ADDING VALUE?
Further to writer Ruth Pryzner’s letter (Brandon Sun, Oct. 8) Corporate interests represented by the Manitoba Pork Council, the public needs to be made aware that the hog industry continues to damage Manitoba’s environment.
Let’s face it. Manitoba’s hog industry is destructive to the environment, say experts, and the return of small scale, mixed operation farming is needed to combat the influence of industrial hog operations in the province. You can’t raise animals in factories and be environmentally benign, says Joe Dolecki, professor of environmental economics at Brandon University.
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Eva Pip, a biology and aquatic toxicologist at the University of Winnipeg, points to manure phosphorus runoff as the main contributor to the algal bloom problem in Lake Winnipeg.
If you have 10,000, 20,000 or more hogs just in one operation, that’s all completely raw, untreated waste … that’s the equivalent of a small city. In traditional agriculture, pigs are only one aspect of a mixed farming operation, meaning that manure is easily recycled back on to the fields and utilized, without excess problems.
In industrial hog agriculture, you have so much waste that it is impossible not to end up polluting, Pip added.
In the fall of 2007, a report from the George Morris Centre estimates that a total of only 1,382 direct, and 3,394 indirect jobs are attributable to hog production in Manitoba with another 3,713 direct and indirect jobs created in the packing component. The industry total (8,488) represents about 57 percent of the number (15,000) claimed in recent Manitoba Pork Council advertising.
The clear, yet unmentioned, implication is that job creation from hog production is minimal and is hardly sufficient to inspire the repopulation of rural Manitoba, as the industry claims.
For the record, and job comparison, in 1980, 14,200 Manitoba farmers were raising pigs: lots of jobs there.
That report is titled, A Pig in a Poke. It’s a fitting label for the hog welcoming mat initially spread out by the (Gary) Filmon Conservative government; translated as “an offering or deal that is foolishly accepted without being examined first.”
My translation is “the manure pile of modern civilization.”
This hog industry is a meat exporting business. Manitobans consume about six percent of their production. The rest is shipped away leaving us, and our water sources, to deal with all the waste and pollution that is produced and left behind, adding just one more value-added concept, as initially proclaimed by the Filmon Conservative government.
John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
NO BOUNDARY LINE
There are pesticides in our drinking water, in our air, and islanders (Prince Edward Island) need a strong government to ensure our rights to a clean environment.
Where did the line between governance and industry go? Now (Cavendish Farms president) Robert Irving and (P.E.I. premier) Robert Ghiz share a press conference to jointly deal with buying environmentally sensitive land. Government pays half and Irving pays half.
I see this as a complete conflict of interest. If it was a right decision for the public good and the Liberal government sees fit to use taxpayers dollars this way then so be it. Irving should not be paying half.
What if this new precedent of letting industry buy in to environmental solutions in collusion with government runs against the goals of industry? This is a conflict of interest. This is a very bad precedent involving separation of government who should protect our rights and industry.…
Ranald MacFarlane,
TAKING AG HIGHER
It was not surprising to see Stewart Wells continue his campaign of ignorance in his recent letter. A quick look at the facts show just how separated from reality he and his dwindling supporters truly are.
Farmers elected our government with a strong majority across the Prairies to implement an aggressive agricultural agenda, and that is exactly what we are doing. We have delivered long-awaited marketing freedom to grain farmers. We have bolstered insurance-based programming that is bankable and predictable for farmers, while maintaining a fulsome suite of BRM (business risk management) programming. We have scrapped the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry. Partnering with industry, we have increased investments in research and innovation to unprecedented levels.
Thanks to important changes made by our government, Canadian farmers are thriving. Farm cash receipts and net operating incomes are at all-time highs, and with marketing freedom we have seen a resurgence of wheat and barley across the Prairies.
When farmers were facing transportation challenges, our government took swift action….
While Stewart Wells eagerly awaits the next full moon, our government will continue to work with farmers to take Canadian agriculture to new and unprecedented heights.
Farmers know that our government delivers on our commitments, and we will proudly take this record into the 2015 election.
Gerry Ritz, agriculture minister,
Ottawa, Ont.
IGNORANCE?
It’s quite comical to see (agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz’s staff try to belittle anyone who has an opinion contrary to the minister or anyone who tries to get some information out of the minister. Case in point is the recent attack on Mr. Stewart Wells where the minister implies Mr. Wells is ignorant.
Why does the minister have to attack farmers? Why doesn’t the minister simply answer their questions with concrete answers?
Was the minister ignorant when he promised farmers at a Manitoba meeting that they would have a vote on the future of the CWB prior to the federal election in 2011 and then after that election simply going about killing the single desk CWB without a farmer vote?
Was the minister ignorant when he spouted off the marketing freedom had led to increased barley acreage? In actual fact, barley plantings are at a 50- year low now, and with feed barley selling for approximately $2 a bushel now, I wonder how much marketing freedom farmers can take?
Was the minister being ignorant when announcing with the prime minister about a pasta plant being built in Regina when still none exists there?
Is the minister now being ignorant when even his own marketing freedom brokers are taking/stealing in excess of $3 per bushel from farmers and the minister is unwilling to do anything about it?
Was the minister being ignorant when he failed to present the CWB annual report to Parliament on time and therefore broke a law he had created?
Is the minister being ignorant when he affirms farmers support his governments ag policies but will not let farmers have a vote on any major changes?
The minister does not need to worry about the next election — he needs to deal with the mess he has made now!
Kyle Korneychuk,
Pelly, Sask.
