helping conserve water. Its a precious resource yet many people take it for granted. Driving around the island these days its easy to see many potato fields with huge watering equipment. They are capable of spraying huge acreages of large potato fields in one go. I wonder how many gallons of water per hour they are using. I wonder if the water is coming from one of the deep water wells that don’t exist yet??? I also wonder why they water their crops in the heat of the day, why not early morning or late evening when the temperatures are cooler. Surely a great deal of the water evaporates on impact with hot dry fields? I have wrote about this before but to date I have heard nothing more from the government, of course that is not anything unusual. Farmers are often referred to as the stewards of the land, that was true a few decades ago, however today most land is owned by corporations. The corporations are definitely not stewards of the land ,more like destroyers of the land. Our Provincial Governments are in the pockets of the big corporations, fish kills, oh that wasn’t the fault of the farmer, it was the rain?? Until we elect a responsible government this will continue. In 2019 we must seriously consider the Green Party, maybe they wont form government but could become a strong opposition. We have to stop the continuing Red Blue rule of this province. Below is a post from my blog of June 14th 2015s????Defend Farmers not the Irving Industries
Posted on June 14, 2015
At this time of year one can enjoy the beauty if the island. The grass is a vibrant green the trees and hedge rows are lush and everywhere the birds are singing. The sky is cloudless and blue and all seems right with the world. But wait, what is that emerging from the dust, egads!! another potato harvesting monster coming to rape our precious soil again. How long can we allow this to continue? how long before the island soil is completely destroyed? Many Government MLA’s are quick to claim those of us who complain are against farming and farmers. Not true, we are against the greed of major corporation. Please read the article attached from Chris Ortenburger
Let’s think for a moment about Island Agriculture.
First and foremost:
1) potato tampering (any kind of food tampering) is reprehensible;
2) agriculture is a huge component of P.E.I.’s economy;
3) Island farmers need our support, and have our support.
However, instead of rational discussion on this in our Legislature, we are getting chest-thumping ‘potatriotism’, which as I see it is the loyalty some Islanders feel, akin to patriotism, for the potato industry.
I don’t mean to be Flip (that’s someone else), but this sitting of the Legislature, after two working days, is already more about hours of waving the flag of the current agri-industry model than anything else. (One MLA clocked over 25 minutes Friday morning speaking to one motion, referring to just about everything under the sun.) The polarizing message communicated was that any criticism of the current model of agriculture is criticism of all decent, hard-working Islanders.
We don’t need that kind of polarization. We are all in this together, farmers and eaters. We need leadership, and openness to a variety of opinions, not opportunities for elected representatives to perform loyalty tests while ignoring the very real issues facing farmers, and farmland, today.
Chris Ortenburger
Adapted from the Citizens’ Alliance News
God Bless and keep reading
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