This column is part of a series that marks the Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
Flipping through the pages of the Aug. 17, 2023, issue of the Western Producer reminds us that last year was another dry one.
Stories in that issue’s Markets section had headlines such as “Lack of rain to pummel durum yields” and “Average pulse yields expected to fall this year.”
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The situation wasn’t any better for farmers in British Columbia. The Producer dedicated page 29 to that province’s water shortage with stories that sported the headlines “Struggling B.C. ranches desperately need feed” and “Farmers in B.C. brace for fish-protection water restrictions.”
The issue’s editorial, with the headline “Waiting for a rainy day? We should be so lucky” looked at the dry conditions on the Prairies but concluded that all was not lost. It said prairie agriculture had made great progress when it came to making the most of whatever water resources we received from Mother Nature.
The editorial concluded with this: “The sky is not falling and improved water management remains squarely in reach. Giving up is not an option.”
I was pleased to see as I looked through this issue that it wasn’t dominated by gloom and doom.
Other stories covered a variety of topics with headlines such as:
Railways unveil grain shipping plans
Farmer experiments with protein monitor
Clubroot research receives funding boost in Alta.
Push for ‘glyphosate-free’ causes market risk
Ottawa says Britain expected to ‘uphold’ CPTPP standards
Farmers play the thunderstorm lottery
Variable honey year likely, close to average
And that ends 12 months of exploring a century of newspaper coverage at the Western Producer in this our centennial year.
Next week we’ll wrap up the WP100 celebrations with one last column marking the year.
