Philip Shaw

You might remember when I wrote these words in the last January 23rd Agridome.  “Political change also means putting the past agricultural mistakes behind you.  Forget CAIS.  Forget APF. Forget it all.  Its now up to the Conservatives to put together an agricultural policy that works.” Fast forward to May 2006.  Surprise, surprise, surprise, CAIS…

On Friday the USDA will release it’s monthly report on world supply and demand prospects.  It will contain the first prospects of what’s really going on for the 2006-07 marketing year.  For Canadian farmers, it might be the only thing that offers any hope.  If we ever needed China to buy some grain its now….

It’s a dry read and I’m sure it’ll be a few days before any of us figure it out.  On May 3rd the Canadian International Trade Tribunal released its reasons why the import of cheap subsidized American corn is no threat to the Canadian corn producer.  Your loyal scribe fresh from his tractor seat read…

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…