The Western Producer takes a weekly look at some of the stories that made headlines in issues of the paper from 75, 50, 25 and 10 years ago.
75 years ago: Dec. 19, 1940
The Western Agricultural Conference met in Regina Dec. 11-12 to talk about wheat and livestock policy in advance of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture annual meeting in January. Delegates discussed acreage reduction, elevator and farm storage, quotas, additional payments for the 1939 and 1940 crops, a processing tax and prices.
The prairie wheat pools were considering a construction program to build additional grain storage to accommodate delivery of the remainder of the 1940 crop.
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Pool directors said they had pretty much run out of confidence that the federal government would set up an advance payment plan for grain stored on farms.
50 years ago: Dec. 16, 1965
Great Britain remained Canada’s largest and most consistent wheat market, buying 70 million bushels in grain and 10 million bu. in flour. China was second at 62 million bu., Japan bought 50 million bu. and the European Common Market took 49 million bu.
The Soviet Union and other eastern European countries bought a total of 80 million bu., mainly using credit from the federal government, although the Soviets did spend cash to buy eight million bu. of wheat and 6.5 million bu. of flour for Cuba.
Roy Atkinson of Springwater was given a third term as president of the Saskatchewan Farmers Union. He won the office by acclamation. Vic Althouse, who later became a long-time NDP member of Parliament from Saskatchewan from 1980-97, was elected the organization’s youth president.
25 years ago: Dec. 20, 1990
The National Farmers Union angered Saskatchewan premier Grain Devine when it expressed relief that trade talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade had failed.
The NFU was worried that a trade deal would disproportionately help multinationals, but Devine pointed to the Soviet Union, which had a completely administered system with no multinational companies.
“They were pure in the eyes of the socialists, and what have you got? Mass hunger, abuse, waste, poverty, no hope, economic disgrace, disparities,” he said. “So send the NFU over to the Soviet Union and ask them to fix it up? It’s a pure place. There’s not a multinational in sight.”
The Senate approved the Progressive Conservative government’s goods and services tax.
10 years ago: Dec. 15, 2005
Japan lifted its two-year-old ban on beef from Canada and the United States, but considerable red tape remained. The ban had been put in place after BSE was found in North America.
Statistics Canada stunned canola growers with its final crop production estimate of 9.7 million tonnes. The trade had predicted 8.6 to 9.2 million tonnes. The large crop was expected to continue playing havoc with canola prices.
