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 MoreWhere is the CWB Audit?
(September 29, 2014) With all the fuss over the private grain trade using their new-found position as middlemen between farmers and international customers to take over two billion dollars in extra profits just on wheat in the last crop year, the shenanigans surrounding Ritz’s crippled Wheat Board have been largely overlooked. This spring for the first time in 79 years the CWB failed to make...
Read MoreCWB Audit Missing In Action
by admin on Jun 17, 2014 in News Release
(Pelly, Sk., June 17, 2014) Farmers are wondering why the Minister of Agriculture has failed to meet the legal deadline for filing the 2012-2013 Audited Statement for the Wheat Board he created. “With the chaos in grain marketing this year and a $17 billion dollar class action law suit over the destruction of the farmer-controlled CWB, this delay raises concerns about why the Minister of...
Read MoreHarper’s Sense of humour
(April 11, 2014) Many commentators have remarked on Prime Minister Harper’s humourless approach to life and government, but Bill C-30 “the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act” shows how wrong they are. The Prime Minister and his Agriculture Minister must be nearly anoxic with laughter over the debate in the farm community on the merits of the Act and who can blame them? For almost 78 years...
Read MoreRailways want to kill revenue cap
by admin on Mar 12, 2014 in Articles and Letters
By Bill Woods March 11, 2014 Leader-Post A railway-friendly economist will say that you must pay more to get better service. Unfortunately for farmers, when it comes to grain transportation the opposite is true. Terry Whiteside, chair of the U.S. Rail Shippers Alliance, provided documented evidence that shippers in the U.S. who pay the highest rates, get the poorest service. These shippers...
Read More