The Rural Voice, 2005-03, Page 56GREY
County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER
446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9
Email: grey@ofa on.ca Website: www.ofa.on.calgrey 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551
The Rural Voice is provided to OFA
Members in Grey County by the GCFA
Your $150 membership pays big dividends
I am concerned about farmers
response to the tractor blockades
conducted by the Lanark Landowners
Association and the Ontario Federation
of Agriculture not supporting their
effort. Ron Bonnett, OFA President has
taken most of the heat for this decision.
However. it was the decision of the
OFA Board of Directors, about 100
strong, at their January meeting not to
support the blockade. The main
concern of the Board was the liability
of such action. There were other
concerns but liability was the main one.
My biggest concern is what are
farmers doing themselves to help their
situation? We must each take some of
the responsibility for our situation and
therefore take part in opportunities that
present themselves.
Today what does $150 buy? How
much fuel? Not even a half ton of
fertilizer. But I do think that your and
my $150 to OFA does a lot. ($10.50 is
added for GST for a total of $160.50).
Now, opportunities I talked about
before will be presented to you by the
OFA and we must seize these if we
want agriculture to be viable. The
opportunities I referred to is to join
OFA and all farm organizations in
Ontario to go directly to Queen's Park
on March 2 and tell our political
leaders of the farm income crisis and
regulatory burden on farmers.
• The trend of farm income has been
downward for 25 years. This must end
because our numbers are dropping
daily, monthly, and yearly. The idea of
more and more for less and less has to
halt. Strong measures must be taken to
olio Voice
Queen's Park Farmers' Rally
Wednesday, March 2 - 10:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
For details contact OFA in Grey -Bruce
519-365-3050, Ext. 2 or 1-800-275-9551
Email: bruce@ofa.on.ca or grey@ofa.on.ca
GREY COUNTY FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
DIRECTORS' MEETING
Thursday, March 31 - 8:00 p.m.
(NOTE: Date Change)
Grey County Agricultural Services Centre meeting room
(Grey Gables), 206 Toronto Street South, Markdale
Members are welcome to attend
52 THE RURAL VOICE
have this trend stop.
Today 11 per cent of our farmers are
under age 35. When you look over your
shoulder to see what's coming, the
troops are small in numbers. The Targe
seed companies and large feedlots.
large hog operations and
slaughterhouses have only one thing in
mind: field -to -table with them
controlling it all.
We can't let this happen. We must
show the few behind us we can still
fight to survive and make things better
in fanning.0
Born to Farm!! - Paul Wettlaufer,
OFA Regional Director, Grev North
Wind energy leases: take care
Energy. A commodity that we all use. Since the mid '40s most of Ontario's farmers have
had the luxury of low cost electricity coming in their lane to run their operations. I can
remember when Ontario Hydro ran a line about 1/2 mile up the road so we could run a
water pump on a pasture farm. We then paid $6.10 every three months for the service and
the energy. I don't know if it was clean energy or not; it was just energy and it ran a pump
to water our cattle.
Times have sure changed. We use vastly larger amounts of energy now and it may
come from water, coal, nuclear, methane from waste, natural gas, the wind or the sun. I
will be talking about wind and solar energy. 11 is estimated that there will be rising demand,
falling supply (as we phase out coal fired plants) and changes to more costly sources of
energy. The following chart shows some current and projected prices
Present Prices
Source Cost (cents/kwr)
Hydro 24% 4.1
Coal 25%
Nuclear 30%
Gas 3%
Wind/green 1%
Imports 15%
AVERAGE
4.5
4.8
12
6
12
5.9
Future Prices with Present Trends
Source
Hydro
Coal
Nuclear
Gas
Wind/green
Imports
Cost (cents/kwr)
30% 5.4
5%
25%
20%
5%
15%
AVERAGE
2 X Quebec's price
6.5
5.8
14
10
14
8.9
This shows that our energy prices will soon increase by almost 50 per cent. It also
suggests that it will become more cost effective to operate a business in Quebec. Ontario
is presently proposing several "Wind Farms" to increase our production of green energy.
Several large companies are endeavouring to implement these plans, and this is where a
WARNING comes. If someone wanting to give you a signing bonus to use your land as a
sight for a wind generator approaches you, READ THE CONTRACT (take it to your lawyer
if necessary). Often these bonuses and yearly payments look pretty good but there are
several important things to consider.
• Most contracts have setbacks that prevent any building in that area. This can affect you
and possibly your neighbours. If your buildings are in the setback area and then you
require new manure storage under the nutrient management act you are suddenly in a
bind. Your contract says you can't build but nutrient management plan says you must.
• Some contracts tie up aggregate rights, gas and oil rights, and mineral rights
• Some contracts even contain right of first refusal on sale of your land
• Some contracts can override your wishes in your will
I am not opposed to energy from wind; I just want everyone involved getting a fair deal.
Remember that one large generator can generate about $1 million of energy over a 20
year life span.
Now back to that problem of high-energy
prices. There are some things that can be done to
keep the cost increase manageable.
One area that I have not touched on yet is
small-scale generation by individuals. Solar
panels are already being used to pump water and
run electric fences where hydro is not available.
Some people generate some or all of their
electricity with solar panels or small generators.
Vitold Kreutzer, a baker from near Dundalk, spoke
at our last GCFA meeting on many of these
topics. He and some of his friends in the business are holding a workshop on small-scale
electrical generation on Sunday, April 3 in Flesherton. Admission is by donation.
It seems obvious that there will be many changes to the ways we generate and use
electricity in the next few years.
Sources of information; OFA and Vitold Kreutzer
- Submitted by Allen Hughes, First Vice -President GCFA
Future Prices - Wiser Trends
Source Cost (cents/kwr)
Hydro 30% 5.4
Coal 15% 6.5
Nuclear 25% 5.8
Gas 5% 14
Wind/green 5% 10
Imports 5% 11
Conserve 5% Free
Load shift 10% 7.5
AVERAGE 6.6