Letters to the editor - March 2, 2023

‘Woke’ movement real threat to society

After reading Doug Orchard’s letter in your Feb. 16 issue sharply criticizing Kevin Hursh’s editorial, I went back and re-read Kevin’s article. I didn’t find anything that wasn’t bang on to what’s been taking place.

The exporting industries Doug condemns are producing wealth that helps pay for services we all expect. If you are employed in non-wealth producing activities like activism, entertainment or the government subsidized media, you are consuming wealth that someone else is creating.

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Producers face the reality of shifting grain price expectations

Significant price shifts have occurred in various grains as compared to what was expected at the beginning of the calendar year. Crop insurance prices can be used as a base for the changes.

The “woke” movement is not a figment of someone’s imagination; it’s real and it’s damaging to society as a whole. Just ask Jordon Peterson, a professor in Ontario who lost his job because he refused to address a male student as “she.”

If you don’t agree with the woke crowd, they demand that you lose your job. They like to criticize and condemn but offer no practical solutions. They haven’t explained how I can increase production by reducing inputs but insist that I do so. What they are doing is replacing facts and science with “feelings.” They are forever looking for something to be offended by.

Concerning our “carbon footprint,” we only produce 1.6 percent of the world’s output, which includes growing the food we export. So what’s your answer to that, Doug? Quit growing the food and let people starve?

Roger Brandl,
Fort St John, B.C.

Variety registration system worthwhile

In a Jan. 19 article, Syngenta’s Dan Wright grumbles about how their experimental hybrid wheat is not a fit for the more stringent industry standards that Canada uses to decide whether a new variety is worthy of being registered and grown in this country. He also laments that our registration system is more complex and unpredictable than America’s.

Canada has the well-deserved reputation for growing and exporting the best bread wheat in the world, and that’s because of our variety registration system. In America, there is no quality control over registering a variety; if one is brought forward, it is automatically registered, and it is left for farmers to find out how suitable it is.

In Canada, new varieties have to undergo extensive test trials to determine their qualities, after which these results are judged by expert panels. Unless a new variety is equal to or better than existing ones, it will not receive registration.

Until Syngenta’s hybrids are up to “Canada’s more stringent standards,” they can leave it south of the border.

The reasons imagined by Gunter Jochum of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association are more troubling.

He says that the seed royalty negotiations have “failed” and that seed developers wouldn’t be “recapturing investment.” In short, Jochum is disappointed that farmers pushed back against the idea of seed companies taking farmers’ money through the implementation of a “lucrative” royalty program.

Investment in varietal research is currently being made by provincial and federal governments and western wheat producers. There is no shortage of funds for groups like the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission to back any good project that comes to the table, and no reason to hand over farmers’ money to corporate interests.

Why is the WCWGA more worried about the profitability of multinational corporations than prairie farmers?

Cam Goff,
Hanley, Sask.

Man. lease policies cripple family farms

Well, the Manitoba government held its second Crownland Lease Auction recently. What a travesty.

They are going to spin the auction as a success because of a few high-priced parcels, but because of their outlandish changes to crownland policy — one being the total removal of the AUM (animal unit month) cap — they opened the door to the sale of the vast majority of leases to three large businesses.

Is this good for the Manitoba cattle industry? Absolutely not.

Family farms are the backbone of rural Manitoba and the cattle industry. Leaseland pasture has always been an intregal part of ranching in the “North.” Brian Pallister, Ralph Eichler, Blaine Peterson and the countless bureaucrats that bull-headedly took Manitoba down this terrible path — there will be blood on your hands.

The money brought in by this auction was “stolen” from Manitoba ranchers — who in good faith had been stewarding the land, some for generations — by disallowing the unit transfer.

It is a pittance, compared to the damages done to the people and the ranching industry in this province.

Shame on you.

Shelley Dyck,
Ste. Rose du Lac