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JULY 25, 2013
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SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | VOL. 71, NO. 30
Drop in producer car loadings alarms CWB Alliance
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MANITOBACOOPERATOR.CA
Weather damage hints at new normal under climate change
It’s estimated about 9,200 producer cars will move through the system this year, a drop of nearly 40 per cent from a year ago By Alex Binkley CO-OPERATOR CONTRIBUTOR / OTTAWA
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oadings of producer cars in Western Canada have dropped by 40 per cent since the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on wheat and barley sales last summer. That’s added at least $5 million to farmers’ transportation costs and shows new legislation is needed to ensure farmers can continue to load their own cars, said Bill Gehl, chair of the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance. “Clearly the private sector is exercising its control over port facilities to undermine both (Agriculture Minister Gerry) Ritz’s crippled grain company that was cobbled together from the wheat board and the access farmers once had to port facilities,” said Gehl. It’s estimated there will be about 9,200 producer car shipments by the end of the crop year on July 31 — compared to 14,341 in 2011-12. But the drop isn’t “a big surprise or indicative of a big
After western Manitoba has been battered by storm after storm, residents say they’re convinced
There was nothing left of this soybean field belonging to Cory Martin (r) and his father Hal Martin after a severe storm including high winds and hail swept through the Reston and Pipestone area in the evening of July 13. PHOTO: LORRAINE STEVENSON
See PRODUCER CARS on page 6 »
By Shannon VanRaes CO-OPERATOR STAFF
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
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endon Campbell was only half a mile from home when the storm hit his Reston-area farm, but he and wife Shirley were stranded as torrents of water flooded their road and drowned four of their cows. It was the third flash flood the Campbells have experienced this year. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’d say this is a new one on me,” Kendon said. He estimated the latest storm on July 14 unleashed about 5.5 inches of rain, in addition to devastating hail and dangerous winds. In nearby Pipestone, a tornado touched down, destroying a portion of the community’s arena.
The storm also had Hal Martin — who estimated he lost close to 3,500 acres of sunflowers, canola and other crops to hail — shaking his head. “I have seen storms go through here a lot of years back during the late ’70s and early ’80s,” said Martin, who farms north of Reston. “One storm cleaned a bunch of our crop out, but it was only about two miles wide. This last storm was seven miles wide where it hit us — I’ve never seen it this wide and this severe, with granaries picked up and literally gone, ’til now.” Rain now comes in periodic deluges rather than intermittent showers, he said, and although the growing season has gotten longer, the time available for sowing has gotten shorter.
But why these things are happening is harder to assess, said Martin who has farmed since 1961. “There’s a lot of theories about it and I don’t know what the right answer would be, but I have noticed over the years that our weather has been changing,” he said. Anecdotal evidence from people like Martin and the Campbells fits with the increasingly compelling findings of experts that the climate is changing, said David Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist. “They feel that (the world) is clearly warmer and human beings are contributing to that, so the jury is sort of in,” he said. See CLIMATE CHANGE on page 6 »
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