The Rural Voice, 1993-06, Page 33Farm Radio Forum, returns
Reunion scheduled for the people who made the Farm
Forum an important part of rural life
In the winters of the late 1940s and
1950s the centre of neighbourhood
activity was one farm livingroom each
Monday night as neighbours gathered
around the radio to hear the weekly
presentation of the Farm Radio Forum.
A little bit of that past will be relived in
Blyth, June 19 when a Farm
Radio Forum Re-
union will
be held.
Farm
Radio
Forum was a
centre of both
social and
intellectual life
in farm com-
munities in those
long winter
months. Farm men
and women would
listen to the pre-
sentation over CBC
radio, read the
information in the
Farm Forum Guide and
then discuss the topic.
There were lively
discussions of rural issues
in many a farm liv-
ingroom. Now and then,
some very practical action
resulted from these get-
togethers. Long-time Huron
County farm activist Simon
Hallahan recalled how a group
of farmers in East Wawanosh
discussed the need for a market
for their milk at a farm forum
meeting. They decided to form a
co-operative and start a cheese
factory. The factory was built in
Blyth and operated for several years
until the United Dairy and Poultry Co-
operative (now Gay Lea Foods) closed
it and moved production to one of its
other plants.
But almost as important as the
discussions that took place were the
social hours held later in the evening.
By Keith Roulstort
Over the tables of euchre players
("shoot" in the neighbourhood where I
grew up) neighbours drew closer
together. Around the
lunch table
late
Farm Radio Forum in Ontario, says
Duncan McCallum of Hanover,
president of the ORLA.
The afternoon of June 19 at Blyth
Lions' Park (the basement of Blyth
Memorial Hall in case of rain) will
feature a re-enactment of a Farm Radio
Forum broadcast of the 1940s and
1950s. Former CBC farm broadcaster
George S. Atkins will moderate the
panel. Alex Sim, long active in the
ORLA and a former member of the
Farm Radio Forum will be present and
it's hoped that Helen Abel and Harry
J. Boyle will also take part in the
forum. Former CKNX farm
broadcaster Roger Schwass will
give the summary of the
"preceding week's" broadcast.
Former participants in Farm
Radio Forum will have an
opportunity to recall tales.
McCallum says the reunion is
being held outdoors so there
will be plenty of room for
anyone who wants to attend.
While Farm Radio Forum
is barely a memory for
most rural people, for the
members of the Du -Cum -
In Farm Forum in
Culross township, south
of Teeswater, the
tradition has been
kept alive. Through-
out the winter this
Farm Forum continues to
meet. A representative of the group
will take part in the reunion.
If the Du -Cum -In Farm Forum is
looking for research material for
discussions it might be able to recycle
old copies of Farm Forum Guide. Two
issues of the Guide McCallum
unearthed recently sound disturbingly
familiar. The January 11, 1954 issue
talks about the problem of falling farm
prices (farm prices from 1952 to 1953
had dropped 12 per cent). The February
1, 1954 deals with the question of tariff
barriers between Canada and the U.S. 0
in the
formed a evening they
thatsense of community
many complain is missing from
many rural areas today.
It is the 50th anniversary of the
formation of the National Farm Radio
Forum by the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation in 1993 and the
Rural Learning Association (ORLA)Ontario
decided to sponsor the reunion. The
group is an heir to the tradition of the
JUNE 1993 29