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The Rural Voice, 2000-01, Page 56GREY 446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9 Email: grey@ofa.on.ca Website. www ofa.oicaigrey 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 County Federation of -Agriculture NEWSLETTER ' The Rural Voice is provided to all Grey County Farmers by the GCFA. A new millennium — let's hope there is more than just bugs in the forecast. If you look back 1.000 years. agriculture has changed. even just the last 150 years. Most of the mechanization in agriculture has happened in the late 1800s. and I900s. This has increased the efficiency. and productivity of agriculture enormously. along with food safety. and disease control. Selective breeding produced improved strains of both farm animals and crop plants. Using hybrids of desirable characteristics were developed. The hybridization of corn since the 1930s. has proved to be very important for this crop's production, and uses. With all these advancements and increased production, we now are prone to over supply. This deflates prices which creates a need for more efficiencies. This is where the governments, and marketing boards stepped in. The WTO talks is where the rules for trade between countries are negotiated. for agricultural and non-agricultural products. This tends to put country N s. country. If you want to import it's not usually a problem, but exporting makes for trade-offs. tariffs, and then the trade embargo. This is where in the future our trade of commodities could be hampered. Biotechnology .eems to be big these days s ith BT corn, Roundup - Ready soybeans, and talk of the terminator gene being put into all seed purchased from major seed companies. This means the crop you harvest this year, cannot be used for seed next year. I'm not sure what could be the side effects, if some of the altered genetics did manage to cross-pollinate with other plants. There's a very small chance that it could happen, but how can you tell in trials? It's usually when a product becomes widely used you see the side effects. DDT was a good weed killer too, but look what happened, and how it affected nature. 52 THE RURAL VOICE Looking at 2000 and beyond Animals are also being genetically altered. Some sheep can now produce human milk. pigs producing blood, and some organs potentially for uses in humans. Where will it end up, and when will animal rights become human rights. Biotech does have great possibilities. but we will have to watch very close as it becomes widely used. and also watch out for the mad scientist factor. This could be potentially worse than the nuclear threats of today. So where do we go now? I'm not an expert. but I see agriculture continuing with the up and down markets. This will not change. just due to the fact that agriculture is slow to respond to supply and demand. By the time we see a potential lucrative market, a lot of others see it to, so it gets flooded, and the price will reflect this. Just look at the past few years, cattle prices were low and commodity prices were good. There was not a big demand for cow -calf operators, so they started to produce more cash crops and feed less cows. Now the public is looking for more beef, but with less cows around, there's less beef animals to fill this market, also with less cattle around, and more cash cropping the commodities are now saturated. Farmers have to find other ways to stabilize their income. If you look around and see what sector of the economy has the most potential for agriculture to mix with, you could possibly have your extra income. I can see two sectors of the economy with potential that agriculture could fill. The first one is in the recreational business. With the average urban dweller being four or five generations removed from farming, and the lack of agricultural education in the city. farm vacations or outings are a possible way to fill a void. With people always looking for a unique holiday, and giving kids a hands-on way of learning about agriculture, it would also help build bonds between rural and urban people. Second: With the rising fuel prices of late. I can see agriculture being a possible producer of alternative energy. We already have ethanol production. The next step would be • using soybeans to produce a diesel alternative. Another potential fuel could be methane. produced from manure, which could then be used to run a generator, providing the farm v ith electricity. This could then be used or sold to Ontario Hydro Services. or another hydro service. Along with getting the energy from the manure, it removes the odour. and makes nutrients more readily available to your crops. This should fit into any nutrient management plan quite well and make for friendlier neighbours. Also the fact that you would be producing a renewable resource to replace fossil, or nuclear fuels. The future is there for the taking, in 10 or 20 years farming could possibly be quite lucrative. Agriculture has changed a lot over the last thousand years, and it probably will change just as much again in the next 100 years. All the best to you in the next millen.nium.0 – Submitted by Pau! Sachs President, Sullivan Township Federation GREY COUNTY FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE DIRECTORS' MEETING Thursday, January 27, 2000 1:00 p.m. OMAFRA Boardroom, Markdale Members are welcome to attend.