This follows the speech from the throne, in which we were told the government would defend citizens against those evil cable providers. Isn’t it nice to know that a “conservative” government that preaches the virtues of free markets and staying out of citizens’ business will pass an act of Parliament to let you subscribe to the Space channel without having to pay the full three bucks a month to get Spike, History and Bravo as well? And then use your tax money to tell you about it?

If you were a grain farmer watching the Grey Cup, it might have occurred to you that it seems odd that the Harper Government has one attitude toward competition in the cell phone business, but another toward the railways.

Speaking to the Grain Industry Symposium in Ottawa last month, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said he hasn’t seen any evidence that the railways aren’t performing. Apparently the grain companies reporting a weekly shortfall of between 1,000 to 2,000 cars isn’t evidence.

However, “I’ve asked (the grain companies) to keep me up to speed on what’s working, what’s not working, so I can flow it through to Transport Canada and directly to the railways to make sure they understand that we are watching.”

The reference to flowing through Transport Canada directly to the railways is particularly telling. Mr. Ritz may not be aware that in certain quarters, the joke is that Transport Canada is otherwise known as the railways’ unofficial lobbying office in Ottawa.

The minister is also a fan of removing the revenue cap on grain shipments, which would be the railways’ final victory in a long-running campaign to get absolutely everything their way. Perhaps it’s ancient history now, but some of us remember when the railways hinted if not outright promised that if the government got rid of the Crow rate, they might be able to afford to improve service. The railways also said they could improve efficiency by getting rid of all those old wooden elevators and all those branch lines.

So let’s go back to 1983-84, when there were 3,000 elevators, not 300, and most of the cars were boxes, not hoppers. In the final week of that year, Thunder Bay took off 9,672 cars, and Vancouver unloaded 3,000-plus. Back then, 5,000 unloads would have been a disaster. Today it’s considered a good week.

So the railways got what they wanted. The Crow is gone. The boxcars are gone. The branch lines are gone. The wooden elevators are gone. The wheat board is gone. But the railways are shipping half as many cars as they did 30 years ago. Their solution to improve things — and one apparently shared by Minister Ritz — is to get rid of the revenue cap so they can charge even more.

Did we mention that the revenue cap is set at a level to guarantee a profit, and is adjusted for inflation?

The theory behind this, by the way, is that by allowing the railways to charge more in total, they could raise rates at some points to encourage more efficiency in the system. When there are four elevators in Western Canada — one per railway at the foothills of the Rockies and at the Manitoba-Ontario border — perhaps the system will be sufficiently efficient from the railways’ point of view.

The wholesale deregulation of the system over the past 30 years was marked by a number of reports, many prepared with helpful support from the railways’ lobby office in Ottawa… er, Transport Canada. One of the last, by retired Supreme Court Justice Willard Estey, supported continued deregulation. However it’s somehow been forgotten that he also made another recommendation to encourage competition, which was that the rail system be deregulated in the same way as telecommunications, and that there be joint running rights. In other words, anyone could start a railway and run it on CN and CP tracks.

Well, that didn’t happen, but the current government ad campaign tells us that it wants at least four cell phone companies competing in every region of the country — and sharing cell towers.

In kowtowing to the railways, the Harper government is only carrying a tradition followed by previous Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments. But never have we seen such a stark ideological contrast. You must have the choice of four cell companies, but two railways are enough.

— John Morriss is associate publisher and editorial director for Farm Business Communications. This editorial appears in the Dec. 5, 2013 edition of the Manitoba Co-operator (page 4).

Related stories:
KAP president tells ag minister rail service unacceptable, Nov. 27, 2013
Ritz rates current rail service for grain ‘adequate,’ Nov. 20, 2013
Record crop meets plugged system, Oct. 29, 2013
Rail service legislation passes unopposed, May 31, 2013

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With little to no grazing and hay, should livestock producers continue to try to buy feed, move cattle to another state or just sell out?

“It would be much less expensive to just get out and come back later,” Texas AgriLife Extension Service state forage specialist Larry Redmon said in a release. “And that’s the message that we’re trying to convey.”

Many livestock producers have already tried to cut feeding costs by extensively culling their herds, but have held onto enough cows to rebuild their herds if the drought passes. In some dry years, that might be a good strategy, but not this one, Redmon said.

With grazing and hay supplies next to non-existent in many areas of the state, it’s getting very expensive to buy feed.

On average, it’s costing producers “somewhere around $100 a month to have these animals (cows) stay in the pasture and feed them,” he said (all figures US$).

Another choice is to move cattle elsewhere, most likely another state during this drought, and lease land where there is grazing, Redmon said. That could cost $20-$22 per cow-calf pair plus hauling costs, which would be cheaper than buying local feed.

But completely selling out makes more sense yet, Redmon said, given there’s no guarantee this drought will end anytime soon.

“Some people would counter and say it’ll cost more to come back into the business later because conditions will have improved, and more people will be getting back in,” he said.

“That’s true. But again, looking at the difference in what it would cost to buy cows and come back in at some later date — versus what they would spend trying to go through this drought — mathematically, it’s just a no-brainer.”

— The “Editors’ Picks” feature highlights eyebrow-raising and unusual-yet-true news from the world of farming, as gleaned from various sources by the editorial staff of the Farm Business Communications division.

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AWB Ltd. agreed late last month to an A$855 million (C$799 million) all-stock takeover bid by its larger Australian rival, GrainCorp.

The companies’ wedding is seen as a way to fend off domination of Australia’s grain trade by multinationals such as Switzerland’s Glencore, U.S. firms Cargill and Bunge, and/or France’s Louis Dreyfus.

But market observers, citing rising international grain prices, see what the Herald Sun daily newspaper last week called an “increasing likelihood” that multinationals such as Glencore or Regina-based Viterra could step forward as suitors for AWB or even GrainCorp.

But Viterra, which entered the Australian grain business last year with a C$1.4 billion takeover of ABB Grain, remains an “interested observer” of the GrainCorp/AWB courtship, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The AFR last week quoted Viterra CEO Mayo Schmidt as saying his company’s focus has been “entirely” on integration with ABB.

“We keep an eye on the market. We are certainly watching with interest, but in terms of what happens in our competitive environment that we operate in,” the journal quoted Schmidt as saying.

But the AFR also said Schmidt wouldn’t rule out a counter-bid for Melbourne-based AWB.

The journal cited investment industry observers as saying AWB’s Landmark rural services business, which includes merchandise, fertilizers, farm services, wool, livestock, finance, insurance and real estate, would be a “natural fit” for Viterra to consider.

The Herald Sun quoted Schmidt as saying further consolidation, such as a GrainCorp/AWB marriage, would be good for the grain industry in that country.

“We think any consolidation in our sector in Australia or other markets brings more discipline and allows it to be more competitive and for companies like ours to reinvest in the industry,” Schmidt was quoted as saying.

Observers have noted AWB has struggled to hang onto market share in Australia’s grain handling sector since it lost its wheat export monopoly powers in 2008, following a scandal over kickback payments to secure sales to Iraq.

— The “Editors’ Picks” feature highlights eyebrow-raising and unusual-yet-true news from the world of farming, as gleaned from various sources by the editorial staff of the Farm Business Communications division.

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As Canadian government and industry officials attempt to get the genetically modified flax variety Triffid out of the system so shipments can resume to Europe, British TV viewers are being reminded of the sci-fi creature of the same name.

This week the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) concluded airing a new two-part made-for-TV adaptation of the 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids by British author John Wyndham.

The novel was previously adapted for a 1962 film starring Howard Keel and Janette Scott, and a 1981 BBC TV mini-series, as well as several BBC radio dramatizations.

The fictional Triffids are described as plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour: they are able to move about on their three “legs,” appear to communicate with each other and possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting that enables them to blind and kill humans and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims.

Wyndham’s book implies they were bioengineered in the Soviet Union and then accidentally released into the wild when a plane carrying their seeds is shot down. Triffids begin sprouting all over the world, and their extracts prove to be superior to existing vegetable oils. The result is worldwide cultivation of Triffids.

In the new TV version, which BBC commissioned in 2008 for broadcast this year, the Triffids are cultivated as a source of alternative fuel called Triffoil. When a solar storm leaves most of the world’s population blinded, millions of the man-eating plants begin to roam Britain.

Cast members in the new BBC version include Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible II, Desperate Housewives), Joely Richardson (101 Dalmatians), Eddie Izzard (Ocean’s 12, The Riches) and Vancouver-born Jason Priestley (Beverly Hills 90210).

“This story is so enduring — you can apply it to any era,” Priestley was quoted as saying in an interview on the BBC’s website.

“The political landscape of 1951 may no longer be relevant, but the abiding themes of the book still have great resonance. This story says that, if it is left unregulated, greed will bring us all down. As we were making this series, the world was disintegrating as the global economy collapsed. How’s that for topical?”

The real-life genetically-modified flax variety CDC Triffid was withdrawn from commercial distribution in Canada in 2001, but shipments of Canadian flax to Europe have been stalled since September 2009, when traces were found in some cargoes.

— The “Editors’ Picks” feature will highlight eyebrow-raising and unusual-yet-true news from the world of farming, as gleaned from various sources by the editorial staff of the Farm Business Communications division.

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Air Tractor, based at Olney, Tex., about 180 km northwest of Fort Worth, brought its AT-802U “Air Truck” to this year’s International Paris Air Show, where according to an article Tuesday by Associated Press reporter Slobodan Lekic, the plane’s wings were fitted not with pesticide-spraying nozzles but with 225-kg bombs, triple-barrel heavy machine guns and multiple-rocket launchers.

The unit’s 3,000-litre spray tank has become an auxiliary fuel tank, giving the AT-802U sufficient range to cross the Atlantic Ocean, Lekic wrote.

The idea to fit out such a plane as a “light counter-insurgency aircraft” came from a request Air Tractor got from the U.S. government in 2002.

“They needed planes with armored engines and cockpits, and with self-sealing fuel tanks for spraying operations in Latin America,” Air Tractor design engineer Lee Jackson told AP’s Lekic.

Operations spraying illegal drug plantations in jungle areas of countries such as Peru or Colombia often involve planes dodging small-arms ground fire, Lekic wrote.

However, he wrote, a dedicated turboprop-driven counter-insurgency aircraft such as the Embraer Tucano or the Beechcraft T-6, priced at about US$10 million each, has become too dear for smaller countries’ air forces. AP quoted Jackson as saying he expected the armed version of the company’s AT-802 crop-duster to come in below half that price.

Jackson, whose company also displayed its firefighting planes at the Paris exhibition, running June 15-21 at Le Bourget, was also quoted as saying potential customers are particularly interested in the combat-ready AT-802U’s ability to “loiter for up to 10 hours” above a potential target area.

Air Tractor’s non-combat AT-802 models are billed by the company as “the world’s largest single-engine aircraft,” sporting a payload of 9,500 lbs. The company said the 802’s popularity “reflects the industry’s trend to larger, high-production turbine equipment.”

The 802’s two “official” models are the AT-802, with a two-seat cockpit, and the AT-802A, with a single-seat cockpit. “Either of these aircraft can be used for agricultural work or for firefighting,” the company said on its website.

The AT-802F, a dedicated wildfire-fighting model, is billed as an “initial attack air tanker” and “a fast, maneuverable aircraft that’s both operationally effective and economical.” It uses an “advanced, patented computer-controlled firegate to deliver optimum coverage levels with extreme accuracy.”

— The “Editors’ Picks” feature will highlight eyebrow-raising and unusual-yet-true news from the world of farming, as gleaned from various sources by the editorial staff of the Farm Business Communications division.

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Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) recently commissioned Tokyo design studio Groovisions, which has previously developed visuals for MTV in Japan, to develop a MAFF report, Ensuring the Future of Food, as an animated short, the magazine explained.

Groovisions’ resulting short film, posted on YouTube, has so far generated a total of over 100,000 views on the video-sharing site, between its various subtitled versions.

In the film, people and livestock move and dance in time to a light techno soundtrack, while a voice-over explains the circumstances under which Japan’s food supply base has become “quite vulnerable.”

“Currently, Japan only produces about 40 per cent of the food it consumes,” MAFF wrote in an introduction to the campaign on its website. “This is the lowest among all major developed nations.”

An early example of the shifting food supply chain is tempura soba, a Japanese dish for which 80 per cent of the ingredients are now imported, the film explains.

Focused on a couple at home at the kitchen table, the film explains, “In the past, they ate more rice, fish and vegetables, so their diet was nutritionally well balanced. But nowadays they consume more meat, fat and oil.”

And as the animated couple’s waistlines expand, the voice-over explains that the shift in eating habits means more imports of soy and cereal grains, and that “such a change in the diet has disrupted the nutritional balance, giving way to a wide spectrum of health problems.”

The decrease in demand for domestic production leads directly to a decline in agricultural productivity, the video explains, showing young people walking away from the land and a few older farmers remaining to wave goodbye (all in time to the music).

BusinessWeek characterized MAFF’s animated short as an eye-catching alternative to “toiling on a report nobody will read.”

“Our goal was to raise awareness about Japan’s low food self-sufficiency ratio here and overseas,” the magazine quoted MAFF spokesperson Takaya Komine as saying. “The results have exceeded our expectations.”

— The “Editors’ Picks” feature will highlight unusual-yet-true news from the world of farming, as gleaned from various sources by the editorial staff of the Farm Business Communications division.

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