Loading...
The Rural Voice, 1998-02, Page 10"Our experience assures lower cost water wells" 98 YEARS' EXPERIENCE Member of Canadian and Ontario Water Well Associations • Farm • Industrial • Suburban • Municipal Licensed by the Ministry of the Environment ,rt DAVIDSON WELL DRILLING LTD. WINGHAM Serving Ontario Since 1900 519-357-1960 WINGHAM 519-664-1424 WATERLOO KUHL MACHINE SHOP Quality Machining & Fabricating to Your Specifications • Welding - aluminum - mild - stainless • Millwrighting • Machining • Auto Cad Services NEW FACILITIES — over 4,000 feet — Serving you better In '98 1st place south of Keady PH/FAX 519-794-3758 6 THE RURAL VOICE Keith Roulston Hear no evil, see no evil As a tyke, I used to hide in the woodshed and plug my ears when my father and uncle were loading pigs for market.. The shrieking of the pigs, and my knowledge of the fate that was to befall them, made me want to ignore the reality of farming. Ignoring reality, or at least distancing ourselves from reality, has been part of the evolution of society as people sought to have the best life could offer without having to face the grim facts of life. We moved, first of all, from a hunting and gathering society to a farming society, then more and more people moved to urban life where they could get their food already packaged: no sweating to grow the vegetables, no having to kill to enjoy a Sunday mast. One of the fastest ways for animal rights activists to gain strength is to show film of farm animals in a slaughter house: it will put people off their hamburgers in a hurry. They're brought face to face with the reality that something had to die for them to enjoy that Big Mac. Even on farms today, where people live closer to reality than most parts of society, most farmers can avoid the stark reality of the slaughter of their animals because someone, miles away, is doing the dirty deed. But the distancing, in our global world, is becoming wider. Now Western consumers can enjoy cheap clothes, for instance, without facing the reality that people are working for pennies a day in Third World countries so we can spend less on clothing, and more on luxuries the poor couldn't even envision. If we get far enough away from it, the reality is out of sight and out of mind. Global trade is the buzz word of agriculture, these days. Those commodities, like dairy or poultry, that seek Canadian self-sufficiency are regarded as hopelessly out of step. We should, processors and ind- ustry thinkers say, be gearing up instead to exploit export opportun- ities. There's a building boom in the pork industry, both here and in westem Canada, based on serving the Asian market, including, among other countries, the Philippines. It looks like a chance for a clear gain for Canadian agriculture with nobody being hurt. But reality was brought home to some farmers in western Canada when Jaimie Tadeo, leader of the Democratic Philippines Peasant Movement spoke to the annual convention of the National Farmers Union in Saskatoon in November. Tadeo said the 6.9 million peasant farmers in his country are "an endangered species". Part of the threat to their future, he said, comes from imported products from developed countries that can produce goods more cheaply thanks to superior technology, better infrastructure, and lower costs. "We can produce enough pork to meet our own needs," Tadeo said, but under unregulated trade that won't happen. "Free trade will be catastrophic and have a devastating impact on Filipino peasants and Filipino agriculture as a whole," he said. The average farm in the Philippines is 3.5 acres and most fanners who produce hogs have eight or 10 animals. The few Targe corporate farmers may survive but small operations that make up 86 per cent of the industry won't. There is a price to be paid for everything. To eat hamburger or pork chops, something must die. For Can- adian farmers to prosper filling export markets, millions of poor farmers elsewhere in the world may lose their way of life. Perhaps, in the long run, the outcome will be a better life for everyone, including the displaced peasants. We should, however, not close our eyes to the potential damage caused by our good fortune.0 Keith Roulston is editor and publisher of The Rural Voice. Ile lives near Blyth, ON.