Behind The Lines

Nutrient management. Has this highly controversial legislation forced builders to deal with unnecessary rules that make a livestock industry uncompetitive? Or is it just common sense that will lead to peace of mind and reduced liability later?

There are two very different points of view being expressed, as our writer Kate Procter found when she investigated charges that nutrient management was driving up the cost of barn construction. Actually, there were even more diverse points of view than that. Find the story beginning on page 12.

Ethanol is driving demand for corn and growers are doing something from which they had shied away for a long time. They are planting corn on fields that had grown corn the previous year. New technology makes this possible without reverting to use of highly toxic insecticides, points out our crop writer, Pat Lynch. For this story, go to page 40.    

Also, on the subject of crops, our wildly popular Crop Scene Investigation continues with yet another puzzle for, you guessed it, corn growers. See that story on page 42. We finally had to cut off entries for our Crop Scene Investigation–3. The winner of the weather station is Jim Brandon of Forest.

In our Short Takes section, we deal briefly with another hot topic. More than two years after Greenbelt legislation was enacted, the declaration of a development-free zone around the Greater Toronto Area remains a sore point with the farmers who work more than 1.2 million acres of land within the zone.

Last month, several of the major grain and oilseeds groups called upon the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation to study the economic effects of the development freeze upon the farmers who own the property. Greenbelt Foundation chair Burkhard Mousberg was out of the country and not available for comment at the time. It's worth noting that the Foundation’s website lists as one of its goals to support a viable agricultural and viticultural sector."

The provincial government gave the Foundation $25 million to dole out to
programs it favours. Recently, the Foundation approved $1.4 million for the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority to help farmers do cleanup, $1 million to Farmers Markets Ontario over three years to expand farmers markets, $1 million to Environmental Defense Canada, an environmental group, and $600,000 to spruce up the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.BF

ROBERT IRWIN & DON STONEMAN