Optimism for 2016
(January 1, 2016) This Canadian New Year brings much hope for western grain farmers. The Prime Minister has promised to demolish the Harper legacy “brick by brick” and has already started to do so by un-muzzling Federal scientists. His administration is even looking at re-opening the prison farms which the Harper Conservatives closed with their typical contempt for cooperative rural...
Read MoreCongratulations Canada
(Oct. 19/15) In his victory speech the new Prime Minister elect, Justin Trudeau, said the election results showed that Canadians can “have faith in your country.” And indeed congratulations to Canadians are very much in order. After the dour and almost paranoid reign of the Harper Conservatives many of us were starting to wonder about how widely the Canadian values we believed in were...
Read MoreTPP will benefit canola and beef?
– Oh please! (When pigs fly) (Oct. 16/15) Some claim beef and canola will benefit from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). As the kids would say with an eye-roll: “Oh please.” A little reality check is in order. First off, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) never had any problem selling into Asian markets. Why? Simply because the CWB and the Canadian Grain Commission guaranteed a...
Read MoreCon Ag Minister blowing fumes
(Oct. 15/15) The Manitoba Cooperator is carrying a story (Grain backlog no impact on farm incomes: Ritz) quoting Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz ridiculing the latest independent academic study showing farmers would have been billions of dollars better off if they still had the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board. Astoundingly, Ritz claims farmers never lost money. Wasn’t it just last year...
Read MoreWestern Grain a SNAFU in more ways than one
(July 29/15) The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) along with Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission and Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission hosted the “Farmers Forum on Grain Transportation, Getting on Track: Solutions for the future” in Regina on July 20, 2015. From the perspective of grain farmers, the results could be characterized with the old military...
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