The Lucknow Sentinel, 1987-03-18, Page 18Page 2
Donald McKenzie, formerly a farmer in Ashfield Township and living in Goderich, has
took advantage of two farm tours, one to Russia in 1986 and another to Brazil in 1985. ( Alan
Rivett photo)
Goderich man tours Russia
By Alan Rivett
Many farmers are taking advantage of
the various farm tours offered by coun-
tries around the world to see just how
agricultural practices are carried out in
these countries.
On such farmer who took advantage of
the farm tours to foreign nations was
Donald McKenzie, a former Ashfield
Township farmers now residing in
Goderich. In the last two years, he has
toured farms in both the Soviet Union and
Brazil and has garnered some perceptions
of the way these countries farm.
For 21 days in October and November of
last year, Mr. McKenzie embarked on a
farm tour to Russia with five other Cana-
dians. The tour began in Moscow with two
tour guides who doubled as interpreters
and continued to the Ukranian city of Kiev
and on down to the Black Sea coastal cities
of Odessa, Sochi and Tbilisi. Because of
the small numbers on the farm tour, Mr.
McKenzie said the actual tours of farms
was cut short, but were still given tours of
the two major types of farming operations
in the Soviet Union - the Collective Farms
and the State Farms.
The difference between the two farms is
that on the Collective Farms, 60 per cent of
all the crops grown go directly to the
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government. On the State Farms, it's
much the same principle, only the farmers
have a chance to sell what they produce.
The group were told that the State Farms
produce much more produce under the
same growing conditions as "they take
some pride in being able to sell some of the
produce," says Mr. McKenzie.
As for what crops grown in the country,
Mr. McKenzie said they "just grow
everything" from the cereal and corn
crops to many acres of apple orchards and
tea crops. One of the claims that the Soviet
guides made to the group was the farms
were able to grow two cobs of corn for
every stock. When the group asked to see a
corn crop, the guides responded that the
corn crops had already been harvested.
Overall, the average corn yield on a Soviet
farm was three tonnes per acre.
Two to every stalk
One of the operations the Soviets were
most proud of, says Mr. McKenzie, was
their apple orchards and cold storage
facilties which the small Canadian group
also had the opportunity to tour. As a kind
gesture, the guides gave out huge shopping
bags full of the crisp apples.
One particular area of Soviet agriculture
that Mr. McKenzie described as poor was
their livestock operations which were in-
ferior to the operations in Canada. During
his stay in the Soviet Union he viewed a
large, state-run pig farm.
"We took a look at a pig set-up there and
they were just the roughest lookirig bunch
of pigs I've ever seen," he said.
On another farm excursion. the group
toured a tea plantation near the city of
Leningrad. the tea plants were grown on
terraces and picked by hand by the
farmers. They also toured a peanut and
cashew growing operation in that area.
As for other perceptions of Soviet life,
'Mr. MacKenzie said the farmers do not en-
joy the kind of comparative wealth of
Canadian farmers, as he described the far-
ming villages as "pretty poor", but the
Soviet government is now trying to reverse
this trend by building new houses in these
villages.
The roads in the rural communities were
also not up to Canadian standards and
were ,not well maintained by the govern-
ment. He found the people of these farming
villages to be happy and pleasant, a far -
cry from the people of Moscow where
"everybody looked so serious":
In addition, the group also toured one of
the Soviet schools which Mr. McKenzie
described as "modern and up-to-date"
with closed-circuit television and
calculators at every desk. The gdides told
the group that by the year 2000, the Soviets
hope to be world leaders in the fields of
science and engineering, and they are
looking to the young people and the school
system to be leaders in achieving this goal.
Brazil tour
In February of 1985, he took a farm tour
to Brazil for a 21- day period which he
described as a "real goad" farm tour with
18 fellow Canadians also travelling to
farms throughout the country.
Mr. McKenzie 'said agricultural moder-
nization is coming quickly to this South
American country, with the group touring
up-to-date meat packing plants, a cattle
artificial insemination research centre, as
well as the vast sugar cane and cotton
plantations maintained by the Brazilian
farmers.
He was particularly impressed by the
huge swine operations of 30,000 pigs and
"not a poor one" on the farm.
"The swine operation was probably one
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