A front-page story in our May 5, 1988 issue was an unfortunate sign of things to come, reporting on one of the worst dust storms in recent memory sweeping through the Red River Valley, reducing visibility to a quarter of a mile, with unnamed sources blaming it on “recreational tillage.” Zero-tillage pioneer Jim McCutcheon of Homewood noted that his soil mostly stayed home, except for a four-acre field that he maintained for comparison purposes. Agriculture Minister John Wise’s warning of a major drought in Western Canada was to come accurate — 1988 was the driest year on record. Manitoba wheat yields averaged only 18.3 bushels, and many crops in the Red River Valley were never harvested.
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Had a larger crop been harvested, farmers wouldn’t have paid much to ship it. The Crow benefit was still being paid to the railways, but they were able to obtain an increase of 15 per cent to $7.27 per tonne for the next crop year.
The issue also reported on the first election victory for Premier Gary Filmon’s PCs, though with a minority of just 25 seats due to a surprising surge to 20 seats by the Liberals under Sharon Carstairs.
