The Rural Voice, 1979-08, Page 11Keith Roulston
Should efficiency be re -defined?
There's probably no industry that hears the word "efficiency"
bandied about more often than the food industry.
Farmers talk about how much the efficiency of their operations
'have increased in the last three decades. Consumers argue that
marketing boards protect the inefficient farmers at the expense
of the efficient ones and the consumers. Food retail moguls talk
about how efficient the big food chains are.
But in a time when petroleum prices are doubling and tripling,
the term "efficiency" may be in for a re -definition. Our idea of
efficiency has always been based solely on the dollars involved.
Someone a while back suggested we needed a new system of
accounting in such things, one that not only took in the cost in
dollars but also the use of non-renewable energy. With the latest
round of price rises by the O.P.E.C. countries and warnings of
more to come we may no longer need a separate accounting.
Efficiency in energy and dollars may mean the same things soon.
What is efficient, for instance, about importing lettuce trom
California to make salads in Ontario especially when we could be
having cabbages instead that are grown right in our own back yard
and stored for winter use. Why on earth do we need corn on the
cob on our supermarket shelves even in mid winter? Would it hurt
us to do without cucumbers in January instead of either importing
them from a warmer climate or growing them in expensively -
operated greenhouse operations?
According to a U.S. government agriculture spokesman. we
may soon not have to make the choice. Rising fuel prices will make
it impossible for truck drivers to charge enough to make any
money trucking fruit and vegetables on long hauls.
Then too there's the question of what is really efficient right on
the farm. In a magazine recently I saw a photo of the latest
sensation at farm machinery exhibitions out West. It was called
Big Roy, a $200,000 monster with closed circuit television so you
could see what was going on out behind eight -wheel drive and
boasting 600 horse power How many of those horsepower one
wonders, was used up pulling around the weight of the fuel tank
the machine would need to keep going for a day in the field.
Much of the bragged -about efficiency on the farm in the years
since World War Two has been accomplished by shifting from
muscle power to petroleum power. Today with huge tractors, huge
combines, large poultry and hog operations gobbling up electricity
at enormous rates, chemical fertilizers and herbicides and
pesticides with high energy inputs, agriculture has become one of
the biggest users of energy.
H. Gordon Green a year or so ago talked about this "efficiency"
of the modern farmer. If a proper accounting of energy inputs and
outputs was taken, he wondered, who would really be the most
efficient, that farmer of the turn of the century or the farmer of
today? He pointed out that the farmer of the turn of the century
was virtually self sufficient in terms of energy. About all the
energy that was bought off the farm was a little kerosene for lamps
and lanterns.
Farm work was powered by horses, horses that got their energy
from hay and grain grown on their own farm. They in turn not only
helped harvest that energy but contributed to it with their own
manure. So when a farmer sold meat or eggs or grain, he was
selling real energy. energy we would call renevable since it came
from the sun and the soil and was not transferred trom an artificial
source. In those terms. how much real energy comes off our
farmer today.
Of course nobody wants to leave today's way completely and
return to the days of horses and long hours of back breaking work
(or at least very few do.) But I think it's time we took a look at just
where we've come in the name of efficiency. We've got to take a
look at what is true efficiency and what is just an excuse to sell
farmers another piece of machinery or another chemical. We got
completely away from using manures for fertilization for a while
for instance and only in recent years have rediscovered how
valuable it is.
Farmers have been led down a path that has been a major boon
for industry and banking. Today's high technology, high financing
farm operation means that farming may not be profitable but
farming is a profitable par', of industry. Farmers are hooked into a
certain kind of farming. Their hope for the last 30 years has always
been: "Well, if I just get a little bit bigger, maybe I can make
some money."
With farmers so energy dependent the immediate future does
not look bright. There are going to be a lot of people hurt by the
escalating costs of energy. It may be that it is impossible to go on
farming in the way farmers have in the 1970's. It may be that
farmers will be reverting to some of the yvactices of their fathers:
that the efficiency of tomorrow will the_ the inefficiency of
yesterday.
H. GERRITS
BARN EQUIPMENT LTD.
Manufacturers -- Dealers
Specializing in Complete Hog and Dairy Equipment
uldbirm—
FARROWING
CRATE
Size: Length — 7'3", Width — 22", Height — 40".
Frame: 1" pipe.
Front Feeder, Front and Rear Door.
Adjustable bumper bar or bumper door.
7112111—k \, R. R. 5, Clinton 519-482-7296
"Practical confining system for less"
\�R LES/
THE RURAL VOICE/ AUGUST 1979 PG. 9