The Rural Voice, 1991-02, Page 52PERTH
Matt Crowley, President, R. R. 1, Gadshill NOK 1J0
County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER
393-5716
* The Rural Voice is provided to farmers
in Perth County by the PCFA
SOME SHIRT POCKET NOTES
Logan Township is the latest to have
OFA signs put at members' gateways.
On January 15th, three teams covered
the township in about half a day. Any
member who was missed is encouraged
to contact a township director.
CBC's "The Food Show" was the
only radio program to be scrapped in the
latest budget cuts, despite good ratings
since it began in the late 1970s. Sadly,
it was one of the few programs which
still covered food production topics.
Perhaps its demise was due to econom-
ics, perhaps because farmers make up
only two per cent of network listeners,
or perhaps because the show became
overly critical of government laggard-
ness on food and environment issues.
Whatever the real reason, we have lost a
good information source.
The 1991 OMAF crop budgeting
aids are now available at county offices.
For crop planning, they are a useful
guide. Working through them, how-
ever, indicates that we must all be more
efficient than the "average" farmer in
order to glean any profit with current
commodity prices.
Coming events
February Meeting, February 28,
1991, Downie Mutual Insurance Office,
Sebringville, 8:00 p.m. Speaker: John
Uren, Metro Life — family farm plan-
ning, wills, estate planning, etc.
Perth County Farm Show, February
19, 20, 21— visit us at the PCFA booth.
Thinking globally ... Acting ... ?
At the time of writing, the war in the
Persian Gulf is only a few hours old.
Suddenly, the problems of our sagging
economy, low commodity prices, win-
ter weather, and GST, pale in compari-
son.
Curiously, we in the west were, by
most accounts, more worried about
military action in the Middle East than
many of the people living there. In part,
it may be because they are much more
hardened to the realities of war. In part,
it may be due to Saddam Hussein mar-
keting this as a Holy War, and in so
48 THE RURAL VOICE
doing, solidifying his home support
with an emotional fervour which is fear-
less.
Another important factor is that our
media is extremely up-to-date and
uncensored. In particular, CBC covered
the developments with minute -by -min-
ute reports and intelligent analysis,
which clarified the enormous and com-
plex problem there. The CBC had made
phone calls to people in Aman, Jordan,
because the Jordanians had the first in-
formation that war was actually on.
Despite criticism levelled at CBC, its
scope and quality of journalism is top-
notch. We are fortunate that we get a
global view of what is happening rather
than a narrow "cheer -leading" report
from one side or the other.
In the final days leading up to the
conflict, thousands of concerned people
found it necessary to release emotional
tension by getting involved, by trying to
make a difference, and trying for a
peaceful resolution. School students
lined city streets carrying "no blood for
oil" slogans with peace signs painted on
their faces; priests and musicians led
vigils; open line radio shows were
jammed with calls by people soul-
searching for the ideas that might lead to
peace; parliamentarians debated the
issues and sometimes broke party ranks
because of their conscience. In this
somewhat apathetic society, the
groundswell of voices was significant.
How many times in the past year
have you contacted a member of parlia-
ment, written a letter to the editor of a
newspaper, stood up at a meeting to
defend a view, called a radio open -line
program, filled out a customer feed-
back survey after purchasing some new
equipment, or taken advantage of other
vehicles for idea exchange? So many
constructive criticisms fail to be voiced
further than grumbling at the dinner
table.
Ideas must come from the grass-
roots, and be channelled to people in a
position to effect appropriate changes,
whether they are business, political,
social, or religious leaders.
Failure to generate ideas at the
ground level results in more directives
coming down from the top. This can
occur to such an extent, that even demo-
cratic entities appear to be something
very different. (Fortunately, the great
check in a democratic system is periodic
elections.)
Anyone who has worked for a large
corporation at various levels, soon finds
out that if an idea can be mentioned
quietly, and then given time to become
the idea of someone higher up, that idea
will stand greater change of being
adopted than ideas which are grand-
standed by their originator. Lobby
groups such as OFA, when dealing with
members of government, may well find
this curious phenomenon useful.
The OFA is an excellent forum in
which farmers can introduce, discuss,
debate, and refine ideas at a county
level. County leaders then have an
opportunity to channel these new ideas
through provincial leaders to the appro-
priate business or political groups.
Often people may renew OFA
memberships and read the monthly
publications, but still wonder what the
organization is doing for them: what are
they really getting out of it? No big
surprise here, it's like almost everything
else in life, you reap what you have
sown.0
John Drummond
Township Director (Logan)
We welcome comments
from any member, do so by
contacting:
John Drummond,
Newsletter Editor,
R. R. 5, Mitchell,
NOK 1NO,
or
PCFA office,
R. R. 1, St. Marys, NOM 2V0.