The Rural Voice, 2002-06, Page 8WEST WAWANOSH
MUTUAL
INSURANCE
COMPANY
1879 (69 2002
'Ne0h6our helping Neighbour"
529-7921
FARM SAFETY FACTS
PESTICIDES can
Om
r, enter your body by
�,` ,1k. ingestion (by
.� mouth), inhalation
(breathing) and
- la‘d ° dermal (skin)
^.` absorption.
SAFETY TIPS:
• Read and understand the label before use.
• Store pesticides in their original
containers.
• Wear the appropriate personal protective
equipment when handling.
• Never eat, drink or smoke when handling
pesticides.
• Wash contaminated clothing separately
from the household laundry.
YOUR LOCAL AGENTS
Frank Foran, Lucknow 528-3824
Donald Simpson, Ripley 395-5362
Omni Insurance, Clinton 482-3434
Omni Insurance, Goderich 524-9899
Omni Insurance, Auburn 529-7273
Lyons & Mulhern Insurance,
Goderich 524-2664
McMaster Siemon Insurance,
Mitchell 348-9150
Noble Insurance, Meaford 538-1350
Miller Insurance, Kincardine 396-3465
P.A. Roy Insurance, Clinton 482-9357
P.A. Roy Insurance, Wingham 357-2851
Banter, MacEwan, Feagan,
Goderich 524-8376
Noble Insurance,
Owen Sound 1-800-950-4758
John Moore Insurance, Dublin 345-2512
Hemsworth Insurance, Listowel 291-3920
Kleinknecht Insurance, Linwood 698-2215
Miller Insurance, Southampton 797-3355
Miller Insurance, Owen Sound 376-0590
Gray Insurance, Seaforth 522-0399
Craig, McDonald, Reddon,
Walkerton 881-2701
Craig, McDonald, Reddon,
Hanover 364-3540
Craig, McDonald, Reddon,
Mildmay 367-2297
Craig, McDonald, Reddon,
Durham 369-2935
Chatsworth Insurance,
Chatsworth 794-2870
Davis & McLay Insurance,
Lions Head 793-3322
Elliott Nixon Insurance, Blyth 523-4481
Seaforth Insurance, Seaforth 527-1610
Sholdice Insurance, Brussels 887-6100
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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Who pags when nobody makes money?
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives near
Blyth, ON.
University of Guelph researcher
George Bubenik thinks he has an
easy, cheap solution to gastric
problems that affect 94 per cent of
commercial hogs. The problem is he
can't find anyone to support his
research because no one stands to
gain except farmers.
Bubenik says adding the
naturally-occuring hormone
melatonin to pigs' diets reduces
lesions in the intestines of
commercial pigs by 20 per cent and
reduces serious ulcers by 100 per
cent. Increased melatonin in the milk
piglets get from their mothers might
also reduce mortality.
"There is no incentive to do the
trials in Canada," Bubenik explained
to Western Producer. "Whomever
paid for the testing wouldn't get their
money back unless there was a
commercial advantage ... farmers
would have a commercial advantage
from its use in feed."
Aye, there's the rub in our current
ideology that government should get
out of direct funding of research and
let the private market drive the
research agenda: if there's no money
to be made, the research won't get
done. So you can have something that
will benefit farmers but nobody else
and the research won't get done,
unless a.farm marketing agency steps
up and can afford the research.
This isn't the first time research
into melatonin has run afoul of the
new business -driven research agenda
in Canada. In some countries,
melatonin is taken as a human food
supplement and sleep aid but it can't
be licenced for sale in Canada
without the same strict testing that
any new drug would receive. That
research and testing won't get done
because melatonin can't be patented
and is cheap to produce synthetically.
One has to wonder if someone
stumbled on a cure for cancer that
nobody could make any money on, if
people would have to go on dying
because there'd be no incentive to do
the long, expensive study needed to
bring that cure to human use.
Not that long ago Bubenik
wouldn't have had so much trouble
getting the dollars he needs to support
this research. In those days there was
publicly -funded research on our
university campuses and at provincial
and federal agricultural research
farms, and there was private research
done by companies that expected to
reap a profit from their work. Then,
in the days of government cutbacks,
governments at both levels jumped
on the idea that they could stretch
their research dollars further if they
could get researchers working on
projects that were also funded by
private corporations.
It's ironic, that this was really the
same kind of "something for nothing"
thinking that once made people think
that somehow if the government
provided some service, it was free.
We seem to be stuck in the kind
of polarity of policy that hampered
Britain when it swung between
Conservative and Labour
governments or has handcuffed
British Columbia with right-wing and
left-wing governments following
each other. On one side we have
people who think government can do
everything, on the other people who
think the best world would be if
government could be abolished.
For a long time Canada, and
particularly our agricultural sector,
prospered because we had a mixed
economy with private enterprise and
government working side-by-side and
if necessary, hand in hand.
Federal Ag Minister Lyle
Vanclief has recently said his
government wants to enable
Canadian farmers to "continue to be
world leaders and to capitalize on the
opportunities of the global market".
To do that, however, we've got to be
doing leading-edge research that
nobody else is doing. That kind of
edge can only come from a healthy,
publicly -funded research sector.0