THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2011
VOL. 89 | NO. 21 | $3.75
The forensics of food | SAFETY DETECTIVE P14
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
|
WWW.PRODUCER.COM
GET ALONG, LITTLE DOGGY
RISING WATERS | PREPARATIONS
Faulty flood predictions cause chaos BY ED WHITE WINNIPEG BUREAU
David Faurschou spoke for many of his neighbours last week as water seeped though the unstable dikes of the Assiniboine River’s Portage Diversion next to his farm. “It is a mystery to me at this point in time how we became so inaccurate (at measuring the amount of water coming down the river),” said Faurschou, a pedigreed wheat seed producer from Portage la Prairie and Progressive Conser vative MLA. “We (hastily) prepared for the worst case scenario, which I don’t think was a bad thing, but the water levels we suddenly last week expected didn’t appear, and we could have prepared much better earlier in the year if the flood forecasting we had then was accurate.” It was a bewildering week for rural residents near the Portage Diversion and Lake Manitoba, who now face a far different situation than they were initially told to expect. access=subscriber section=news,none,none
WILLIAM DEKAY PHOTO
POLITICS | GERRY RITZ
What lies ahead for agriculture? Ritz seizes opportunity | Conservative majority allows for substantial changes to agriculture BY BARRY WILSON OTTAWA BUREAU
Gerry Ritz, with 14 years of parliamentary experience under his belt and a reform agenda in his gut, has been handed an almost-unprecedented opportunity to remake the
agricultural policy landscape. The Canadian Wheat Board, Canadian Grain Commission, national farm support policies, shipper relations with the railways and farmer export opportunities all could be transformed during his term. The 59-year-old northwestern Sas-
katchewan MP and former farmer was re-appointed agriculture minister May 18 as prime minister Stephen Harper assembled the first Conservative majority government cabinet in almost 20 years. After almost four years as agriculture minister in minority Parliaments, in
which many of his proposals were blocked by opposition MPs, Ritz now has more than four years to push his agenda through a Parliament where the Conservatives control the House of Commons and the Senate. access=subscriber section=news,none,none
SEE RITZ’S PLANS, PAGE 2
»
IN THE EVENT OF A POSTAL DISRUPTION, WE HAVE A PLAN. SEE P. 16, 72-73. SO MANY TANDEM PHOTOS. ONE TRUCK TO
Submit your photo at
www.winatandemtruck.ca
WIN.
TM Trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. TM The Western Producer 0311-16051
»
SEE PREDICTIONS CAUSE CHAOS, P. 3
u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv#:, MAY 26, 2011 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4 The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Inc. Publisher, Larry Hertz Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240; Registration No. 10676
Greg Delinte and his dog, Tess, try to get an unwilling cow back with the herd, May 12 near Wolseley, Sask. See story on p. 75. |