The Rural Voice, 1989-03, Page 16REDUCE FRICTION
TO A FRACTION
paii/Sif
ALL -SEASON HIGH
PERFORMANCE LUBRICANT
YOU OWE IT TO YOUR EQUIPMENT
Available from your representative
Larry Nancekivell
Clifford 519-327-8927 (res.)
POWER UP LONDON
Lambeth, Ont. 519-652-2506
Milton J. Dietz Ltd.
522-0608 SEAFORTH
• PESTICIDES & FERTILIZER
• CROP CARE CONSULTING
• LEAF TISSUE & SOIL ANALYSIS
• CUSTOM APPLICATION
• HARDI SPRAYERS & PARTS
• PET FOODS
• HEALTH PRODUCTS
RALSTON PURINA FEEDS
BULK & BAGS
AGRICULTURAL
EMPLOYMENT
SERVICES*
• Formerly Canada Farm Labour Pool
NEW NAME - SANE RELIABLE SERVICE
Provide employment planning
assistance to the agricultural
industry
Recruit workers for agricultural
employment
Assist worker orientation and
transportation
Promote good employment
standards
Provide information about
government employment
programs
OWEN SOUND WALKERTON
371-9522 881-3671
14 THE RURAL VOICE
VETERAN FARMERS
KEEP FIGHTING
Government and bank bureaucrats
have blown away thousands of farm-
ers in this decade of despair, but the
most despicable attack has been on
veterans of the Second World War.
Some of these senior citizens of
farming put their lives on the line to
save future generations, only to have
those "me -generations" turn on them
50 years later.
In 1982 I did an in-depth news-
paper package on the mushrooming
cloud of debt looming for farmers in
Bruce County. It was then that I
stumbled on the embittered wife of a
Second World War veteran.
She said of her husband and
herself:
"We have been through the
Depression, and he spent six years
fighting for this land in the Second
World War ... we're broke ... I
guess we're fighting for our land
again."
In my reporting I've come across
several veterans. It seems that offer-
ing your blood for country in war is no
guarantee that you won't be bled dry
in peacetime.
I'm in the last throws of writing
a book on the farm depression of the
1980s. The book involves updates on
a number of people I've written about
over the past decade. One involved a
crusty old veteran, Lloyd Nichol.
In the fall of 1988, the veteran of
the WWII European campaign had
just wound up his own Seven Years'
War of attrition to save his Denfield
farm.
Lloyd first had to fight his bank,
which at one point in 1981 was
charging 20 per cent plus in floating
interest. Lloyd met the bank head on
and eventually cut a deal.
In the end, though, it was the
Canadian government's Farm Credit
Corporation that killed the old veteran
financially. To get them off his back,
Lloyd sold the farm and paid his debt
to the very government he had served
in war.
Besides gaining dignity for fight-
ing the good fight, Lloyd left with
$3,000 more in hand from his last
soybean crop than he would have if he
hadn't forward -contracted.
"A lot of people walk into the
sunset with nothing in their pocket and
just a lot of footsteps on their back,"
said the old grunt, who now lives in
London.
Lloyd's farm battle was over just
about the same time that Paisley
farmer Ken Farrow's began. Despite
being current in his payments, the
Bank of Montreal called on the
liquidation clause of the provincial
government's OI A UP loan guarantee.
Ken Farrow, as a young man,
fought the Germans house to house
up the Adriatic coast of Italy and was
seriously injured. He won't surrender
his farm to the whim of any new -
generation banker. The courts are
Ken's battleground now.
"I'll keep fightin' them until
there's nothing left. There won't be
anything for me anyway."
Old soldiers, it seems, don't just
fade away as an old general once said.
Instead, veterans like Lloyd Nichol
and Ken Farrow like a good fight as
much as they ever did.0
Gord Wainman has been an urban -
based agriculture reporter for 13 years.
THE WRITE STUFF?
Wanted: People with an
agricultural orientation who
can write features or cover
news stories, or simply send
in reports of local meetings
or community activities.
Write: The Rural Voice
l0A The Square, Box 37
Goderich, Ontario N7A 3Y5