The Rural Voice, 1988-02, Page 28WHERE HAVE ALL THE
FARM CHILDREN GONE?
A
1
barefoot girl scattering
crumbs from her apron to
the chickens in the yard. A
child squatting on a three-legged stool,
tugging at the udder of a contented
Jersey. A bare -chested youth, sweaty
and lean, working a haywagon on a
hot July afternoon.
These images, though still the
favourite subjects in photography
competitions, are in reality only a
nostalgia reflection of the way things
were. The banty rooster roaming free,
the hand -milked cow, and even the
square bale are fast losing their place
in the rural scene. And as agriculture
increasingly gives way to agribusi-
ness, it seems that farm children them-
selves are becoming a vanishing breed.
The demographics are familiar.
A once rural Canadian population is
becoming more and more urban. The
by Sarah Borowski
average age of the farmer today is 50,
more likely to be Grandpa than Dad.
There is a reduction in the number of
farm operators actually living on the
farm. Family size itself is decreasing.
The figures are dramatic. The
number of farm children in Ontario
dropped a startling 34 per cent from
160,100 (babies to 19 -year-olds) in
1971 to 105,520 in 1981. The 1986
figures are expected to reflect contin-
uing decline.
There is an attitude regarding
farming that is unique to fewer and
fewer professions in our changing
society. It is still generally accepted
that tomorrow's farmers will be and
should be those born and raised to
farming — a real dairyman, it is said,
starts to mill: cows when standing up.
Indications are, however, that in a
generation or two there will be no
by Nicole Hehn,
age 11,
Mary Immaculate
Community School,
Chepstow, Ontario
such natural apprenticeship.
Farm lobby groups cry out to save
the traditional generational transfer of
family farms and govemment policy
tries to support the practice. But the
determining factor will be the farm
children themselves. Where are they?
In their 1983 study, The Farmer
Takes a Wife, the Concerned Farm
Women revealed that more than three-
quarters of the farm women surveyed
were either taking their young (under
12) children with them to the barns
and fields or leaving them unattended.
The push for rural child-care was on.
Child safety was the major concern.
Over the previous 10 years, 87 chil-
dren in Ontario, under the age of 15,
had been killed in farm -related acci-
dents. Of these children, 39 were un-
der five years of age. Simple aware-
ness helps, but farms are dangerous
26 THE RURAL VOICE