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Vol. 15, No. 34, Wednesday, July 22, 2020 www.LamontLeader.com
Roundtable discussion
Farmers at wits-end trying to make ends-meet PART 2: CONT. FROM LAST WEEK BY JOHN MATHER Local farmers are being stressed, not just by the wet weather, but by bureaucracy, which they see as interfering with their ability to farm in a manner which their families have done for generations. For farmer Mark Sobkow of St. Michael it’s dealing with Alberta Environment while trying to get water off his land. “We’re pumping water and the guys from Alberta Environment come out and hassle us for pumping water,” he said “I have a water pumping permit and they say I’m not keeping my log sheets properly. I need to do the paperwork, but all I want to do is get the water off my land. It’s like they want me pushing more paper than farming. “We’re in survival mode right now, we just want to reduce the damage. Further grievances are aimed at the Federal government. “What you’re just seeing now is a great illustration of what you may see in the fall,” said Clint Moroziuk from the Mundare area. “If you’re combining or straight swathing you won’t see what’s underneath and suddenly you’re going down. This is the fifth harvest from hell in a row.” And then to add insult to injury, if they have to use grain dryers to dry the crop, they still have to pay carbon tax on the gas used for drying. “It’s not right. I don’t care what Trudeau thinks,” said Zoltan Yaremie, from near Andrew. “We’re trying to feed the world and that tax is just not right.”He goes on further by stating the local MP Shannon Stubbs had shown a photo from the area showing the flooded fields to Agriculture Minister MarieClaude Bibeau and she reportedly told her, “We were just being too emotional.” They feel that years ago farming and
A large tractor turns on to Range Road 161 after getting pulled out of a planted field where it had become stuck July 11. Local farmers admit the size of today's farm equipment is overwhelming the rural roads in the area, but also blame the County for not maintaining ditches to allow proper drainage. agriculture was the biggest industry in Alberta and after oil and gas claimed the top spot, agriculture is still the province’s second biggest industry. “And people in the urban areas just don’t understand that,” said Bob Starko from near Star. He relates when his daughter was in college, they had gone to an Edmonton car dealership to buy her a car. “After looking and liked one, I told her it might not be a good fit for our gravel roads and the salesman looked at me and with a totally straight face said, ‘There aren’t any gravel roads in Alberta.’” “I took my daughter and we left the dealership without making a purchase.” Andrew area farmer Augustine Lamash agrees. “The mayor of Edmonton wants more bike lanes, but nobody cares about the farmers who feed the city.” The city they say is a completely different lifestyle. “They don’t need a car,” said Ryan Warawa from near Mundare “They have all their services within easy walking distance… the restaurants, the bars, the ice rinks, the stores. But out
here in the rural area nothing is nearby.” The farmers also have issues with some of the farm subsidy and crop insurance programs available for them. “Say I’m at 70 per cent with a projected yield of 40 bushels per acre,” said Warawa. “If I’m only getting 70 per cent then I’m only getting 28 bushels an acre. At that yield I’m just not making it.” He said for water insurance coverage you harvest your grains and then the adjuster combines the yields from all of the fields. “So while one field may do really well, and one field does poorly they calculate on an average of the two rather than just looking at the bad fields.” Yaremie adds you also have to look at your input costs which are based on getting 100 percent return on your production. “You have your input for seed and fertilizers, machinery costs and repairs. The labour rate for a guy coming from Vegreville to repair a tractor or sprayer is $170 an hour. Where do we recover that?” When asked if there is Federal
money available, they point to the Agri Invest, a matching program where what the farmer puts into the fund is matched by the Federal government to assist covering costs during hard times or for unexpected weather or conditions such as this year. “But most people have been using this as a retirement fund to some degree,” said Sobkow. “Well since this has been going on for the past five years I’ve had to pull my money out to survive, so there goes my retirement.” And he doesn’t think his children will take over the family farm either. “I had a couple of the boys come back and run a few sections for a few years,” he said. “But the first time they had a bad harvest they said, “ ‘Dad, we can’t do this and went back to jobs in the oilpatch.’ ” And there’s a trickle down effect into the small rural town economies, said Lamash. “If I don’t have the money I’m not going to buy a new truck or another piece of equipment and that hurts the auto or implement dealer, my kids don’t get something and that hurts local business. Everyone will feel it. “We’re the ones that keep Vermilion, Vegreville and Mundare going. We’re here to stay. We’ve been here forever. But we don’t know for how long.” Yaremie adds, “We lost our high school in Andrew and now our junior high. It’s sad to see what’s happening and nobody seems to care.” While this group wasn’t strong on talk of separatism they did admit there’s a need to study a new deal for Alberta in Confederation. “You’ve got to fix Canada first,” said Lamash. “And you need to push back. She (Bibeau, the Federal Agriculture Minister) isn’t going to come out here. There aren’t any votes for her out here, so why come. Look at the last election.”