Letters
To Farm & Country
Corn credit
While the photo in Cereal corn pushing planting frontier (March 15) is indeed of me in the New Liskeard trial plot, the caption crediting me with planting the corn errs. The 1997 cereal corn trial there was coordinated and managed by John Rowsell and Matt Bowman in co-operation with Ag Canada personnel in Ottawa.
Jim Johnston
Forage agronomist,
University of Guelph (New Liskeard Agricultural Research Station)
Labelling GMOs
Further to Regulations lagging science (Feb. 15), about regulators striving to keep up with biotechnology developments: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Codex Committee of Food Labelling is considering proposed draft recommendations for the labelling of foods obtained through biotechnology.
The issue of whether or not it is necessary to label foods that are substantially equivalent to existing conventional foods is still under discussion at the committee.
Charles Riemenschneider
Director (North America), FAO, Washington, DC
Seed money
Regarding Seed sown for faster registration system (Feb. 15), the feds do not review the registration every five years. Rather, registration of new crop varieties is often an ongoing discussion, often a tugging match, between the developers of new varieties and the federal system. Compounding its complexities is the role of the recommending committees. Relevant to registration, the Seeds Act states: "recommending committee means a provincial, regional or national committee that has the necessary expertise to administer testing of varieties for merit and that is designated by the Minister to make recommendations as to merit in respect of registration of varieties."
The federal government has no control over these committees, nor does it contribute to their funding. Over the past decade, with continual downsizing of provincial ag budgets, these committees have had to continually increase test costs to meet the challenges of developing higher-yielding varieties and identify that superiority in internal trials to assure success in these costly "official" trials. As Farm & Country writer Tom Button points out, this has caused long delays in getting these new, superior varieties into the hands of producers.
In the late '70s the seed industry successfully lobbied Agriculture Canada to accept private trials to contribute to the database for registration data, especially in the area of forage crops, where perennial long-term trials are more difficult to operate than that of annuals such as corn or beans. This recognition of high-quality data developed in the private sector made much of the industry recognize the redundancy of the registration system.
The relevant user-oriented leadership of the Ontario Corn Producers Association led to removal of the registration requirement for corn, and again you have documented the success of this change.
What is therefore so frustrating is the process by which Agriculture Canada has decided to conduct this review. It was not all-inclusive: Some plant breeding companies received the questionnaire, others did not. It put the issue of registration for corn varieties back on the table - seeking justification for a change that has been lauded as successful. It even implicated the highly successful "multiplication for export" segment of the industry.
The removal of hybrid corn, turf grasses (earlier on) and certain limited-use forage species - coupled with a more simple system of recommendation in Ontario for forage crops - raises some serious questions of raison d'etre. Add to this the rapidity of variety turnover and life, and the already-referenced challenges of "recommending committees," and a solid case can be built for a much simpler registration system. Regrettably, the optics of the Agriculture Canada initiative conveyed an altogether different and what appears to many a regressive approach.
Martin C. Pick
Pickseed Canada Inc.
Lindsay
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Investment guts
Don Lazenby is not a big fan of mutual funds. He would rather invest in young farmers. Lazenby, a well-known Oxford county Dairy Herd Improvement fieldman, sold the family's dairy quota when son Mark went off to study at the University of Guelph. But when Mark and his friend Steve Vandendool decided they wanted to give dairying a try, Lazenby bought back as much quota as the rules allowed, and rented it to the two aspiring dairyman for six per cent of its value annually. (See page 36.)"I could have invested the money somewhere else, or I could invest in the two young guys," Lazenby says.
Vandendool, who grew up on a Huron County pig farm, had few options when it came to dairying, lacking the family connections often needed to get into the capital intensive business. The elder Lazenby's acceptance of a U.S.-style partnership agreement four years ago has enabled the group to build a 40-cow milking herd using rented facilities and rented land.
Many aspiring young Ontario farmers lacking family connections or risk-bearing partners such as Lazenby won't get the opportunity afforded Vandendool. Programs such as FarmStart, which offered grants of $11,000 to young farmers in their first year, gradually falling to $1,000 in the seventh year of operation, have dried up.
In 1994, then-NDP Agriculture Minister Elmer Buchanan launched a novel agricultural program that encouraged farmers and rural residents to reinvest some of the billions of dollars sitting in rural interest-bearing accounts. Buchanan had hoped to use the accumulated capital as an investment pool for farm and rural initiatives, paying GIC-like returns. The program, suffering from lack of exposure, inert investors - or those who preferred high-flying equity markets - failed.
Would a similar program find more success today? Possibly. Pork producers have realized that maintaining and increasing processing capacity is the key to their future; many have shown interest in a proposed investment fund targeted at improving small packer competitiveness.
Financial institutions such as banks and the cash-flush Ontario Teachers Pension Fund will lend money to Maple Leaf Foods' Michael McCain, but young farmers like Steve Vandendool have to rely on the resources and ingenuity of the farm community.
Commodity groups such as Dairy Farmers of Ontario could play a role. Dairy producers have to find some way to reduce the burden quota purchases imposes on young dairy farmers.
Helping young farmers climb the money mountain that farming has
become
will also take a fiscal commitment from the provincial
government. And with
Ontario agri-food exports climbing to $6.2 billion in 1998, a
10-per cent
increase over the previous year, there's tangible proof for any
provincial
party of farming's potential return on investment.
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A Liberal who bucks the party line
Backbench Ontario Liberal MP Paul Steckle certainly doesn't always sound like a Liberal MP. Sure, he shows up most of the time to vote the party line and expresses support for the bulk of Liberal policy.But when he disagrees, this Bruce county farmer and conservative Liberal tends to say it out loud. It has helped him get elected twice in what was once a secure Tory fiefdom.
This independent and straight-talking streak can make Steckle fine fodder for journalists looking for stories, but an irritant - or sometimes worse - for Liberal handlers.
There was the time, for example, when the Liberals were pushing gun control legislation. The prime minister's office cracked the whip and told uneasy rural Liberal MPs to support it.
Steckle and a handful of other rural Liberals extended their version of the political finger and voted with the Opposition.
Punishment was meted out. They were dropped from parliamentary committees and shunned from party perqs.
Who cares? Steckle and the others went about their work, and constituents clearly approved since they all were re-elected. Eventually, they quietly were reintegrated into the Liberal family.
At the height of the controversy, Steckle confided to a reporter that if he had a choice of being in a party headed by a well-known Conservative or one led by then-Liberal justice minister and gun control advocate Allan Rock, he'd pick the Tory.
That's Paul Steckle.
Last month on Parliament Hill, he was at it again. It was meant to be an occasion for the government to praise its own efforts for rural Canada, an appearance before the House of Commons agriculture committee of officials from Agriculture Canada's rural secretariat. Typically, it would be a time for Liberals to praise government efforts and to deflect Opposition complaints.
Then, it was Steckle's turn.
He wondered if the government really supports supply management, a regulated system of production and price-setting in dairy and poultry sectors that Steckle said is among the few bright spots in rural Canada these days.
"We are at a point in our history when rural conditions are at a low point," said the Liberal MP.
It hardly sounded like the voice of the government. Steckle said later it was the voice of rural Canada.
As a rural MP and long-time farmer, he said he has never seen it so bad, no matter what message the government tries to pitch.
Government support policies, farm aid and the rural secretariat are not enough to counteract more negative forces. "When I see rural Canada, I see the decline of the family farm, vertical integration, poverty. These are not good times."
He said a number of forces are at work - international trade agreements, a disproportionate hit in rural Canada from federal Liberal government budget cuts and a general decline in rural infrastructure.
And in the next round of world trade talks, "there will be tremendous pressure on supply management from the Americans and others. I am nervous we will not defend it strongly enough. It is one of the few bright spots."
As the meeting ended, Steckle moved on to one more complaint against the government and the rural secretariat, a complaint for which he conceded he is an unlikely advocate.
He wondered why the rural secretariat was not spending more time and money on projects that would benefit rural women. Steckle mentioned the need for rural day care or child care facilities.
Later, he said he raised the issue because no one else had. "I'm the least likely person to be raising a feminist issue, but it is an issue," he said after the meeting. "What happens to rural kids when both their parents are out working?"
For Steckle, it is not a feminist or non-feminist issue. It is a
life and
death issue. In 1973, one of his unsupervised children was killed
in a farm
accident while her parents were doing farm
work.
Barry Wilson is Ottawa-based farm journalist
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Tax wizardry in short supply here
If you ask me, doing the income tax is about as appealing as having a root canal. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. Our accountant retired. Now more than ever I'm feeling the truth of that calculated play on words: "Two things in life are for sure: Death and taxes."For the past 10 years, my husband, Neil, and I consulted Jim on major decisions throughout the year, having him preview our farm books to determine whether we should spend more money before year-end or defer taxes by making RRSP contributions. Formerly a partner in a well-known accounting firm, Jim worked from his home office - just a 10-minute drive from our farm, and we could count on him for efficient, honest service at a reasonable price.
Before he came along, we'd been to one of those big name firms. They carried a big price tag, too, for services that appeared to cover no more than filling out the income tax form. Any phone calls relating to our business came from girls in the office who, it appeared to us, were actually doing the work. When we picked up the final income tax form, we mistakenly tried to take the opportunity to gain information from the male accountant we'd signed on with. Since we'd been feeling anything but flush, yet had to pay a large chunk of income tax, we asked what we could do to avoid that in future.
"If you made it, you have to pay it," said he, obviously more intent on his need for lunch than those of his clients. Prior to him, we'd choked on cigar smoke, waiting for crumbs of advice from another chartered accountant.
When the letter arrived announcing Jim's retirement, then, I had trouble believing it at first. I realized just how Neil felt when a trusted farm mechanic switched to a career in long-distance trucking. It was like a wake around here, as he recalled the times that Albert had dropped everything to come out to the hay field to diagnose baler problems, or climb the silo to repair an unloader. Since Albert lives less than a quarter of a mile away, we pass his driveway all the time. It got to the point where I'd purposely try to think up diversions for my husband, who never failed to look in to see if he was home.
Neil was in the denial stage for a long time, half-hoping that Albert would tire of the trucking life enough to re-open his shop. At the very least, he hoped the mechanic might want to do some moonlighting on weekends. It was especially hard, because Neil has never aspired to fix anything that's expected to run. He's been a livestock man all his life, and that's what he'll stay.
Only recently, he declared: "It'll take four men to replace Albert." After that, he found two men to begin to fill those shoes, and finally started letting go of the past and handling the inevitable breakdowns more rationally.
Tax deadlines as they are, I was forced to deal with my loss more quickly. I had six months to find someone before year-end, during which I picked the brains of other farmers, and contacted a bank employee friend of mine for names of reputable accountants specializing in farms. When I found what I thought would be a match, I called for an appointment.
The last thing we wanted was to set our finances on the table of another would-be retiree. What we found is a rare husband-and-wife team with more than 20 years' experience in farm accounting, and a like-minded son who will be joining them later in the year. Their quick familiarity with farm issues has given us peace of mind, not just for the 1998 tax year, but for the future.
Like Neil, I recognize my own limitations. I have no problem plugging the figures in to our Quicken program, and am ever-grateful for the computer that I once faced with trepidation. An income tax form looks like Greek to me, though, and I'd never begin to be able to keep up with the changing tax laws, allowances and loop holes. In short, I believe in letting the specialists get on with what they do best, providing their fees are reasonable.
Now, if only I could find a millennium disaster aversion expert!
Margaret Comfort partners a family dairy farm in St. Catharines
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