Hail hits hard
Ag Ex Ed Expanded Ag Ex committed to educating youth » PG 13
It was a record year for hail claims in 2016 » PG 20
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 74, No. 44 | $1.75
November 3, 2016
manitobacooperator.ca
Cattle stranded, nerves fraying
Tax protest in RM of Springfield Organizers want the Manitoba government to remove education taxes on farmland
As the water keeps rising, cattle producers question pump operation guidelines around The Pas
BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff
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andowners in the RM of Springfield are refusing to pay land taxes they say have jumped unreasonably, more than doubling in some cases. They’re hoping to see the province reconsider the way it collects education taxes from farmland, says Dugald farmer Edgar Scheurer, who first suggested Manitoba farmers take action in a Facebook posting “It looks as though the majority of Springfield farmers will hold back their property tax this month,” Scheurer said in an email Oct. 27. “I hope people will follow through and we will get noticed. “We want to make a statement,” he said later in an interview. Taxes were due in Springfield, and most other rural municipalities, Oct. 31. Scheurer said recent stories in the Manitoba Co-operator had helped raise awareness around the increases in land taxes across Manitoba — in some cases doubling. Property taxes are based on its See TAX on page 7 »
submitted photo
BY SHANNON VANRAES Co-operator staff
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
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im Berscheid is exhausted and his cattle could soon be hungry. Flooding in and around his ranch in the Rural Municipality of Kelsey, near The Pas, have left 400 of his cattle stranded, reachable only by canoe. Berscheid has
fed them the last of his accessible feed stock and he is now weighing the possibility of letting them forage a partially flooded cornfield. “We use it for winter grazing normally, but we always graze that on frost, because the first thing the cows do when you give them a patch is they blow through the strip and eat all the cobs and knock it all down,” he said. “But if they are
in water and mud, how is that going to work? We don’t know, and we don’t even know if it is safe with all the flooding and water damage, it might be too mouldy, but we have sent feed samples out to find out.” But at best, that represents a short-term solution. What Berscheid really wants to see is an end to drainage practices that he believes unduly impact his land.
Berscheid and his wife Michelle have farmed in the area for nearly four decades and their struggles with excess water have become more dire with each passing year, he said. “There was always the shell game about what’s happening and every time we were flooded we would be told See FLOODING on page 6 »
Drive and Dine: Guide promotes rural eateries » PAGE 38