In the last 14 or so years that I have surveyed Alberta cereal crops, it has been very rare to find any FHB from the Trans-Canada (Highway) north to the Peace region. The province is essentially FHB free for the most part. This freedom from FHB has meant hundreds of millions in revenue to provincial farmers annually, perhaps amounting to billions at the present time. To have had individuals in southern Alberta call the FHB program a failure is a massive stretch. Perhaps they have been reading stories by Baron von Munchausen, the famous German tale teller.
To be fair, in southern Alberta there is a problem with FHB, but this is due to a number of factors despite being in the Palliser triangle, the driest area of the Canadian Prairies. Dry areas rarely have problems with FHB. In the south, durum wheat is king but much of it is grown for high yield under irrigation. Does dry land durum ever get much FHB? Durum wheats are virtually all very susceptible to FHB, though there is some promise at present of resistance. Southern Alberta is the home of feedlots where much of the prairie FHB damaged cereal grains and corn are fed to cattle in the very extensive cattle lots. Much of this manure is spread on irrigated cropland with likely significant levels of the fusarium graminearum fungus. Grain corn is also grown in the irrigated south, producing corn stover which is well known as a major infectious source of the FHB fungus. Rotations from grain tend to be very tight with durum or perhaps soft white wheat being grown every second year.
While the rest of the province remains practically free of this FHB problem the southern irrigation areas may need a vigorous FHB control program with perhaps some adjustments by Alberta Agriculture to bring this destructive disease under control in keeping with the rest of the province.
Dr. Ieuan R. Evans,
Spruce Grove, Alta.
WHO TO THANK?
In a recent letter to the editor (WP Dec. 4), I read where our agriculture minister is congratulating his government for the thriving state of agriculture in Western Canada. We should instead be thanking Mother Nature for timely rains and good harvest weather for a bountiful crop. We should be blaming our government for the fact that most of us could not get our crops efficiently to market in time to benefit from the good prices. Instead, there were no trains waiting for the products needed for our customers. Elevators were not organized with the right grain to fill the cars. This orderly market had all been done by the farmer elected Canadian Wheat Board. Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and company didn’t seem to know what chores needed to be done. As a result, ships had to wait in the ports for weeks charging $15,000 to $25,000 per day in demurrage, all of which should have been in farmers’ pockets.
I would challenge some investigative journalist to total the demurrage charges that accrued. Was it billions? I would also challenge the Western Producer to print Ritz’s speech in Parliament in Hansard Nov. 2, 2011. It would reveal our agriculture minister’s lack of knowledge on the mechanics of orderly marketing.
Donald Thompson,
Rosalind, Alta.
