Grainews Tea will double yields, and cure all

Now that no one is enforcing those pesky fertilizer regulations, boy do I have a good product for you. I have mentioned it before. It is called the Grainews Tea and does it ever work great to increase crop yield by 40 per cent, quality by two grades, and also has been shown to have dramatic affect on male-pattern baldness too. Please call me for this miracle product, TODAY.

Marketing my new product is now possible as CFIA announced it will no longer be looking at fertilizer products to make sure they work. They will regulate products to ensure they are safe for humans, animals and the environment, but no one will have to worry their pretty little heads about whether the stuff actually does what it is supposed to do.

So if I can convince you that my patented, secret formula Grainews Tea, which is backed by stacks of high school research from Qatar can grow grass on a bowling ball – ain’t it just my lucky day.

To me this is just another step in a concerning trend of the federal Conservative government in screwing agriculture. Harper and the boys were big heroes last year as they carried through with plans to create an open market with changes to the Canadian Wheat Board. And on some level that was a good thing.

Then they turned a few months later and sold a good chunk of our grain handling system to Sweden, and to ice the cake, weeks later they decided to close a number of those Agriculture Canada research centres, because hey, that whole business about R & D is way over rated.

Maybe I am missing the bigger picture somewhere, but you put this all in a bag and give it a good shake, and about all I see at the top is a pretty clear message that agriculture has low priority.

We here heart felt speeches talking about the value of agriculture to the Canadian economy, the blood sweat and tears of those salt-of-the-earth farmers who produce crops and livestock, the need for a high quality, abundant, safe food supply, the need to be world leaders in an ever-more competitive global marketplace, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…  And then the government hacks away at the infrastructure that helps the industry make all those good things possible.

I am reminded of the old joke, about a farmer telling a stranger about how smart and valuable a three-legged pig was. The pig had done many amazing things in its life.  It had warned the family when the house was on fire and everyone got out safely, it saved a little girl from falling into a well, it had found his wife’s wedding ring that was lost in the garden, and the list of accomplishments went on and on. It was a valuable member of the family. 

And the stranger said “that is amazing.  But what happened to it’s missing leg?”

And the farmer says, “Oh, with a pig that valuable, you can’t eat it all at once.”

I don’t know where the Harper government is going with all its professed support and commitment for the agriculture industry, but I hope it stops soon before the industry collapses and dies.

Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com