The Rural Voice, 1990-12, Page 32AGRICULTURAL
EMPLOYMENT
SERVICES
Provide employment planning
assistance to the agricultural
industry
Recruit workers for agricultural
employment
Assist worker orientation and
transportation
Promote good employment
standards
Provide information about
government employment
programs
OWEN SOUND WALKERTON
371-9522 881-3671
HURON
BRUCEFIELD
ONTARIO
NOM 1JO
AgVise.
Mervyn J. Erb
Agronomist
Independent Crop Consultant
TELEPHONE: (519) 233-7100
MOBILE: (519) 661-9451
If you are considering the
purchase of land in
Manitoba, there are many
bargains available - some
with excellent terms.
However, as with all things,
buyer beware.
Corn, white beans, pinto
beans, sunflowers, lentils,
potatoes, flax, canola, wheat
and barley, are all cropping
possibilities. Excellent renters
can be found and operator
share crop arrangements
can be made.
If I can be of
service,
please call.CROP
PfmFIT
STRATEGIES
28 THE RURAL VOICE
I'M FED UP
TO HERE!
by Mervyn Erb
Sometimes I think an "open -
season" for just one day is what's
needed. This year, I'd bag the mangy
carcass of a guy named William
Johnson, who happens to be a
columnist for the Montreal Gazette.
An article of his
entitled "Farmer's
gain is Con-
sumer's loss"
appeared in the
October 17 issue
of the London
Free Press.
Like those of
his ilk, he be-
lieves that
anything food
producers gain is
a loss to them-
selves. It's not
enough that
Canadian
consumer's have
one of the lowest
food costs in the
world — now they want food to be
free!
Well I'm sick and tired of it.
We've been fooling ourselves,
convincing each other to be nice to
consumers. Let's educate them. Let's
get them down on the farm. Enough is
enough.
In his scathing column, Johnson
insulted every farmer and his family
in the country — every farmer who
holds down an off -farm job so he can
generate enough income to pay his
farm expenses — every farm wife
who does double duty, running the
kids to the babysitter every morning
so she can hold down a day job
besides doing the farm work when
she gets home at night, only to see
her hard-earned paycheck get eaten
up to help make machinery repairs.
Johnson says farmers and their
families make up less than five per
cent of the population of Canada.
Also, that Canadians are made to
"cough up" money for the minister
of agriculture's extravagant generosity
to farmers for programs which ensure
that Canada will continue to have far
more farmers than it needs.
Johnson also contends that
Canada's GATT
proposals are
timid when it
comes to our
domestic market,
which affects all
Canadian
consumers. He
also says the
current proposals
would leave
almost intact
Canada's so-called
(his own wording)
"supply
management
programs, which
practically exclude
foreign producers
of milk from the
Canadian market, thus ensuring that
inefficient Canadian farm producers
will be guaranteed a quota of
production at higher than free-market
prices."
Johnson continued " ... that
Canada will continue to have an
excessively expensive agriculture until
politicians are made to respond to
consumers' interests."
That's it! That's the last straw!
I'm fed up to here with consumer
watchdog groups; Greenpeacers,
animal rights activists,
environmentalists, artsie-fartsies, and
any others who want to stick their
nose into my business. They are
crying with their mouths full.
I'm told that each farmer in
Canada feeds 96 people. I want to
know who's feeding William Johnson.
Stop it, will you.
The way he talks, I thing he'd be
happier eating someplace else —
maybe Bucharest or Baghdad!O
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