The Rural Voice, 1991-09, Page 5general manager/editor: Jim Fitzgerald
editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron County
John Heard, soils and crops extension
and research, northwestern Ontario
Neil McCutcheon, farmer, Grey County
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.
George Penfold, associate professor,
University of Guelph
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
Bob Stephen, farmer, Perth County
contributing writers:
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Roulston, Cathy Laird, Wayne Kelly,
Sarah Borowski, Mary Lou Weiser -
Hamilton, June Flath, Ian Wylie-Toal,
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Peter Baltensperger, Darene Yavorsky,
Sandra Orr, Yvonne Reynolds
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BEHIND THE SCENES
by Jim Fitzgerald
General Manager/editor
The latest farm crisis to hit our conces-
sions in the decade-long saga of the deci-
mation of rural Canada by high interest
rates and low prices shows that, contrary to
what big business leaders and city business
writers are trying to tell the public, the
once heralded farm lobby has become
practically impotent. A decade of farmers
feeding on themselves for their own short
term gain has cut their numbers so
drastically — the census this year will
show that farmers are only two and 1/2 per
cent of the population and shrinking fast
— that they have little clout with the
public any more. With so few young
people entering farming (the provincial
government has cancelled their Farm Start
program saying it's inappropriate to en-
courage young people to get into farming
at this time) many farmers are wondering
if they'll get enough equity out of their
operations to retire on. Farmers have so
little voice now that even their tradition -al
allies, the federal and provincial minis-ters
of agriculture, are now ignoring them.
That was very evident in the past
couple of weeks as both governments tried
to downplay cash crop farmers' pleas for
help for farmers suffering from prices that
are the lowest in 15 years. It appears the
government is even trying to neutralize the
call for emergency financial assistance
from a coalition of commodity groups and
the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (in
an unusual show of unity between farm
groups). While OFA president Roger
George and his allies were touring the
countryside, the federal government was
telling the urban news media that net farm
incomes will be up eight per cent this year,
while burying the fact that incomes were
down 28 per cent last year. After reading
the headlines, my urban friends ask me
why farmers are whining when they got a
big raise!
When asked about the farm crisis and
the need for more dollars to help alleviate
the cash flow problem, Ontario Premier
Bob Rae and his agriculture minister
Elmer Buchanan say they "just don't have
any more money." They can't find a few
million to keep our farmers afloat for
another year, yet they seem to be able to
come up with $3 billion to top up the $21
billion teachers' pension fund. GRIP and
NISA, which supposedly will be the salva-
tion of cash croppers, won't kick in until
late next year, and for many farmers, it
will be like throwing crumbs to a person
who has already starved to death.
It wasn't always this way. At one
time, the minister of agriculture was a
major player around the cabinet table,
because politicians such as Bill Stewart,
Eugene Whelan, and Jack Riddell could
deliver a large number of rural ridings to
the ruling parties. The rural vote, for
instance, played a major role in keeping
Ontario's Tories in power for 43 years
straight. Where cabinet was once filled
with people who were farmers or one
generation removed from the farm, there
isn't one real farmer in the present NDP
cabinet. And you can count on one forger
of one hand the number of people in the
NDP caucus with an intimate knowledge
of agriculture. They have been in power
almost a whole year and they have done
less in 12 months than Riddell did in the
first 12 weeks of his tenure.
In the hierarchy of the government in
Toronto nowadays, OMAF is almost as
invisible as the ministry of citizenship, or
tourism and recreation. There's even a
rumour flying around Queen's Park that
the ministry's name will be changed to the
"Ministry of Rural Affairs," further evi-
dence of divorce from its agriculture roots.
It appears that radicals such as Allen
Wilford and Tom Shoebottom from the
Farm Survival movement in the early
1980s were right after all about their dire
predictions for rural people. They claimed
that farmers should stick together to fight
banks, big business, and governments.
Once resoundingly rejected by many of
those same greying mainstream farmers
who today are hurting badly, the activists'
calls for a united farm community are as
applicable now as they were in 1982.
There are those in the farm movement
who say it's still not too late for farmers to
take the farm survivalists' advice and band
together like the post office workers, the
auto workers, or the teachers, and speak
with one voice.0
SEPTEMBER 1991 1