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The Citizen, 1989-04-12, Page 18PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1989. The owners of the top herds in Huron County were honoured with awards at the Huron County Milk Recording Committee ’ s annual meeting in Brussels Thursday. Among the winners were [left to right] Lyle Martin, Ethel; Art Bos, Blyth; Gerry Rfjkhoff, Walton and Allan Martin, Grey township. HFA hears about GATT ODHIC names top 10 herds Seven of the top 10 Huron County herds in testing by the Ontario Dairy Herd Improvement Corporation (ODHIC) in 1988 come from north Huron. At the Huron County Milk Re­ cording Committee annual meeting in Brussels Thursday, the awards for the top 10 herds were given out with two Grey township herds leading the way. Allan Martin, RR 2, Listowel with a herd composite BCA of 196 and Lyle Martin, Ethel with a herd BCA of 182, had the top two herds in the county. Joe Winkel of Fordwich and Allan Wylie of Clifford were next in line. David Marshall of Kirkton had the fifth top scoring herd while Gerry Rijkhoff of Walton was sixth. Jim Ginn of RR 2, Clinton was seventh with Art Bos of RR 3, Blyth third. Jim McGee, RR 3, Wingham was ninth and Bob Eckert’s herd from Seaforth took the 10th posi­ tion. In the election held at the meeting, Bob McNeil and Art Versteeg were named delegates to the O.D.H.I.C. annual meeting with Barry Elliott, Jim Sparling, Gerry Rijkhoff and Bert Dykstra as alternates. John Meek, General Manager of ODHIC told the 200 dairy farmers present that the organization was moving in a solid direction showing a surplus last year for the first time in five years. The five-year plan is to put the company back in a strong financial position, he said. A goal was set a year ago to get HFA wants returnable pesticide containers A resolution calling for return­ able containers for farm pesticides was passed by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture at its April meeting Wednesday in Clin­ ton. The resolution forwarded from the East Wawanosh Federation of Agriculture, calls for farmers to be able to take used pesticide contain­ ers back to the dealer rather than having to dispose of them them­ selves. Presently many landfill sites will not accept the containers and farmers are faced with the problem of disposing of them on their own land. Bill Wallace of Tuckersmith township supported the resolution but said that in the meantime, an interim solution of having desig­ nated days and places to accept these containers should be worked out. Chris Palmer, president of the Federation said dealers didn’t like the turnaround time of six days from when testing samples were received until reports were mailed to members. It seemed like a tough goal to reach, he said, but the other day the turnaround time reached 4.8 days. After 14 months of research the ODHIC board made a decision to continue using Purolator Courier to deliver samples, he said. In addi­ tion a new vile will be used for samples starting in May that is the best in North America. The new viles will be packed in a new box that holds 48 samples instead of 40. The viles will sit in a hole in the insert in the box and after research, the board is so confident that the viles won’t leak, that the packages will be shipped upside down. ODHIC has also installed its own computer and is switching records over from the computer at Queen’s Park on which it has been renting computer time. The same pro­ grams will be able to be used on the new system. Final testing is now being done on the system and by May 17 the company hopes to be able to produce exact duplicate copies of records for every one of the 5,000 herds being tested from both the Queen’s Park and ODHIC computers. This test will go on for several weeks to make sure there are no bugs in the system then the switchover will take place, saving OHDIC large bills for computer time. Bob Ross, Zone 1 director was asked about the status of AM-PM testing and said a year ago ODHIC Mixed Chicks the idea of having to take the containers back. Paul Klopp, past president, said the companies would rather have the farmer do the job of washing out the contain­ ers and disposing of them rather than have to do it themselves. The motion was passed. BRUSSELS OFFICE HOURS Monday -10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Tuesday - Closed Wednesday -10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Thursday -10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Friday -10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Saturday - Closed Sunday - Closed Farmers have a right to know the “bottom line’’ of the federal government’s negotiations through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the monthly meeting of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture in Clin­ ton was told Wednesday night. Cecil Bradley, director of re­ search for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), told the 20 people present at the meeting that '»the federal government must give farmers some answers about the negotiations. He said OFA policy supports Canada’s participation in the negotiations to improve market access and eliminate trade distort­ ing subsidies but has some ques­ tions for the government. What, for instance, is the objective of the GATT negotiations: to relieve pres­ sure on government treasuries?; to lower cost and bring wider selec­ tion for consumers?; to reduce support for farmers? or to deliver food more efficiently? The political rhetoric is that the government is going to support agriculture but is just going to get rid of subsidies, he said. The issue is “bad” subsidies versus “good” support. The Canadian government must tell farmers what it is offering in bargaining to gain an agreement. You can’t get a politician of senior bureaucrat to say what programs they might be willing to change or give up, Mr. Bradley said. The upshot is there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the agri­ culture business. There is a danger, he said, that agriculture may harm itself by “GATT-proofing” itself. Pork pro­ ducers, for instance, have spent too much time and money fighting the countervale of pork into the U.S., that some are ready to say to the Ontario government “maybe we should let the property tax rebate go”, because it is one of the “subsidies” the U.S. is holding against them. had said it was one of the priorities because the Canadian Holstein Association had approved it and it was on approval of the breed associations that the system would go ahead. But some of the other breed associations aren’t in any hurry to approve the system and other things like the computer changeover had become a higher priority for ODHIC, he said. The system would require a time clock to be put on the control panel of all milkhouse pumping panels. He had no estimate of how much such a clock would cost. Dennis Martin, a dairy specialist with Ontario Ministry of Agricul­ ture and Food in Clinton said after spending a fair bit of time supply­ ing financial statements from farms across the country, dairy farming looks pretty good beside other commodities. He said that while I some producers are finding it hard to meet their obligations from year to year and build equity, others will be sending a sizeable cheque to Revenue Canada by April 30. He told farmers that at least once a year they should sit down and look at the financial health of the organization. For Your FERTILIZER and CHEMICAL needs cali CARGILL FERTILIZER V (formerly Cyanamid Farm Supply) 233-3423 HOWSON MILLS BLYTH NOM 1 HO 523-4241 CHICK DA Y Order By April 13 th For May 12th Pickup Hens Only Roosters Brown Egg Layers Turkeys Minimum Order 25 Chicks Howson & Howson Limited FLOUR & FEED MILLERS COMPLETE FARM SUPPLIES The Canadian government is ‘ calling for the elimination of all access barriers over a negotiated period, Mr. Bradley said and the government must be asked how this can be squared with the federal government’s stated commitment to the integrity of supply manage­ ment. How can supply manage­ ment function without an import control list, he wondered. “If they (the government) have a way of doing it they should let farmers in on it and lower the level of anxiety in supply managed industries.’’ There will be winners and losers if a GATT settlement is reached, he told the group. What is the government’s commitment to com­ pensate the losers. There is a danger for farm groups in that the GATT negotia­ tions not only pit producers from one country against producers of another commodity in the same country. He showed examples of U.S. prepared figures on a “Producer Subsidy Equivalent’’ (PSE), the formula accepted as a way of comparing the level of subsidy from one country to another. The PSE seeks to determine how much of a farmer’s income in a commo­ dity comes from subsidies. The U.S. figures showed a PSE for Canadian beef for instance, at about 10 per cent; for corn at 21.4 per cent (compared to 49.5 per cent in the U.S.) and dairy at 81.3 per cent (compared to 58 per cent in the U.S.) but the dairy figure was arrived at by calling Canadian quotas a subsidy (amounting to $2.2 billion of the $2,798 billion in dairy subsidies). The potential for conflict comes if the GATT negotiators should take the appealing approach of simply setting a cut down goal (say cutting back the PSE for all farmers in a country from 49 percent to 25 per cent) and letting the country make its own decision about what gets cut. WINGHAM NOG 2W0 357-2700