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Townsman, 1991-11, Page 261990 crop at Hill's elevator, hoping for higher prices, actually ended up owing him money, after paying for drying and storage charges and repay- ing their advance loan to the govern- ment. "If any other industry had been put through the wringer the way agricul- ture has in the last tcn years, there would be rioting in the streets," says Gordon. Governments don't seem to listen until farmers take to those streets, Gordon says, "but farmers don't really have time for that anymore either because they've had to take off -farm jobs to support their families." "They don't have time to be a fami- ly," says Ireland, "and it's leading to alcohol problems, family violence and mental problems." Despite all the subsidies, Statistics Canada studies show that Canadians have the second cheapest food costs in the world, next to the U.S. On the average, each Canadian spends $1,650 a year on food. Of that, only $110 goes to the farmer. Agriculture and food processing is a big business in Ontario. Ontario is Canada's largest agriculture producer, accounting for 25.2 per cent of total farm cash receipts of $22.5 billion. It generates more than $17 billion a year for the provincial economy, and employs about 570,000 people, or 12 per cent of the work force, second only to the automotive industry. In this arca, farming is big business According to the 1986 census, the last available, the 6,300 farmers in Huron and Perth brought $371 million into the local economy. The two counties either lead the province or are in the top three in hogs, dairy, beef, corn and white bean production. In fact, agri- culture is such big business, especially in Huron, that it's the only jurisdiction in Canada east of Winnipeg consid- ered to be truly agriculture by Statis- tics Canada, says Davidson, with 20 per cent of the population employed in agricultural related industries. Ontario Agriculture Minister Elmer Buchanan said he was told in a recent meeting with bankers that between 20 and 30 per cent of Ontario's 32,700 medium and high income farmers were not meeting their debt payments. "Ontario farmers are still carrying $20 billion in farm debt, the same as before the last shakeout after the 1982 recession," says Wilkinson. As Christmas nears, rumours are beginning to surface up and down rural concessions that the Farm Cred- it Corporation and the chartered banks will be taking over hundreds of farms this winter, forcing their owners to sell out and leave farms that in some cases have been in the family for three or four generations. Because of Huron's heavy depen- dence on it's agriculture base, the county is going through some major structural changes, says George Pen - fold, an associate professor at the Uni- versity of Guelph's School of Rural Planning and former Huron County resident. Now on leave to work with the provincial government's recently formed Commission on Planning and Development in Ontario, the former Ontario Agricultural and Food Imports and Exports, 1984-1990 60 4.0 8 6awn 0011 ,ae4 ,ee6 ,aeI I e ,peg ,uee �eeo ,epo 30 2.0 - Imports tI Eipan4 Huron county planner says the chang- ing farm economy will continue to have profound effects on the rural areas. "Fewer farmers are farming larger amounts of land and rural town- ships, particularly those away from the lake, become depopulated." Not only will that mean larger farms cultivated by fewer farmers, but it also leaves fewer families to spend money in nearby villages and towns. Even an attempt to solve the depopu- lation crisis by having urban people move out into the country doesn't nec- essarily help, says Penfold because the urban transplants may not under- stand the smells, dusts and noises nor- mally associated with agriculture. "They may not shop locally or go to the local churches after all", says Davidson. He sees farming becoming polarized into two groups with large farmers on one end owning or renting large tracts 24 TOWNSMAN/NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1991 of land of several thousand acres, while on the other there will be more small farms who fill a market niche. Farms of 100 to 200 acres will disap- pear. As of the last census in 1986, 30 per cent of farms in Huron were larger than 240 acres, and 54 per cent had gross sales of more than $50,000, while 297 of Huron's 3,416 farmers had sales of over $250,000. The story is the same in Perth, with 1,701 of 2,927 farmers reporting gross incomes over $250,000. The land base hadn't grown as big because of the large number of dairy and hog operations. Fully 66 per cent of Perth's farms are still smaller than 180 acres Davidson cited farmers like Flo- rence and Don Pullen and their son David who have found a niche. They specialize in raising sheep breeding stock and growing sweet corn for a road side market. On the other end, are farmers such as Lionel Wilder of Hay Township in Huron County, who are working several thousand acres, are highly capitalized, and have become highly technological. There is no question that some revo- lutionary changes are coming to the rural areas, experts agree, but they don't agree on what's going to happen to the countryside. Davidson says that many of the tra- ditional off -farm jobs in manufactur- ing that farmers could take in tough times have disappeared in this reces- sion and will never return. "Many farmers are going to have to be retrained for new professions in tourism and the growing service sec- tor," he says. "They can respond by asking for a bailout, or start to make the transi- tion," says Davidson. "I think the province and Canada have to decide whether they want a domestic food policy that gives us security of supply, and once they decide that, then we can save our farmers," says Wilkinson. In the meantime, Ireland, who has been asked to set up help lines in other agricultural counties, expects his phone to be ringing off the wall this winter with cries of help, and he's not looking forward to losing some more neighbours.