The Rural Voice, 1993-06, Page 27help on the farm at home. Will these
students travel to Ridgetown or
Kemptville, she wonders. More than
half the students she talked to said no.
The purpose of having five
agricultural colleges is to train
farmers about the conditions
of their part of the province,
she says. Students at Centralia
are able to see research being
done into the crops specific to
their corner of the province.
In other cases mature
students can attend classes in
Food Services Management
when they couldn't leave
family and home to go to a
school farther away, Alderson
says.
Besides the loss of the
college itself, the closure of
the Diagnostics Laboratory at
the Centralia campus will have
serious repercussions, says Dr.
Paul Moms of Ilderton, treasurer of
the Ontario Association of Swine
Practitioners and a member of the
Friends of Centralia group. Of all the
hogs on which post mortems are
carried out through OMAF facilities,
54 per cent (1295) are done at
Centralia. The next largest lab is
Ridgetown with only 613 or 25 per
of the hog population in the province.
The lab also handles 26 per cent of
the cattle carcasses submitted to
OMAF. "I really question the
likelihood of producers taking the
biggest part of a day to put a
carcass in the back of a truck
and travel the extra miles to
some other lab." Tissue samples
can be shipped by courier but
not whole carcasses, he points
out.
The volume handled by the
Centralia lab gives its vets a
special expertise, Dr. Morris
says. It also lets the lab act as a
monitoring system, both for
reportable diseases like pseudo-
rabies, tuberculosis, and rabies
and for new trends in diseases.
With staff like Dr. S. Ernest
to Sandford, author of a chapter in
Diseases of Swine, Centralia has
an international reputation in
swine expertise. All the doctors on
the staff publish articles regularly
either in veterinary journals or farm
press, Dr. Morris says.
Centralia
lose, Dr.
lab is too valuable w the livestock industry
Paul Morris says.
cent. With Perth County leading the
province with 400,000 hogs and
Huron with 300,000, the counties
surrounding the lab have two-thirds
Hundreds organize to save New Liskeard College
School is out at New Liskeard College of
Agricultural Technology (NLCAT), perhaps for good.
The closing of the 70 -year-old college in the
Temiskaming region was announced April 23, along
with that of Centralia College, by the ruling NDP
government as part of plans to cut spending in
Ontario.
The entire community was "shocked" as the
government had just spent $8 million on a massive
expansion and the school was expecting its highest
enrolment ever of 127 students this fall.
Temiskaming Liberal MPP David Ramsay, a one-
time member of the NDP and a former agriculture
minister in the David Peterson Liberal government,
believes NLCAT was an early victim because a small
farm population and miniscule numbers represented by
Temiskaming voters will mean less political
repercussions.
As one of several speakers at a hastily called
meeting at the college April 29, attended by 1,200,
Ramsay made a passionate plea for the government to
change its mind. He attributed the decision to the
NDP's current "zeal and fever pitch" to make
immediate changes.
Some locals have suggested Ramsay himself may
be the reason the college is closing because Premier
Bob Rae has not forgotten his switch of allegiance in
1986. Ramsay believes no such vindictive motive is
resppo�nr�ss�ible,
"'Temiskaming Federation of Agriculture
representatives Brian Schubert and Darlene Bowen
pointed out that the research done at NLCAT is unique
to the area and important for crop development. The
region has developed into one of the top canola and
barley producing locations in Ontario.
"We are more than a little wound up," said
Schubert of local farmers.
The closure struck New Liskeard a double financial
blow as the NDP simultaneously announced 200
Ministry of Natural Resources employees scheduled
for a move to nearby Haileybury will now go to
Peterborough.
Perhaps forgotten in the shuffle are the students. In
the sticky heat of the packed college auditorium,
Sharon Ball expressed what two of her fellow students
failed to, returning to their seats in tears. "We were
taught at school to stand up for what we believe in ...
I'm doing that now," she said while holding tightly to
the podium.
"The research will just stop now," predicted head
of agronomy John Rowsell. This means $160,000
spent on developing a new barley variety for the north
is wasted.
"It is hard to assess what happens when you cut out
education," he added.
MPP Ramsay said he will not be negotiating for a
scaled down institution in his efforts as member of a
commiuee formed to save NLCAT. Whether that
effort can be successful remains uncertain.
But one prediction made by Ms. Ball will likely
come true, "There will be no chance to be happy at
graduation this year (May 24)," said the honours
student.°
—Bob Reid
JUNE 1993 23