Letters – for Mar. 31, 2011

I would like to address our federal agriculture minister’s continued use of the statement of “putting farmers first.” First, as a beginning farmer a short while ago, I fell through some cracks in our agriculture programs. I had appealed every decision, right up to your office, with the same outcome each time, and at each

Remember When?

Reporters are notorious information pack rats and the Manitoba Co-operator’sAllan Dawson is no exception. Rumour has it his house is slowly settling into the Pembina escarpment due to the piles of paper, assorted reports and tape recordings stored in his office. But give Dawson a bit of time and he can pull together a pretty


An Announcement A Day

It’s an old trick tried by governments of every stripe, but it doesn’t hurt to flag it. That’s the practice of dribbling out funding announcements in order to get news coverage in advance of an election, though recently “flood” would be a better word. These are from Agriculture Canada so far in March, all mentioning

Marketing Into Growing Economies

It’s one of those rare times at present, when every sector of agriculture is receiving profitable prices from the marketplace. This fits well with the theory of an increasing worldwide population and the growing demand for food. It’s comforting to believe that as farmers we can just continue to do what we’re doing and watch


Record-High Food Prices? Or Just Better Than Record Lows?

Reporters and politicians are making frequent references to high food prices – some going so far as to suggest prices are nearing record levels. But for the farmers and peasants who produce the world’s food, prices are nowhere near record highs. In fact, what is currently happening to corn, beans, rice, or wheat prices would

Letters – for Mar. 24, 2011

When “many appeared clueless about what was going on” as cited in the March 10 Manitoba Co-operator,how many of the canola growers invited to stack the largest annual meeting ever, beginning with all the MCGA directors who oversaw the theft of “the now-defunct grain co-operatives,” would have known or answered correctly that Manitoba’s Cinderella crop,


Which One Can Deliver The Goods?

In the March 17 editorial, Business Risk Management, I learned that there is a technocrat named de Schutter in the United Nations heading up a division called Right for Food.

Business Risk Management

The importance of planning to be safe on the farm can ever be overemphasized in agriculture. Rural culture is such that for far too long farm families have lived a risky lifestyle, accepting and even celebrating obsessive work habits in the name of staying one step ahead of the weather, saving money or earning more.


Cheap Food Versus Expensive Oil

You can’t have cheap food and expensive oil. It just doesn’t work. For hundreds of millions of people who earn only a dollar or two a day, increasing prices for staple foods like grains, pulses, rice and cooking oil is a big deal. Canadians spend only about 11 per cent of their disposable income on

Reinvesting In The Future Necessary

Bill Gates showed us all how to get rich when he built Microsoft. According to Bill, the way to be successful in the corporate world is not to compete, but to create your own monopoly. He did that by creating a computer system with built-in obsolescence that ran with proprietary equipment. If you want to