The Rural Voice, 2004-01, Page 50IMP
BRUCE
Email: bruce@ofa.on.ca
website: www.ofa.on.ca/bruce
County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER
446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9
519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551
The Rural Voice is provided to OFA
Members in Bruce County by the BCFA
Successes and opportunities
The changing of the seasons from
fall to winter brings an end to a
different kind of year for farming in our
part of the country. This year has seen
successes and problems for agriculture
in our area.
The success of several water
improvement programs indicate that
farmers and landowners are ready to
acknowledge the effect of their
operations on water quality.
Both of the following programs
made financial assistance available to
farmers and rural landowners to share
the cost of implementing selected Best
Management Practices. Grants were
available to qualified landowners for
completing projects chosen for their
potential to improve and/ or protect
water quality:
The Grey Bruce Rural Water
Quality Improvement Program funded
by Healthy Futures for Ontario
Agriculture, Bruce County and Grey
County, was administrated by the
Saugeen Conservation and Grey Sauble
Conservation Authorities. This program
approved more than 650 projects with
an estimated project value of $2.5
million. The most popular projects
were: clean water diversion, livestock
restriction to watercourses, wellhead
protection, and fragile land retirement.
These projects showed how diverse our
farmers have become, when we saw
windmills pumping water, solar -
powered water pumps and G.P.S.-
directed manure spreading equipment.
The Bruce County Federation of
Agriculture administrated a similar
program funded by the Federal
government under their Agricultural
Environmental Stewardship Initiative.
This program differed in that farmer -
supplied labor counted as a credit to the
total project.
The popularity of these two
'programs shows that with a little
financial help farmers are willing to do
their part in cleaning up rural water. Let
us not forget that the same water being
cleaned up in the rural areas is
eventually used by our city neighbors,
so by helping us they are helping
46 THE RURAL VOICE
themselves to cleaner eater.
The discovery of BSE in one cow in
May of this year has the potential of
changing beef farming as we knew it in
this area for a long time to.come. Many
words have already been written on this
subject and I can only add my thoughts
to N hat has already been written. The
rural population should feel good about
the support we have received from the
general public. We have seen the
increased consumption of beef even
though the retail price did not drop. as
did the farm gate price. We have seen
countrywide barbecues promoting beef,
and we have seen benefit events held
for the farm community to help them
through financial hardshh ps.
We have also seen the absolute
greed that happens when there is no
competition in an industry. The average
farmer's concept of marketing is to take
what the market will give you when
you present your goods for sale. This
works when there are buyers competing
for your produce. This year the reality
of having only one major packing plant
in Ontario hit home. We found out how
dependent we are on the foreign buyers
to bid up the price of our beef. Farmers
must realize they have to become
involved in moving their produce much
further than the farm gate if they want
to survive. We just have to see how
integrated the food industry has become
to realiLt changes must be made. This
will not be an easy road to follow. We
must compete against organizations
that have amassed vast war chests and
do not want to see a competitor in the
food chain. Farmers have produced
food so efficiently, and for so little
money to the consumer, that huge
grocery retailers can offer items such as
gasoline, and other non-food items as a
loss leader, offsetting the tremendous
profits they make selling food. This
kind of business does not want to see
basic producers get more money for
their goods.
1 think the BSE crisis has only
hastened what was already going to
happen to an industry that has prided
itself in efficiencies of production and
has not spent enough time developing a
strategy for the future. Our next trade
roadblock to dealing with the U.S. will
be Country Of Origin Labeling, and
this could be worse than the BSE
problem because then the American
Consumer can easily see where their
food originates. and we will be forced
to sell quality or price to sell in that
market.
This year has had its challenges but
it does not have to be all negative if we
learn from these situations and take our
futures into our own control.0
— Submitted by Wieise Postliumus,
Second Vice President, Bruce County
Federation of Agriculture
BRUCE COUNTY FEDERATION OF
AGRICULTURE
DIRECTORS' MEETING
MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2004
8:00 P.M.
Sprucedale Agromart
25th sideroad Brant (north dtf of former Bruce
County #4 - east of Walkerton)
MEMBERS ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND
Attention Commodity Groups!
Roots of Bruce
will be held Thursday, April 15 and Friday, April 16, 2004
(Note: Date Change)
Commodities wishing to participate, please contact:
Craig Todd at 371-8465 or Ralph Dietrich at 367-2740
by January 30, 2004
to tentatively confirm your attendance