Category Archives: General

Total Ballots sent out            5586

Ballots returned                       3233

Return Rate                                 57.9%

Ballots rejected                           12

Applications to Vote              200

Rolf Penner- Well, as the old saying goes, close only counts when it comes to horseshoes and hand grenades. We only lost by 124 votes but we lost just the same. 

I thought we ran a darn good campaign, I knew the majority of farmers were on the choice side,  but obviously we didn’t do a good enough job in getting the vote out. 

Yes, I’m disappointed, I put a lot of work into this and I’m passionate about my belief that a farmers grain belongs to the farmer who grows it.  One day that will be true in Western Canada the way it is everywhere else but that day has once again moved further down the road than it should be. Continue reading →

Rolf Penner- Today’s the day we should know who won the CWB Directors seats that were up for grabs across the prairies.  As soon as I know something I’ll be posting it here. In the mean time, even though I”m not a superstitious kind of guy, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.   

Rolf Penner- As of today

Number of Posts- 147

Total page views- 4265

Busiest day- October 23,  382 views

Most viewed page- about

Rolf Penner- Okay, well maybe that’s not all, but since we’re past the point of people being able to vote in this election things are going to start winding down on this blog.  I’ve got a few more posts kicking around my draft box that I’ll be putting up this week, but its getting time for me to get caught up with a whole bunch of farm work so the posting will be light for now. Continue reading →

Rolf Penner- Over 100 Western Canadian farmers have been convicted for trying to sell their own grain outside of the CWB single desk system. They tend to be convicted under the customs act for failing to provide a Canadian Wheat Board license which the board refused to give them.

It shouldn’t be a crime to sell ones own grain, and if elected I want to change that. I don’t want to put my neighbor in jail because he might want to market his grain in a different way than me.

Rolf Penner- Another milestone zoomed past for this blog last night as it registered its 4000 th page view. I’m not set up to monitor how many of those are regular visitors and how many are new ones but it’s impressive and humbling none-the-less. 

 It definitely makes me think that it’s been worth the time and effort to share all this information with you and hopefully you’ve been able to get to know me a little better because of this website.

It’s not over yet, there are still four days left to get your vote in and to bug your neighbor to make sure he gets his in as well. Change is possible but its up to us, farmers, to make it happen.

So if you’ve already voted, if you could please take the time to remind others that the clock is ticking and that its time to get it done it would be greatly appreciated.  

Rolf Penner-  I’ve gotten a positive response from people about my election blog and many have asked me all sorts of questions about it.  The first ones are always, who’s doing it for you and how much does it cost?

The answer is that I am doing all of it myself and the cost is next to nothing.  WordPress has a free blogging service that anyone can sign up for and that is what I started with.  I spent around $15 or $20 to register my domain name and another $20 for a space upgrade so I could post audio files and that’s it.  

There’s a few other bell’s and whistles I wouldn’t mind having, but, as you can see, you can set up a pretty darn good website for a couple of bushels of wheat.

Thank goodness! Barley Freedom Day, August 1, came and went, but barley farmers are still legally forbidden from selling their crops as they see fit. A brilliant ruling by a wise and discerning judge has kept these dangerous ideologues in shackles for at least a little while longer. Continue reading →

Did you know that if you are growing organic wheat and barley in Western Canada you have to pay next to nothing to “buyback” your grain from the CWB?

 The 98% of farmers who grow conventional crops on the other hand have to pay the kind of prices that would make Tony Soprano blush.