By Dean Harder
Photo: Robert Taylor, Wikimedia.org
A banner 2013 crop year and some rail delays due to cold weather doesn’t account for all our grain transportation woes. Coordination of rail to ships is out of synch: a study by Quorum Corporation found that rail shipments to the West Coast are down 2 per cent from last year, but there are excess ships waiting in port. In the east, grain shipments were down 20 per cent at Thunder Bay as of March with some ships turning away empty.
There is a direct correlation between the loss of the farmer-elected Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and the current rail transportation boondoggle which will cost prairie farmers over $5 billion in sales. Continue reading
There’s a simple measure Manitobans can take to reduce their risk of cancer: urge the province to ban lawn and garden pesticides this spring.
