The Rural Voice, 2005-06, Page 38itself for 10.000 farmers in the future
instead of 60,000), she sees
conditions changing to halt this trend.
The whole cheap food, bigger -is -
better trend that has been based on
cheap energy, she says. Cheap energy
has meant inexpensive shipping. You
wouldn't have a million head of
cattle on feed in Alberta if fuel
wasn't inexpensive enough to ship
cattle or meat from those cattle to
Quebec at lower prices than cattle
can be raised in Quebec.
Nearly all the economies of scale
that cause larger farm operations are
based on cheap energy, yet fuel
prices have increased 50 per cent in
the past year from 50 cents per litre
to 85-90 cents per litre.
"What's rural Ontario going to
look like if you have oil at $100 a
barrel'?" she wonders.
Nitrogen fertilizer, for instance, is
the largest single crop input for many
cashcrop farmers. What happens if
the cost continues to rise?
Somewhat heretically, she
wonders if you'll see Wal-Mart
stores as a regular feature in the
Ontario landscape. While some
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people argue that higher energy costs
will see even more consolidation,
even more "Wal-mart-ization", Clark
doesn't think so. Higher energy costs
will encourage a reversal of the
bigger -is -better approach, she
believes.
In food, the average meal travels
1500 miles before it arrives on the
plates of the average family today.
She points to a recent Iowa State
University study that compared the
energy expenditures required for 28
different fruits and vegetables to be
sold through a Wal -mart structure,
through growing and selling on a
regional basis (all these products can
be grown in Iowa), and through a
community share garden or a
farmers' market. If the energy cost of
selling those products through a Wal -
mart structure was 100 per cent, the
same product used only nine per cent
as much energy if grown and sold
regionally or 18 per cern at a farmers
market or CSA.
"There are enormous energy
reductions when you grow it closer to
where you eat it," she says.
It doesn't make sense energy -wise
to concentrate corn production in one
area and truck it to pig production in
another, she says.
The whole reason for large areas
of mono -culture crops or large-scale
animal enterprises was not to benefit
the farmer but to produce consistent
raw materials for processors, Clark
says. The problem for farmers is that
as they produce large amounts of
similar products, they drive prices
down. They lose the advantage of
regional diversity.
The other key driver in the
changing future of agriculture she
sees is climate change. "The key
thing that has me worried is the
unpredictability of weather," she
says. The industrial -style agriculture
of today is based on our expectations
that we'll have weather close to what
we've had in the past. But lately
we've experienced colder than
normal springs. Late springs or an
early frost, can throw our cropping
assumptions out the window.
The increased risks of abnormal
weather because of climate change
will encourage farmers to be more
diversified to spread their risk, Clark
forecasts. It won't be just a matter of
spreading the risk between various
crops, she says, but new ways of