Letters
To Farm & Country
Label expansions
"Label woes frustrate hort grower" (March 23) portrays BASF Canada opposing label expansions on horticultural crops, particularly Frontier on onions. As with all registration decisions, we evaluate each on its own economic merits and environmental impact. This process is no different than any grower would make on the relative merits of growing one crop over another.
Most of the Ontario onion crop is grown in the muck soils of the Bradford Marsh, an environmentally sensitive area with a high water table. BASF has no environmental impact studies for Frontier on this soil type and is therefore reluctant to encourage growers to pursue a minor use registration. Contrary to reports, Frontier is not registered for use on onions in the U.S.
BASF enjoys a long history of registering safe and reliable products for high-value crops, including label extensions of Poast for more than 50 crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, coriander and mint. BASF achieved 11 minor use label expansions on four products in 1997. More than 17 label expansions are currently under review in horticultural crops. BASF is committed to being the best provider of knowledge and innovative solutions for crop protection in the eyes of our customers. We intend to continue discussions and seek opportunities for solutions with the horticultural industry.
Wayne Myers
BASF Product Manager, Horticulture
Toronto
Merits of blends
I finally agree with something John Core has said about
margarine: "Let
margarine stand on its own merits" (Margarine colours butter
blend debate,
March 16). Margarine does stand on its own merits, especially in
jurisdictions that do not restrict its marketability. Margarine
has gained
its fair share of the Ontario and Quebec markets despite archaic
legislation to thwart it.
Manufacturers produce and sell blends because consumers buy the
product.
Manufact-urers blend margarine and butter because of the good
qualities of
both products, not to mask the undesirable traits of either
product.
Margarine, blends and other soy-based products are produced for
consumers
who both need and want these products. Yes, let margarine stand
on its own
merits. Also, let butter and other dairy products stand on their
own
merits, not behind legislation.
Ron MacDougall,
Oil Springs
Head in sand?
Raymond Bumstead ("Horns of Plenty," April 20) says there's "no
way you
can develop a market for [ostrich] and there's no way it can help
but
plummet."
It wasn't but eight years ago that we were reading such promising
articles
about ostrich as I read today about elk, so no one is to say but
the
consumer what will ride high in the future. Dumping on the
ostrich industry
as Mr. Bumstead did does not help our cause.
He made the elk industry sound like something to behold at the
expense of
the ostrich industry. My husband and I plan to continue to raise
ostrich as
a diversification of our already profitable farming operation.
Ellen Jennen
Thamesville
Challenge to CITT
The government of Canada has stated publicly many times its
commitment to
a strong and vibrant dairy industry. Yet by being signatories to
recent
trade and tariff agreements, the Canadian government has made
clear it is
not committed to supply management.
Example: Negotiating under the Canada/U.S. Trade Agreement
(CUSTA)
incorporated into NAFTA resulted in the elimination of tariffs on
further-processed products that were previously subject to
tariffs between
Canada and the U.S.
Doing so started the process toward the removal of two of the
four
principals of supply management: effective border controls and
making the
cost of production formula ineffective as a tool that establishes
fair
prices paid to producers for milk.
I had high expectations the Canadian International Trade Tribunal
(CITT)
was willing to deal with dairy producers' concerns, but the
inquiry neither
discussed nor identified all the blends that are manufactured
into
final-processed products outside Canada's Tariff-Rate Quotas,
despite my
presentation of that evidence at the tribunal. It also failed to
examine
the financial and production impact those blends have on Canadian
milk
producers.
It appears that other inquiry participants blame dairy producers
for this
problem. I find this hard to accept, knowing the reality under
which we
operate to produce and deliver raw product to processors at a
competitive
price. It would have been enlightening for all tribunal members
and
participants to visit a dairy farm to see what dairying is all
about, and
to gain an appreciation for the fixed costs, hours of hard work,
stress
and financial obligations that come with the territory.
Producers in this country bought into a false commitment when
they entered
in to supply management with the government of the day in 1965.
The
government never intended to honour this agreement. It was merely
a way to
allow the industry the time necessary to get ready to compete on
a global
basis.
We have been sold out by the government and the Dairy Farmers of
Canada.
Effective supply management no longer can operate without the
terms of the
agreement. It has been altered without producers' prior knowledge
and will
continue to be altered in future trade agreements.
Since hearing former Canadian trade negotiator Mike Gifford's
testimony
April 16 in regards to the negotiations that took place it's
clear there is
only one viable option from the list of 14 that was provided by
the
tribunal: That the government of Canada prepare a comprehensive
compensation package to take into account all damage done by the
removal of
effective border controls that allow entry of finished processed
products
or blends not subject to a TRQ, effective Jan.1, 1998.
This should take place within a specified time frame to examine
present
and future damages to producers, though compensation should only
deal with
damage done to the industry to date by the NAFTA and GATT.
I look forward to reading the tribunal's study in July and seeing
how the
government of Canada deals with it.
Bill Denby
Sunderland
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Punishment doesn't fit crime
Wellington county farmer John Garrett thought he was being
neighbourly and
promoting tourism 18 months ago when he hired excavators to clean
out a
clogged ditch and dig a couple of ponds.
Reality crashed down when local conservation authority officers charged Garrett with altering the channel of a waterway and dumping fill in a watercourse.
The provincial ministry of natural resources also charged Garrett under the federal Fisheries Act with destroying fish habitat. While some of the charges have been dropped because Garrett agreed to pay for an expensive restoration plan, he still faces fines of $20,000 to $25,000.
Garrett's lawyer, Scott Snider, with the Burlington law firm of Turkstra Mazza, expects that the Provincial Court trial will take place in the fall.
Garrett says he thought he was being a good neighbour when he agreed to excavate the silted-in ditch running through his farm property. It is a municipal drain dating back to 1916, and under the township's bylaw, written with an early version of the Ontario Drainage Act in mind, landowners are required to keep drains running through their properties clear. A farmer owning property upstream from Garrett wanted to grow soybeans on a wet field. The neighbour had already excavated a silted-in municipal ditch, but the field wouldn't drain because the ditch was still plugged where it ran through Garrett's property.
So Garret hired a backhoe to dig out the ditch and also create a pond. The following spring, Garrett hired another backhoe to dig a pond on another farm nearby. "I thought I would put in a pond and make a wildlife sanctuary," says Garrett, who grows mostly hay and runs a bed and breakfast. He says wild birds are a big attraction for British tourists.
Instead he attracted the attention of local Halton Region Conservation Authority officers, who issued him a summons for excavating without a permit.
Garrett's farm, now largely grown up with small trees, pastured cattle as recently as recently as 1965, and crops were grown there during the 1930s. Fields are tile-drained. "I have the map," Garrett says.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is watching this case closely. "We think it is unfortunate that this case is in court," says local field representative Keith Emry. The OFA is concerned because a farmer has found himself caught between a provincial law that may have been zealously applied and the owner's responsibility as a landowner to keep a drainage ditch open.
Garrett feels that there is an effort to make an example of him. "What gets me is, I said 'If I've done something wrong, tell me what it is. I'll fix it'."
Garrett's lawyer says the failure to get a permit to ditch on one farm was "an innocent mistake."
But he and Garrett will be fighting the charge of destroying fish habitat. "It's our view that there was a depression [in the ground] and there was not fish habitat."
Snider says he must prove to a judge that all reasonable care was taken to prevent harm: "There is a lot to be thought through here for people with drainage ditches."
Peter Jeffrey, OFA senior policy adviser, says the issue of fish habitat and tile drains has been troublesome for some farmers. The interpretation of fish habitat under the acts enforced by Fisheries and Oceans draw no distinction between a natural watercourse and an artificial ditch. "A ditch on your farm is treated no differently than the Credit River when it comes to protection of fish habitat," Jeffrey says.
The Garrett case is interesting because it involved a ditch that was dug early in the century under an earlier version of the Drainage Act. Garrett "was doing what was legally required" when he had a backhoe excavate the ditch, Jeffrey says.
Ironically the drain hasn't been kept clear through property next door owned by the same Halton Region Conservation Authority.
"You could legally argue that the conservation authority next door is in violation because they aren't maintaining the drain," Jeffrey says.
In the meantime, Garrett estimates that with the original excavation costs and the restoration plan, "This will have cost me $60,000 to $70,000 by the time it is all through. The punishment does not fit the crime. It's not fair."
He is livid at the cost to the taxpayers of prosecuting this case. Garrett estimated that with chartering a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the site, the prosecution has likely cost $50,000 "and the clock is still ticking."
The issue could have been settled around his kitchen table,
Garrett says.
"It's a big waste of public resources."
- Don Stoneman
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