In the opinion of many, a carbon tax on anything will do nothing else than add cost to everything people do. On the other hand, while adding costs to everything we do and produce it also makes Canada much less competitive because no other country is silly enough to do the same. Another reason it makes no sense is the federal Liberal government is doing so when the economy is already in the tank.
A swine nutritionist with the University of Saskatchewan said the introduction of carbon pricing could change the equation when considering the inclusion of low-cost, high fibre feed ingredients into swine rations.
Researchers with the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bio-resources are examining the carbon footprint left by using high fibre alternative feed ingredients in swine rations.
Dr. Denise Beaulieu, Assistant Professor Monogastric Nutrition, said ingredients such as peas or by-products such as wheat mids are used to lower feed costs, but these high fibre ingredients would increase methane and carbon dioxide output as the fibres ferment in the gut of the pig.
Coming up with schemes is also resulting in all kinds of other findings that never made much of difference, but now when everyone keeps telling you this or that is either adding or taking away from something that isn’t.
“This work is primarily for the pork producers, and it will allow them to use these ingredients with more confidence and into the future,” said Beaulieu. “For example, I know it’s political, but let’s say there was a scenario where carbon pricing came into play for our pork production industry and then we would have to put a cost on for example high fibre ingredients.
This data could more accurately allow us to look at the cost of these high fibre ingredients and the role that they might play in terms of the overall carbon footprint of pork production.”
She said for example, right now producers use the wheat mids and peas, they’re primarily brought into the diet on a least-cost basis.
“We put these into the diets so we can meet all the nutritional requirements of the pig but at a lower cost, so that’s the status quo,” she said. “But, for example, going into the future, if we add increasing amounts of these into the diet, we may want to consider the carbon footprint of including these into the diet because that could be an additional cost that we’d want to consider.”
Dr. Beaulieu said this data could allow us to accurately determine the cost and the overall carbon footprint of pork production.
There is no quarrel with Dr. Beaulieu, but a big disagreement with those people who keep trying every which way to extract money from innocent hard working people to pay for this substantial bottomless pit called trying to finance the so-called climate change fiasco. •
— By Harry Siemens

Winston Churchill famously said that
“Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.”