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PG. 38 THE RURAL VOICE/ SEPTEMBER 1982
KEITH ROULSTON
Picture it - The ideal farmer
The cabinet minister tilted back in his heavy leather chair, put
his feet up on a corner of his walnut desk and stared across the
deep carpet at the distinguished -looking gentleman in the
opposite chair.
"Well," he said, "you've been studying the problem of why we
aren't getting any more new farmers for three years now and
you've spent $20 million so surely you must be able to tell me
something about what's causing the problem.?"
"Well sir," the former professor said, carefully weighing his
words, "1 think our enquiry was worth every nickel. We did a lot
of research and we found a profile of the kind of man we've got
to recruit if we're going to turn the farming industry around."
"So?" the minister said with renewed interest, "what's this
ideal farmer like?"
"Well sir, he obviously has got to have a lot of money what
with the cost of land, machinery, quotas, etc. these days. On the
other hand, since we've got to keep our urban population happy
and that means keeping our food prices low our rich man must
also be willing not to get any return at all on his investment."
"Well," the minister said, "that could be a problem. Still with
all the people with Massey -Ferguson stock these days some
people are used to not getting a return on their investment."
"Then sir," the professor went onfbecause of the intricacies of
farming, of dealing with high finance and the income tax act, our
ideal farmer should have the business acumen of, say; a
vice-president of finance of a big company like Chrysler...er,
perhaps IBM would be a better choice.
"And since farmers these days are dealing with chemical
fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides not to mention the possibility of
methane gas production in the future, we feel our ideal farmer
should have at least a bachelor of science in chemistry.
"On the other hand he's also going to have a lot of knowledge
of animal life to keep things going so we'd suggest that after he
finishes his chemistry course he take a couple of years at least of a
veterinary course."
"Then there's so much machinery around a farm today that if
a farmer doesn't know how to fix it himself he'll go broke hiring
mechanics to do it. I'd suggest maybe our ideal farmer might
apprentice to a mechanic during his summer holidays in all those
years at school since he's got enough money he won't need to get
a summer job anyway."
"Anything else?" the minister asked under furrowed brows.
"Well with all the computer technology that's likely going to
be in use on the farm in the next few years it wouldn't be bad if
our farmer took a course in electronic engineering. Oh, and one
more thing, our ideal farmer's going to be pretty busy so we
figure we need somebody like Winston Churchill, somebody who
only needs three hours sleep a night."
"Sounds like an impossible order," the minister sighed.
"Oh, but we found our ideal farmer," the professor beamed.
Then he frowned. "The only problem is he has hayfever and
can't live in the country."
Country Calendar
see page 46