Drought, locusts drive more nails in farmers' coffins - Canada

Edmonton — Drought and locusts have dimmed hopes of a bountiful autumn harvest on the Prairies.

Crop forecasters are already revising earlier estimates downward as beleaguered farmers in many areas scramble to salvage what they can of crops that were so lush in the spring.

Alberta rancher Dan Jeffery is racing the 'hoppers and the heat to turn his stressed crops into silage to feed the cattle he can't market because of the mad cow crisis.

"We're trying to minimize our losses," said Mr. Jeffery, 50, who owns 500 head of cattle west of Ponoka in central Alberta. "We need to be in a position to feed our cattle."

Mr. Jeffery said his oat and barley fields are turning white from the heat and he has never seen the grasshoppers so thick.

http://theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030807.wcrop807/BNStory/National/

Don't worry, we've got 2 Shit-For-Brains, Junior and Arnie, working on it!

http://darker0darker.tripod.com/

were we deceaved again by this lap-dog press?

We're not even entirely sure it's a Canadian cow - it could have come from the States in a large shipment.

Ever since then (about three months) the US border has been closed to Canadian beef. If you drive around rural Alberta, the fields are full of cattle with nothing to eat. The locusts are everywhere, even in my apartment - they're flying in through the windows.

The US won't open the borders because of the Japanese market. The Japanese are still upset because Canada and the US closed its borders to Japanese beef after their mad cow problems (7 animals). They won't allow American beef in until the US can prove it has its herds isolated from Canadian cattle.