Looking forward to 2015
Aphorisms contain wisdom about the future of grain (January 14, 2015) While I was wondering what to put in this space about looking forward to 2015, I received a letter from a long-time friend. Prominent on the envelope’s upper right-hand corner was a postage stamp commemorating the 1942 Massey Harris #21 self-propelled combine. That obsolete machine brought to mind an aphorism often attributed...
Read MoreChaos at Port
Turning the coyotes loose (Feb 4, 2014) A few days ago a friend asked me why most of the media stories about the chaos in grain shipping at the west coast failed to mention the end of the single desk farmer-controlled Canadian Wheat Board. As in any system with a lot of moving parts, one failure often leads to another. Ottawa killing the single desk Wheat Board has removed one of the very few...
Read MorePotash layoffs caused by loss of single desk
The news that Potash Corporation will be laying off almost twenty percent of its work force comes as no surprise to grain farmers. Like western Canadian grain farmers, Potash Corporation was part of a single desk marketing structure designed to stabilize prices and extract maximum value for the producers through orderly marketing and quality control and assurance. Last year much of that went...
Read MoreTo See Ourselves
The great poet Robbie Burns once observed that he wished some power would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us. A couple of weeks ago political blogger and long time Alberta reporter David Climenhaga did just that when he wrote a column (Grass crime no! Grain crime yes! The inconsistencies of Prime Minister Harper!) on the hypocrisy of Stephen Harper being tough on crime,...
Read MoreBack 100 years
by admin on Jan 28, 2013 in Articles and Letters
Letter to the Editor In several media releases Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, is espousing the virtues of “marketing freedom.” It appears he is still in the honeymoon stage of “marketing freedom”. Mr. Ritz should go undercover like “the boss” on the TV show and take a load of wheat to the elevator and see how the grain companies operate. Some of the grain company’s favourite...
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