The Rural Voice, 1996-12, Page 12'bQQ'OO.bdG►.
LAST MINUTE
Christmas Gift Ideas
NEW PUBLICATIONS:
The American Farm Family
by Halberstadt $37.45
Cast Tractors by Moreland & Baldwin $16.20
Case GP Tractor by Pripps & Morland 424.95
Combines & Harvestors
Photographic History by Jeff Creighton $24.95
Farm Tractor Advertising in America
1900-1960 by Felherston $24.95
Farm Tractor 1950-1975
by Lester Larsen $24.40
John Deere Buggies and Wagons
by Hughes $17.20
International Harvester
Photographic History by Klaucher S24.95
Minneapolis -Moline Tractors
by Sayers $16.20
Orchard Tractors by Halberstadt S24.95
Orphan Tractors by Vossier S24.95
Steam Tractors by Halberstadt $24.95
Unusual Vintage Tractors by Wendel $24.95
The Complete Guide to Stationary
Gas Engines $24.95
Gas Engine Trademarks by Wendel . _$24.95
Vintage Farm Tractors .
by Ralph Sanders s37.45
Ford Tractor Data Book by Creighton $13.70
John Deere Tractor Data Book
by Dunnings S13.70
J.I. Case, Tractors and Equipment,
Vol. II $49.95
A Guide to Allis-Chalmers
Farm Tractors $18.70
Auburn and Cord by Beck & Marka
JD Photographic History
by Robert Pnpper $32.50
Std. Catalogue of Chevrolet Light Duty
Trucks 1918-1995 $32.50
Case Tractors
by Moreland and Baldwin S16.20
Farm Memories by Apnl Halberstadt S24.95
International Trac Tractors
(Photo Archives) $29.95
Cletrac & Oliver Crawlers
(Photo Archives) $29.95
Farmall Super Series (Photo Archives)S29.95
Owner's & Service Manuals:
Good supply or reprinted owner's and
service manuals.
American Farm Tractor calendars, John
Deere Farm Tractor calendars, Classic Farm
Tractor Calendars, Dupont '97 Classic
Tractor Calendars (available early Nov.)
all at $11.95 ea.
Decals
Older Farm Tractor Decal Sets in stock
New Decal Sets available for Case
300, 400 and 600 In script lettering
and In slant tor 500 Diesel Yellow,
300 Triple range, 400 Case -O -Matic, 600
Case -O -Matic and 700 and 800 Dual Range
Diesel or Case -O -Matic Diesel $20 to $24
except Case 500 $42.00
State Gas or Diesel when ordering
Also AC D17 Series III, D19, etc.
Hard -to -find Spark Plugs (others in stock)
Autolite 3095 (112 -inch pipe thread)..$3.25 as.
Autolite 3076 (7/8 -inch pipe thread)..$3.25 u.
High Tension Spark Plug Wire 954/ft.
7mm std
Low Tension Braided Spark Plug Wire 70441.
Yellow with black and red stripes, various
gauges
Decal Sets for most older North American
Tractors and Gas Engines
Please add GST and 53.00 shipping
prepaid orders
IIAUOIIOLM BOOKS
(Allan Haugh) 519-522-0248
1 mile east of Brucefield on Huron Cly. Rd. 3
Open: Mon. -Fri. 1 - 12 a.m. & 1-5 p.m.
Sat., Sun., & evenings by appointment
8 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Old McDonald' image protecting farm
As Christmas approaches, farmers
might be wise to listen to a caution
they might give to their children who
are tempted to ask for too much: be
careful what you ask for — you
might get it.
Those farmers, for instance, who
wished the Mike
Harris govern-
ment would
make the farm
labour act go
away, might
find that now
that it's gone, it
looks mighty
good.
The only
farm workers
who ever cert-
ified a union
under the NDP
legislation, and
later had their
union decertified when the legislation
was repealed, are now challenging
the right of the government to exempt
agriculture from the labour relations
act. They're planning a Supreme
Court challenge on the basis they are
denied equal rights to bargain
collectively as other workers do.
Want to bet against them winning?
Organizations like the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture and the
Christian Farmers Federation of
Ontario, were accused of selling out
farmers when they supported the
NDP's farm labour legislation.
Critics accused them of being bought
off by NDP support for stable
funding. They argued that it was
better to have a special farm labour
law than have farming included under
regular labour legislation. If the
appeal to the Supreme Court is
successful, that's exactly what would
happen.
There has been much talk of
saving "the family farm" from unions
by repealing the NDP bill. The irony,
of course, is that the only union
formed under the bill was among the
200 workers for Ontario's largest
producer of mushrooms. Since a
mushroom farm is much like a
factory, what makes this "farm"
different from an industrial plant with
200 employees?
It has become common, these days,
for people in agriculture to refer to it
as an "industry". In fact, all recent
developments seem to be pushing
toward the industrialization of
agriculture. New attempts to produce
a uniform "product" (not an animal
but a product) have produced
different production strategies (three -
site hog production and genetically -
altering biotechnology) and new
marketing strategies, including
contracts with processors with
specific quality requirements.
The drive to get ever bigger and
"more efficient" continues. Ontario
now has only 1100 chicken producers
(up from 800 in 1986) but at a recent
poultry update conference in
Holmesville, a builder suggested
there would have to be a move to get
away from the "smaller and less
efficient" producers. What is now
small and inefficient would have
been one of the larger, efficient
producers in most farm commodities
when people were preaching this
same doctrine 25 years ago.
So how big is efficient these
days? It's easy to see the day when
we could have 50 farms producing all
of Ontario's pork needs. The 1991
census showed 425,000 dairy cows
on 9,757 farms in Ontario, and an
average herd size of 47. But if supply
management died and we were
pushed to mimic the big new farms in
California, we'd need only 85 farms
with 5,000 cows each to produce all
our milk. That's perhaps hard to
imagine, but it's easy to see how
fewer than 25 companies could
produce all the chickens and eggs
needed in Ontario. (A new egg
factory in Ohio is home to 2.5 million
hens, requiring the feed from 18,900
acres of corn and 22,700 acres of
soybeans.)
Crops? With today's equipment
farmers can take on 10,000 acres.
Is what remains, then, a farm or
an industry? Farmers are caught
between their two competing visions:
they want the pizzazz of being an
industry but the "ah shucks" down-
home image of the family farm to
protect them from being treated like
an industry. It's not just anti -labour
protection for which they want the