LEAVE LAND MARKET OPEN
Re: Time to increase farmland ownership transparency (WP editorial Sept. 27)
The problem: Older Saskatchewan farmers, having worked hard all their lives, are retiring in comfort by selling their land to buyers from outside Saskatchewan for more money than they expected.
Young ambitious Saskatchewan farmers, armed with solid agronomic knowledge and complex farm equipment, find themselves with extra cash they didn’t have to use to buy farmland, negotiating leases with the new outside investors who know little about farming and are eager to do business with local expert tenants like them.
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They also chuckle a little knowing that, eventually, the Bank of Canada will stop printing money and let interest rates go to the free market level at which point land prices will fall and they will pick up lots of bargains.
The solution: Forget the free market. Outside buyers must transparently show the government where they got all that money that they’re too willing to hand over to those happy sellers. If it turns out that any of that money came from “outside,” then the deal’s off.
This will force those greedy oldsters to sell their land to the smaller pool of young “inside” people, and then their retirement won’t be so comfortable.
The Western Producer seems to feel very strongly about “outside” money (bad) vs. “inside” money (good). But what should one of your heroic young farmers do when an outsider wants to trade a pile of cash in advance for his future piles of wheat?
Won’t he then be holding evil “outside” money that he is barred from using to buy dear Saskatchewan land? Or is the “outside” money only off-limits if it comes from a bread factory owner in Hong Kong and not Alberta?
“But, dear reader,” you might respond, “you sound crazy. The born and raised Saskatchewan farmer is always free to buy all the Saskatchewan land he wants no matter how he gets the money. Even if rich Albertan investors buy every last acre in the province, that is perfectly OK.
But if that Hong Kong bread factory owner lays claim to more than 10 acres, then the long arm of the law must intervene. Can’t you see how wise this law is? Can’t you see how wise it is not to let buyers and sellers alone?”
No, I can’t. Here’s my crazy idea: laissez-faire.
Arthur Krolman, CFA,
Calgary, Alta.
BIG MISTAKE
Selling Alberta’s natural resources (oil and gas) to communist China would be an enormous mistake, larger than (former prime ministerPierre) Trudeau’s National Energy Program.
A better idea would be for Nexen Oil Inc. of Calgary to sell shares to Alberta citizens, as the Social Credit party proposes.
This would retain Canadian ownership, as well as the continuation of Alberta in Confederation.
We would also have severe problems with our American friends if foreign communists owned property in Alberta.
Ed Storsuk,
SIMPLISTIC SOLUTIONS
Re: Wal-Mart in fields searching for greener farming ideas (WP, Sept. 6), coupled with (columnist) Randall Denley’s Stop feeling sorry for the farmers (Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 16) and Why do farmers have special deals? (Edmonton Journal, Aug. 18).
Wal-Mart (U.S.) and Denley (Ottawa) will solve farmers’ problems — Wal-Mart, by “using its commercial muscle” to get flour and wheat products to their shelves more efficiently; Denley, by assuring us farmers “get nearly 100 percent coverage” crop insurance payouts, and that the federal government is “still interested in spending lots of money” on us.
Despite (Robert) Kaplan (Wal-Mart sustainability manager) admitting that he had never even “seen a wheat field before” prior to their “greener farming ideas” venture, Wal-Mart will show farmers how to reduce use of fertilizer and “improve logistics” to inject “efficiency into the generations old practices of U.S. farmers,” and to “eliminate 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions — by the end of 2015.”
Denley claims farmers, “an effective lobby group,” have the “political clout” to access billions of Canadians’ tax dollars, to get “nearly 100 percent coverage” crop insurance payouts.
Denley quips that existing farm support programs give “new meaning to the term cash crop,” which I suppose might be true for former MLA (Ray) Danyluk, an Elk Point farmer, who apparently claimed $1.3 million in payouts over 10 consecutive years while sitting in the legislature; e.g. $700,000 in AFSC payouts on $101,000 premiums in a four year period.
As Wal-Mart, with its “ruthless efficiency,” rides to farmers’ rescue by targeting fertilizer use and wheat fields, and Denley proclaims continued (100 percent) crop protection payouts, farmers can rest assured that they are in good hands.
Wal-Mart’s further simplistic solutions include Wal-Mart as “an expert in transportation” being able to “find empty trucks” to ship farmer produce more cheaply.
With these sorts of news-breaking good news stories, farmers can rest easy — and the Producer might shortly run out of topics for future editions.
Marion Leithead,
Bawlf, Alta.
