THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2016
BURIED ALIVE |
VOL. 94 | NO. 4 | $4.25
FARMER TELLS OF HARROWING ESCAPE
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SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
HOGS
Producers talk of hog barn expansion
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I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE …
Are the lean times over for Manitoba’s hog industry? BY ROBERT ARNASON BRANDON BUREAU
SEE HOG INDUSTRY, PAGE 4
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Cody Dueck, 5, of Morris, Man., peeks into a model farmhouse on display at Manitoba Ag Days. The annual trade show attracts thousands of producers and wanna-be farmers every January in Brandon. FOR MORE FROM MANITOBA AG DAYS, SEE PAGES 4, 5 AND MARKETS. | ROBERT ARNASON PHOTO
COMMODITIES
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Low oil price problems reach beyond jobs Abandoned wells could lead to tax shortfalls for many Alberta municipalities BY MARY MACARTHUR CAMROSE BUREAU
RED DEER — Rural Alberta is in for a rough future as bankrupt oil and gas companies abandon pipelines and wells and no longer pay their taxes to municipalities and lease payments to farmers, a surface rights adviser warns. Daryl Bennett, a partner in My Landman Group, said low oil prices and world overproduction have put many companies out of busi-
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ness and more will follow unless prices rise. For farmers, that means oil leases won’t be paid and well sites and pipelines will be abandoned without being reclaimed and cleaned up. Rural municipalities that rely on taxes from energy companies could see their revenues dramatically drop. “Once you abandon a well, you don’t have to pay any taxes or linear assessments to the county. That will be a significant shortfall in
county resources,” Bennett told an Alberta Federation of Agriculture meeting. Alberta municipalities and counties receive two streams of oil and gas revenue: Linear assessment is money that governments collect from pipelines and power lines and redirect to municipalities. About $845 million of linear assessment now goes to counties. SEE OIL PRICES, PAGE 5
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JANUARY 28, 2016 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Stn. Main, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4 The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Corp. Publisher: Shaun Jessome Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240
New hog barns could soon be built in Manitoba, after eight years of little to no construction. The weak loonie, combined with the repeal of U.S. country-of-origin labelling and relaxed manure regulations in Manitoba, have produced the right conditions for new barn investment. “There are barns that are going to be built. We talked to Hutterite colonies last week in Brandon. There’s a number of them seriously looking at … building barns,” said Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council. An investment in new barns and hog production is needed because many of Manitoba’s hog barns are 20 to 25 years old. The life span of a barn is typically 30 years. “We should be building about 20 barns a year (in Manitoba),” Dickson said. “Over the next 10 years, we essentially have to replace most of the buildings we’ve got. That’s a $2 billion investment.” Companies, colonies and individual producers built only about four barns since the late 2000s because provincial regulations curtailed investment. The province placed a temporary moratorium on new barn construction in 2006. The government said inadequate management of hog manure was devastating the quality of water in Lake Winnipeg. The moratorium evolved into a ban on new barns or barn expansion in the eastern half of the province.