Dear Editor:
Next month farmers of Saskatchewan will be electing people to represent them on the new provincial Wheat and Barley Commissions. These Commissions will be responsible for deciding who gets the money they collect from wheat and barley sales for plant breeding and market development. The government claims these commissions will put farmers in control now that they have killed the farmer controlled single desk Wheat Board.
So it is really strange that the government appointed chair people, Cherilyn Nagel Jolly and Bill Cooper thought it was necessary to appoint a permanent executive director for both the barley and wheat groups, before the elections. Didn't they think the newly elected directors could select their own executive director? Is the government putting their people in management now, so that farmers are steered into giving wheat and barley research money to the agro-chemical seed companies? Is this a backdoor way of both subsidizing these giant companies and making sure farmers cannot reuse their own saved seed? As we have seen with canola, it would be a great way to increase farmers' costs and maximize corporate profits.
It was also interesting that the person the government appointees picked came from the grain trade and was not from any the farm groups. Looks like they think contact with the industry is more important than contact with the farmers who supply the money!
It will be interesting to see if these barley and wheat groups will really be under farmer control or simply be the puppets of the government and chemical companies.
Kyle Korneychuk
Pelly, Sask
