The Rural Voice, 1981-06, Page 6The
Family Farm
Adrian Vos writes on the family farm as an industry
It is universally accepted. in all of
today's societies, that the health of these
societies will stand or fall with the health
of the family in Huron County and Father
Mooney of Zurich.a Catholic priest who
was a missionary in Latin America, says
the best way to protect the family is on
the farm.
Sociologists also are unanimous that
the moral health of a people begins with
the family.
An increasing number of influential
politcians are expressing concern about
the decline in numbers of the true family
farm and the rural family in general.
And no wonder. The decline in rural
population has gone hand in hand with a
growing crime rate in the cities receiving
these displaced people.
The danger of being alone in the U.S.
ghettoes because of the prevailing
violence is well known. It is also evident
in the so-called third world countries. The
peasants rolling daily into cities like
Mexico City, and the uprooted rural
population of South -East Asia, all give
the same story. Break down rural society
and the break-up of families comes
right behind, followed often by poverty
and crime.
Fortunately. many political leaders are
starting to realize this can't go on
forever, and are taking a hard look at
government policies in the Western
world. These policies, developed in the
last 25 years, held that larger farms
would be more efficient. Encouragment
of large farms would then result in
cheaper food for the masses.
The economists, figuring all this out
from behind their desks in the cities,
reasoned that family farmers were no
PG. 4 THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1981
more than picturesque rustics. out of tune
with the times and who could no longer
be entrusted with the production of cheap
food.
But such prominent farmer politicians
as the Secretary of Agriculture for Iowa,
Bob Lounsbury, Bob Berglund and Earl
Butz, former US Agriculture Secretaries
and many church and community leaders
in Canada and the US. have second
thoughts about the "bigger is better"
syndrome.
R.C. Bishop Maurice Dingman, of Des
Moines, said in 1979 that in the USA in 30
years time, 3.7 million farms dis-
appeared. swallowed by financially
strong corporations. "We have seen as a
result of the urban migration of these
families, that some 617,000 rural
businesses have disappeared. schools
have been closed down, churches have
been emptied. and even whole towns
have disappeared."
A study done by Iowa State University
in 1974 gave the startling information
that spending in rural communities
decreased as size of farms increased.
The same study found farm income to
be higher for larger farms. but it did not
study the increased social cost caused by
the exodus to the cities and its subsidized
unemployment insurance and welfare
costs.
Bruce Whitestone. a Canadian
economist who writes frequently in the
London Free Press, disagrees with this
conclusion. He says that large company
farming has almost always failed because
when the worker is both the boss and the
capitalist, you've got an efficient kind of
farming.
Government policies designed to create
enlarged farms are going against the
trend in the business world in general.
Harvard Business Review reported last
fall a shift in the USA toward small
business and new entrepreneurs.
Omni magazine foresees "large
companies becoming like dinosaurs as
entrepreneurs scamper between their
slow feet to grab the best food."
Anyone following business develop-
ment in Canada and the USA must have
noted that while the "dinosaurs" are in
trouble (Chrysler. Ford, White. MF).
smaller, newer companies are flourish-
ing. regardless of inflation.
But government programs to stimulate
bigness in the farm industry remain
firmly in place. Writer/lecturer Robert
Theobald says: "It is time to cut out the
• • • • we don't have time to be elitist any
more. It's time for action."
Such action would include changes in
the tax system. The incentives inherent in
incorporation should also be available to
the unincorporated family farm.
The Small Business Development Bond
program. which allows corporations
considerably lower interest rates. should
be made available to the unincorporated
family farm.
Extend the loan interest assistance
program in Ontario, but change the 90
per cent equity requirement. which
makes it only accessible to incorporated
farms.
The pressure on the family farm
doesn't just exist in Canada and the USA.
Don Pullen. Huron's ag rep.. said that he
found the same concerns from all over the
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