Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-05-24, Page 5International Scene mo Can THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 24,1995. PAGE 5. Mixed farming, a quaint idea in this century How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm After they've seen Par-ee? Old song title When I was a kid growing up in — I confess, Toronto — one of my favourite getaways was The Farm. It was a couple of hours drive west of Hogtown, out in the southwestern Ontario bush north of Fergus. A hundred acres of pasture, wheat fields and woodlot, and it was home to my Uncle Roy and my Aunt Belle. No TV. No stereo. Oil lamps for illumination. It was what is referred to nowadays as a "mixed farm". Which is to say my Aunt Belle and Uncle Roy raised a little bit of everything — chickens, cattle, wheat, barley, apples, potatoes, onions, turnips, beets, hay, straw...and incidentally, 10 kids. Not to mention the by-products of same — extra-large eggs with yolks the colour of a Bahamas sunset; creamy, warm milk right out of the bucket; beefsteak thick as a land developer's billfold and homemade bread steaming fresh from the oven. It was a wonderful way of life — and as doomed as the Ojibway and Huron ways of Saving a virtue When I was young, it was drummed into me that saving was a virtue second to none. When one of my relatives gave me money (an infrequent act), it was assumed without any word being spoken, that it would go directly into my savings account. If it was spent at all, it would not be until well into the distant future and presumably then on something important. Had I expressed the wish, however slight, to go to the nearest store and spend it on something frivolous such as candy, I would have been considered as just another bad example of the younger generation. If you were born during the Great Depression and grew up during World War II as I did, I think you can understand how such thinking came to be prevalent. Maybe that is one reason why I went into the field of Economics: I wanted to fmd out what the real truth was about saving. At any rate it was not long before some professor spoke lovingly of something called the Paradox of Thrift. This was taken to mean, as I recall it, as the fact that savings was fine up to a point but, if a country saved too much, it would contribute to a drop in economic activity. People would be hoarding their money in savings accounts and other similar vehicles instead of stimulating the economy with spending. When you realize that this was the time when the teachings of John Maynard Keynes were at their height it is easy to understand how such thinking made the rounds. However, there is more than meets the eye in the above statement. In a recent study released by the International Monetary Fund, the same organization that might be called life it replaced generations earlier. The idea of a mixed farm is impossibly quaint here on the doorstep of the 21st century. Today, farmers are...well, not farmers, for starters. They call themselves beef producers or soybean specialists or poultry raisers. My uncle Roy kept a herd of six Holstein milkers he called by name. Modern dairymen lose that many cows in a bad month. Specialization is the name of the game today. My aunt used to send the kids on egg hunts around the barnyard. We'd try and figure out where Flossie or Pansy had decided to lay their eggs this week. In a modem egg operation, the hens have no place to hide anything, including themselves. They live hi wire cages piled in tiers. Their vitaminized, anti-biotic-ed, hormone-goosed food pellets come by on one conveyor belt and their eggs leave on another. Increasingly, it seems that modern farms aren't farms at all. They're protein/ carbohydrate factories run by chart- watching, computer-punching biological engineers. There's just one small problem with the Brave New Agricultural World we've created. The managers of these hi-tech operations aren't much better off than the farmers of my uncle's era. They're still working twice as hard as most folks, still getting bushwhacked by bad weather, worse markets and predatory bank managers. And they've been demoted from farmer, upon to bail out Canada if our federal deficit gets out of control, the fear was expressed that, far from saving too much money under the Paradox of Thrift concept, we are actually not saving enough. The IMF goes on to say that this failure to save may be the prime reason for the abnormally high interest rates which we are being forced to pay for money borrowed. Let's take a look at where the money goes that you save and, by saving, I mean in the generic sense of the word, not just what you put in a savings account. Savings is the source of investment capital which is needed for the economy, be it of Canada or the entire industrialized world, so that it can expand. By saving today instead of spending too much money, the savings which are used by investment can result in higher income and consumption tomorrow. The IMF also reports that some economists believe that the aging population in the western world are going to start running down its savings just when the investment requirements of emerging nations start to increase, A look at the world's saving rate shows that it reached its peak in the early 1970s and has fluctuated downward since that time. While private saving in most countries has remained stable, the biggest culprit has been governments which have run sizeable deficits since the 1970s. The IMF calculates that each one per cent increase in the ratio of government debit to Gross Domestic Product (the sum total of all spending in our economy) adds 14/1 00 per cent to long-term interest rates. The IMF goes on to suggest that the same deficit- prone governments (such as Canada) are the cause of 4/5ths of all the increases in real interest rates since the 1970s. The IMF even goes so far as to suggest husbander and custodian of a plot of land...to foreman of a branch plant in an uncertain economy. It makes for a pretty depressing prospect — or it would if I hadn't happened to see the results of a survey recently published by the Trends Research Institute of Rhinebeck, New York. Here's a quote from the survey: "A confluence of natural, social and economic forces is sowing the seeds of a back-to-the-land trend that will bloom into an agricultural revival in North America." Ironically, the current economic slump we're going through figures to help in the back to the land revival. All those workers being tossed out of jobs? The Trends Research Institute says that's going to lead to a rapid exodus from the Middle Class. "Legions of people" it predicts, "will be forced to change their lifestyles to survive." Well, if I had to choose between a lifetime of flipping burgers for McDonalds or watching the seasons change on a farm, I know what I'd go for. The forecasters at the Institute say that the trend back to the farms is now only in its infancy, but will flourish throughout the next century "as Industrial Age factory farms are supplanted by kitchen gardens and microfarms." Microfarms. Sort of like...the one I remember visiting north of Fergus 413 years ago. My Uncle Roy and Aunt Belle. Just slightly ahead of their time. that there is a virtuous circle whereby growth and savings are connected: faster . growth contributes to higher savings and higher savings spurs on faster growth_ What does this mean for spendthrift countries such as Canada and the United States where savings rates are below the world average? If government debt is responsible for 4/5ths of the increase in real interest rates, the best thing to be done is to eliminate this debt at the earliest possible moment. That, more than any specific fiscal or monetary policy, will contribute to greater growth. People should also not be encouraged to depend on governments for their benefits. Setting up RSP plans could, for Canadians, be one of the wisest moves available. The Americans would also be advised to give serious consideration to yet another Canadian measure worth imitating. The Paradox of Thrift may still be worth teaching in Economics classes and I certainly have not neglected it. However, it would be wise to emphasize just how much of a virtue saving really is. Premier's wife to speak at family forum The Huron County Museum, Goderich, will be the site of a special guest speaker, Arlene Perly Rae, wife of Premier Bob Rae, on May 24. Rae will speak at a Family and Women's Issues Forum, discussing issues to which she and her husband are committed. The public is welcome to attend the 3 p.m gathering. for more information, call 1-800- 881-8673 or 524-5444. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Hand him the vacuum Baby sneezes, Mommy pleases, Daddy breezes in. So good on 'paper, so romantic, but so bewildering. "Coming Around Again" — by Carly Simon Well said Ms Simon. I know I have always found the relationship between husband and wife to be, to say the least, a bit confusing. Yet, this seems especially true in the 90s, when the role of each spouse has become a little less clearly defined. This past week, I overheard some of my friends getting some laughs while discussing a newspaper article concerning how. to please and keep pleasing your husband in the 50s. The June Cleaverish pearls of wisdom about such things as keeping up with the vacuuming, brought some hearty chuckles from these 9 - 5 gals. We have indeed come a long way, at least with regards to our role in the family and the household, but sometimes I can't help thinking that the path to here could use some clearing. There's a lot of ground cover and too many people still haven't found what they're looking for. But do they really know what that is? Forty years ago the roles of husband and wife were clear, though not necessarily fair. Dad was the warrior, the breadwinner, good for, as comedian Tim Allen says, lawn care and car maintenance. Mom on the other hand, ruled the roost, while letting Dad think he did. The outcome was, in a house where the domestic engineer had all the cogs running smoothly, Dad usually didn't think she did much, because when he got home everything was the way he wanted it. With such specialization, both sides knew what they were looking for in the marriage market. The men wanted someone to raise their family, be supportive and make their house a home. Women wanted a protector, a good provider, who didn't interfere with the household duties or the kids unless asked. Maybe not an equal partnership, but if we look at the couples married then, who not only have a long and lasting marriage, but seem content with their life partner, it does raise points to ponder. Has the liberation of women made it more difficult to be content? And better yet, has there really been emancipation for housewives? Women of the 90s are often juggling career and family, still doing most of the housework, but now trying to survive in the competition of the work world, as well. Though most guys are doing their best, the studies and reports are showing that it is still Mom who is the organizer, chief cook and bottle washer as well as principle child caregiver. And rumour has it that it is making today's gals a little resentful, and maybe a bit hard to please. Just ask a single woman today what she is looking for and you will hear definitive descriptions riddled with contradictions. They want a man who is strong, yet sensitive. He has to support her but not cling, be solid without being boring and take her seriously, but not too seriously. Women are looking for men who are confident, but self-effacing, aggressive, but gentle. The ideal guy is a man's man, brawny and beautiful, but not afraid to wipe a dish or a baby's butt. I could almost feel sorry for these fellows, except men don't seem too sure of what they want either. Ideally, the girl who married dear old Dad would be a pearl, but given all the stuff I just talked about, 'Good luck!'. Loving someone is not about them being what you want, but accepting who they are. The person we choose may not be everything we'd hoped but should be most of what we need and missing what we can live without. When he complains about the house not being clean don't get upset. Smile, then hand him the vacuum. He may surprise you. Arthur Black