The Rural Voice, 1998-12, Page 3R.V.
Editor: Keith Roulston
editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron County
John Heard, soils and crop extension
and research, northwestern Ontario
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.
George Penfold, associate professor,
University of Guelph
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
contributing writers:
Gisele Ireland, Mary Lou
Weiser -Hamilton, Ralph
Pearce, Bonnie Gropp,
Bob Reid, Mervyn Erb, Darene
Yavorsky, Peter Baltensperger, Sandra
Orr, Carl L. Bedal, Janice Becker,
Allison Lawlor
marketing & advertising sales manager:
Gerry Fortune
advertising representative:
Merle Gunby
production co-ordinator:
Joan Caldwell
advertising & editorial production:
Dianne Josling
Anne Harrison
printed & mailed by: Signal -Star
Publishing, Goderich, Ontario
subscriptions: $16.05 (12 issues)
(includes 7% GST)
Back copies $2.75 each
For U.S. rates, add $5 per year
Changes of address, orders for subscrip-
tions and undeliverable copies (return
postage guaranteed) are to be sent to The
Rural Voice at the address listed below.
Published monthly by:
The Rural Voice,
Box 429, Blyth, Ontario,
NOM 1 HO
Telephone: 519-523-4311 (fax 523-9140).
e-mail: norhuron@scsinternet.com
Publication mail registration No. 3560 held
by North Huron Publishing Co. Inc. at
Goderich, Ontario.
All manuscripts submitted for consideration
should be accompanied by a stamped, self-
addressed envelope. The publisher cannot
accept responsibility for unsolicited
manuscripts or photographs, although both
are welcome. The opinions expressed here-
in are not necessarily those of the publisher.
Editorial content may be reproduced only
by permission of the publisher.
The Rural Voice makes every effort to see
that advertising copy is correct. However,
should an error occur, please notify The
Rural Voice office within 30 days of
invoicing in order to obtain a billing
adjustment.
Behind the Scenes
Of Christmases, and the future
It's Christmas already. With
summer-like weather lasting until the
end of October the holiday season has
sort of snuck up on us.
With feasting from coast to coast,
Christmas is a good season for the
food industry. One of those providing
the Christmas turkey will be the
Vines family who have been growing
and processing turkeys for years.
Allison Lawlor visited with them
before the season became too hectic.
Poultry is also the subject of
stories in our news section this month
as we have coverage of the annual
poultry producers update meeting in
Holmesville.
Sometimes human nature can get
in the way of the Christmas spirit.
Nancy Silcox relates how her attempt
to bring a little Christmas joy to her
co-workers backfired and got her in
trouble in The Christmas Draw.
If a computer is on your Christmas
wish list this year, you could become
part of a revolution that has just now
begun to take effect. Janice Becker,
who writes the AgriTech column in
our new management section at the
back of the magazine, attended a
conference on the internet recently
and reports the internet could change
our lifestyles. For instance, one
speaker predicted 20 per cent of all
car sales could be via the internet five
years from now. Her report may open
your eyes about where we're going.
One person constantly looking
into the future is Walkerton -area
dairy farmer Jim Fischer. Involved in
agriculture on a much wider basis
than the day-to-day operations of the
family farm, he recently was visiting
agrologist at the University of
Guelph. A proponent of early
adoption of new technologies, he has
some interesting views of where
agriculture is headed.
In her AgriTech column, Janice
Becker looks at a valuable new
program Dairy Comp 305 available
from DHI. In her recipe column,
Bonnie Gropp provides some tasty
Christmas suggestions.0
Update
Provincial tree nurseries finally sold
Back in the summer of 1992 John Drummond of Greenbelt Nursery near
Mitchell hosted a tour by Howard Hampton, and presented the then Minister of
Natural Resources with a brief prepared for the Ontario Federation of
Agriculture's Properties Committee. Titled, Two Solitudes or a Vision Shared,
the document called on the government to get out of the tree nursery business.
Six years later, the current government has announced the sale of its St.
Williams Tree Nursery to Aquallorth Farms Inc. for $650,000. The company
will lease the property over the next 30 years with a right to renew for another 20
years. It must provide jobs for the five full-time employees and has promised to
invest $10 million in improvements. It must also honour existing contracts for
bare -root nursery stock until the year 2000.
Drummond says the move, plus the sale of another government-owned nursery
at Dryden, is a step in the right dircction but notes that private growers will still
have to compete with subsidized trees from Conservation Authorities until the
contracts run their course. One government nursery has been purchased with
municipal and Conservation Authority money, meaning taxpayer money will still
be competing with nursery owners.
Private nursery owners have been "pummeled into the dirt" by subsidized
competition from government nurseries and it will take them years to rebuild to
have the scale of efficiency needed, Drummond says.
Meanwhile selling trees to southern Ontario farmers can be difficult because of
a vicious circle of price and cost. When corn and soybeans prices were high, he
says, farmers said they couldn't afford to use space for trees that could be used
for immediate returns from crops. Now that prices have fallen, farmers are likely
to say they can't afford to plant trees, he says.0