Philip Shaw

Last month we got a softwood lumber deal with the United States and a loonie reaching over 90 cents US. One farmer asked me last week whether corn was dealt away for softwood lumber. I told him I didn’t think so. In the murky world of Canada US relations how would you know? For corn…

It’s that time again.  Late April is the time of year when I blow the dust off the corn planter.  It brings back memories of the harvest of 2004 when I hauled thousands of bushels out of the field sold at over $4.00 a bushel. Unfortunately that memory seemed to have got lost in the…

I’m a big fan of Famous British rocker David Bowie. It didn’t come naturally. I’ve seen him in concert more than I ever wanted to. I let you figure out the rest. His song, “We Can Be Heroes Just For One Day” reminds me a lot of the past winter of 2005/06. It will go…

In terms of wild, it is the wildest I’ve ever seen.  I don’t mean a wild wild.  I mean a good wild.  When your loyal scribe looked up and saw 3500 Quebec farmers coming across the lawn of Parliament Hill, it was one of those seminal moments.  It was wild, everybody hooting and hollering.  As…

The headlines screaming out from my local Chatham Ontario newspaper are telling. It says, “Keep Fighting: Strahl”, “Federal agr. minister encourages more farm rallies.” If you hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t have believed it. Now we have a federal agriculture minister who is encouraging protests. It wasn’t all so dreamy. I wasn’t intending on going….

As spring gets closer many things on the farm get closer focus.  In the United States many farmers are not only going to the fields, some of them are already planted.  There is also the group risk income protection (GRIP) and group risk plan (GRP) crop insurance to buy.  That among other things makes US…

It’s been a very busy week, full of highs and lows. Last Tuesday when I finished my speech in front of the Sir John Carling building in Ottawa that was clearly a high. 2000 farmers in front of me churned in a cold wintry wave, which I will never forget. When the end came, the…

On February 14th before a throng of 1500 farmers your loyal scribe took the stage in Guelph Ontario. The week after I did the same thing in Ottawa. It was another attempt by local farmers to strengthen the farm agenda. To get that many farmers to Guelph and Ottawa on a couple of cold damp…

Soybeans have become a real problem.  What you say?  Some of you must think I’ve been on the election trail too long.  I’m not talking about stabilization policy; I’m not talking about foreign subsidization.  The problem with soybeans is all about yield. If you believed the hype perpetuated by some in the agricultural marketing arena,…