Well the latest manure from political circles should be enough to grow local veggies for decades. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t be worse for our farmers. The problem is the Minister responsible for manure and what grows in it, is currently trying to “get the dirt out”.
The 2006 Annual Conference of Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Ministers and Deputy Ministers of Agriculture is taking place in St. John’s from the 24-27 June.
This is an important event for our agricultural industry and in fact very important to our province.
We should be particularly excited in that Chuck Strahl, federal Minister of Agriculture, is Co-Chair of the event. He’s the Minister that has managed to wrestle from the hands of Stephen Harper over 5 billion $$$$$$$$ for farmers and farm-workers while his weak colleague Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Cabinet rep and federal Minister for Fisheries, is still squeaking to get an early retirement package.
In either case our farms and farmers contribute a great deal to our economy and they are trying to contribute much more. This is an essential moment for us to show-off, puff out our chests, and demonstrate our need for investment in this sector.
For his part, Merv Wiseman, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture and our Fur Breeders Association, has been talking us up, networking with other provinces and producers and generally keeping the public in our province up-to-date. He is asking our federal and provincial governments to take seriously the potential of this industry and invest properly in it.
Usually these federal provincial things are busting at the seams with news items waiting to be taped or written but we have a problem. Our Minister of Agriculture is gone. POOF! We closed the barn door after the horse had left. So now, an “acting” Minister, John Ottenheimer is forced into emergency briefing (session by session) while Ed’s former colleagues are still trying to find him at the hotel.
Yes, John will be duly diplomatic and he is the Minister of inter-governmental affairs (an interesting title nowadays) however it leaves us at a disadvantage during critical meetings and proper lobbying sessions for our producers.
As at the writing of this post, the weekend, VOCM had nothing online about it. Not one story, not one interview. CBC radio local is arts and national for the weekend, CBC television local is not local on the weekend and unless Chuck is in Ontario it will not get special coverage. C’mon people wake-up! We have to do better than this.
I know Merv will represent us well but he should not have to chase shifting Ministers and bureaucrats frenzied trying to get an acting Minister up to speed at this most important event.
What is it our Premier once said? “You can stay out till the cows come home.” At this rate it could be a while because our cows simply don’t know which way to go.
Good Luck to our Federation, farmers, and local industry entrepreneurs for this time, as usual, you are essentially alone in your efforts. This Newfoundlander and Labradorian is happy to lend a hand and I hope others will join in and make this event the success it should be; no thanks to our politicians who are still running around trying to determine who among them is responsible raiding the crop.
Because I was late with this post, I have since heard Merv Wiseman speak publicly and from what he said we did not do as well as we should have. So what is the cost of that missed opportunity? Add that to the list of monies owed to the people.
