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8 THE RURAL VOICE
John Beardsley
Watching the media watch farming
John
Beardsley is
former farm
director of
CKNX radio
and has been
involved in
agribusiness
for many
years.
Hats off to Scott Miller of the NX
TV news for his coverage of farm
issues. He is putting a local spin on
national issues like BSE. Scott isn't
just getting the official commodity
group line, but is talking to individual
farmers for the story behind the story.
I especially liked the story on the
farmer ready to give up half his cow
herd for the good of the beef industry.
The cattle cull issue has long been
misunderstood. The Grey -Bruce BSE
task force committee, chaired by the
wardens of the two counties, called
for a cull of 600,000 cows and bulls
born before the feed ban of 1997.
These would be bought by the gov-
ernment and made into canned beef
using the mothballed canneries on the
east coast.
This has been confused with the
humane slaughter and subsequent
burial that could have caused moral
outrage from consumers if these
healthy animals were wasted. It is
ironic to note that if the federal
government had paid $500 for each
animal in the task force's proposed
program, it would have only cost the
government $300 million. This is
considerably less than the billion -
dollar pre-election boondoggle, or
even the $460 million from the first
fed -cattle program, which purport-
edly ended up lining the pockets of
the largest packing companies.
When B.0 Agrologist Wendy
Holmes spoke in Brussels, she told
farmers that farm TV programming is
on the block across the country.
Holmes mentioned the national
Country Canada program now hosted
by Reg Sharren. It was Sharren's
investigation that showed the Wash-
ington State Holstein that was the
first U.S. case of mad cow disease
was only tested by accident. Agri-
culture needs programming with that
kind of resources. I repeat what
Holmes said: write or call the CBC
and tell them what you like and that
you would like it to continue.
Arran -Tara reeve Ron Oswald is
frustrated in trying to get the broad-
cast regulator, the Canadian Radio
and Television Commission, to act on
his municipality's complaint over
Toss of TV news coverage with the
closure of the Hanover and Owen
Sound NX bureaus. Perhaps the
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
can lend a hand. They've certainly
been effective in fighting for a strong
CBC. Oswald's equally disappointed
with the recent closure of the Chesley
Enterprise newspaper, which he says
is just one more kick at rural Ontario.
I've been tuning in to the Food -
land Forum farm news produced by
Dennis Guy and Blair Andrews.
These seasoned Ontario farm journ-
alists are putting out a great news
summary and market report that can
be heard on CFOS 560AM from
Owen Sound and CJCS 1240AM
from Stratford. If you have trouble
getting a clear signal, either of those
stations they are available over the
Internet in Real Audio streaming.
Owen Sound can be found at
www.radioowensound.com and
Stratford, at www.cjcsradio.com. I
find it is a good thing to listen to
while I read my emails. They both
come in pretty well on my old
Pentium 2 with a 56000 -baud
modem, on a dial-up connection. Guy
says an archived site may be in the
future so then you could listen to
them 24/7.
If you haven't already, you should
check out www.hcfa.on.ca , which is
the Huron County Federation of
Agriculture website, compiled by
Henry Damsma. Henry is doing a
wonderful job of gathering local,
national and international farm news
stories, and you can also sign up for
the interactive email list server called
Ontag The Bullpen (if you don't
mind getting 10-30 emails per day!)
Where do you go for your farm
news? Are you satisfied with what's
available?•You can contact me either
through this publication or by
emailing me at
jbeardsley@scsinternet.com .0
i