Lacombe-Ponoka MLA Rod Fox met with a small group of farmers at the Legion Hall in Ponoka last Wednesday, Feb. 19 to hear what the crop growers think about the serious shortage of railcars to carry their produce to the markets.
“We have been hearing from town halls around the province that there has been a bit of a backlog, they (farmers) are having trouble in getting the bumper crop that we had this last fall to ports, onto ships,” said Fox.
“We need to hear exactly what the issues are and some of the solutions that they think should be made available to them.”
Asked whether his consultation meetings with farmers would lead to any concrete policy proposals, Fox said he would be traveling to Ottawa at the end of the month and he would carry the messages he would be hearing from the farmers to the federal Ministry of Agriculture.
“Our federal counterparts are working on this and we just want to be able to add our voice and help our farmers in central Alberta.”
“I think that there is a possibility to come forward with some policy proposals,” Fox said when asked if the farmers should expect any new policy proposals after the consultation sessions.
Referring to the timeline that has to be taken into account, the MLA said there was not a lot of time to spare before deciding on the action to be taken.
“We are getting close to the next seeding season, we just 90 something days away, and we have got to get this issue solved so that farmers will have some space to store their crop this coming fall.”