Representatives from rural municipalities (RM) across the province recently attended the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) convention in Regina, where a number of topics were discussed.
RM of Estevan Reeve Terry Keating said there was a lot of discussion and long-term planning at the convention.
A trade show was great because farmers had time to view new equipment and have opportunities to discuss shared problems amongst themselves.
The issue of club root disease, which is said to have come from Alberta, was an important topic of discussion. The disease, which is most dangerous to canola, can seriously affect crop yields and damage plants.
The Saskatchewan government wants to tackle this issue by having farmers in the province disclose location information during the sale of their equipment, which would tell the buyer where the equipment is from and where it has been used.
Furthermore many rural municipalities will be undergoing future soil testing for club root disease.
鈥淩oughly a third of the province will be subject to these tests,鈥� Keating said.
He also mentioned that provincial government wants farmers to wash their equipment frequently and laws may be coming that will require farmers selling or moving equipment to wash it.
鈥淗ere in the southeast, club root isn鈥檛 a huge risk for us, but what rules come into play if any, everyone in the province is going to have to follow those rules,鈥� said Keating.
Keating pointed out that to the best of his knowledge, there was no mention of coal, oil or gas issues at the convention. He said that SaskPower talked a bit about renewable energy sources such as wind and their plans to shift the province towards renewables in the coming years.
鈥淲hat you could feel subtly though the entire conference was the federal government鈥檚 political correctness, which I believe was permeating throughout the whole conference. There no federal representatives at the conference but their attitude towards a lot of issues seemed prevalent while I was there,鈥� said Keating.
The new marijuana laws were also a topic of discussion, Keating noted, but he felt that issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana were not answered.
鈥淭he provincial government didn鈥檛 bring forward any solutions to legal weed problems, those solutions would have been of great interest to me,鈥� said Keating.
During the convention, rural crime was a topic of discussion. Those issues are not as prevalent within the RM of Estevan, but Keating noted that Crime Stoppers was there to talk with farmers about the issue.
Also discussed at the convention was the possibility of amalgamating some RMs.
鈥淭here was a little bit of emphasis or talk on some RM鈥檚 小蓝视频 amalgamated. That word wasn鈥檛 used but I鈥檓 sure that鈥檚 coming down the pipes at some point. It was generally more about RM鈥檚 co-operating with each other, sharing equipment. It seemed it was a sort of preparation for the amalgamation of a few RMs.鈥�
