The Rural Voice, 1990-07, Page 3R.V.
general manager: Jim Fitzgerald
editor: Lise Gunby
contributing writers:
Adrian Vos
Gisele Ireland
Keith Roulston
Gord Wainman
Cathy Laird
Wayne Kelly
Sarah Borowski
Mary Lou Weiser -Hamilton
June Flath
Ian Wylie-Toal
Susan Glover
Bob Reid
Mervyn Erb
Peter Baltensperger
Darene Yavorsky
Sandra Orr
marketing and promotion:
Gerry Fortune
advertising sales:
Merle Gunby
production co-ordinator:
Tracey Rising
advertising production:
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
office: 519-524-7668
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printed by: Signal -Star Publishing
Goderich, Ontario
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The Rural Voice
Box 37, 10A The Square
Goderich, Ontario
N7A 3Y5
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Jim Fitzgerald
General Manager
When I first met him, back in the
mid -'70s, he was just a ditch inspector for
a local township. And I remember that, at
the tune, his concerns over the state of
agriculture seemed ... well ... almost
radical (and, to some in food production,
almost hysterical). He was predicting dire
consequences if we didn't stop abusing the
most precious of non-renewable resources
on earth — the soils in which we grow our
food.
At the time, the farm land around the
town where I live, Clinton, was suddenly
being converted. For a century there had
been mixed farming with lots of pasture
and hay fields rotated with grain and cash
crops. This was replaced by monoculture
row crops, and the land was left bare for
up to nine months of the year.
But that ditch inspector was becoming
increasingly concerned. That man was the
late Norman Alexander of Londesboro,
and the slides and photographs he showed
me that day 17 years ago suddenly awak-
ened me, and subsequently thousands of
others, to what was, and unfortunately still
is, a disaster in our agricultural areas.
Norman went on a crusade in the '70s
and '80s right up until his death to try to
warn the farm populace about the increas-
ingly severe problems of soil erosion, soil
degradation, and water pollution caused
by poor farm management. His miniature
land stewardship demonstration trailer,
which he diligently and happily hauled
around to local fairs and plowing matches,
became the inspiration for farm groups and
governments to get going on land steward-
ship and water clean-up programs. But
many in agriculture still haven't heard
Norman's message.
I'm afraid that if we were able to tour
southwestern Ontario with Norman this
spring, he would be painfully aware and
likely extremely distressed by what has —
or hasn't — been done. In the area where
I live, Huron County, the weather in the
past few months has been especially brutal
for soil, and some say that the greenhouse
effect will tend to make such weather the
norm. High winds roared into the area at
least three times this spring, sending up
vast clouds of fine soil — the best part of
the soil — which drifted across roads and
filled up ditches. In some areas with light-
er soils, the visibility was so bad that cars
had to turn on their headlights.
Other times, when it wasn't cold and
dry, hot weather for a couple of days was
followed by torrential rains which in some
spots dumped up to three inches of water
in just a few hours. The resulting sheet
and rill erosion was so severe in some
fields that ditches 10 inches deep appeared
overnight. The run-off carried silt and
herbicides into the lower parts of the
fields, drowning out emerging crops. And,
worse yet, the thick, polluted water poured
into the ditches and streams that feed our
rivers and eventually end in the lake.
When I drove by the Maitland River near
Goderich on June 15, the brown water was
carrying what must have been thousands of
tons of our best soil into Lake Huron —
those flying into the Goderich airport say
the brown swath looked like a scar slashed
into the clear water of the lake.
On top of that is the inappropriate
handling of livestock manure every spring
by some farmers who spread it on wet or
frozen ground. Some farmers now report
that watercourses where they once fished
(and from which they could even drink)
are now dangerous to our health. It has
been well documented by environmental-
ists that sudden shocks to a river system do
disastrous things to the ecosystem. Maybe
that's why a recent survey found a sudden,
rapid decline in the frog population. The
frog has been compared to the canaries
that miners used to carry into the coal pits
of England a century ago. If the canary
fell over, it was time to make a quick exit.
Sure, we have had some innovative
land stewardship and water -quality im-
provement programs initiated in the past
decade by some very concerned farmers,
but we've only scratched the surface. Until
we as a society realize that there's more to
the bottom line than dollars and cents, I'm
afraid our future is in big trouble.
So when you're driving in the country
this summer, stop beside one of those
eroded fields, turn off the car, and listen
carefully. You might just hear the words
of Norman Alexander: "We don't inherit
the land from our parents, we borrow it
from our children."0