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The Rural Voice, 1978-02, Page 291 NEWSLETTER 1 Huron County Federation of Agriculture Area Off.ce. Vonast,a, Box 429 C+.n•,n, Ohl CONTINUED FROM PAGE 32 producers be immediately informed, and have 3 days to inspect the carcasses accompanied by their veterinarian. 3 As sales tax provisions are not uniformly applied, and as there are desputed areas in sales tax provisions, O.F.A. request a continual review of the interpretations of the act and a clarification of the intent in agricultural production. 4 Huron Federation - Where as some segments of the poultry industry are expanding their present enterprises• to include the production of pullets. Therefore be it resolved that the O.F.A. put some pressure on the Farm Products Marketing Board to implement a policy to cease.this expansion into the pullet (egg -type) production, by other segments of the poultry industry. MAURICE BEAN Director. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FIELDMAN, BILL CRAWFORD, ON HIS PROMOTION AS SUPERVISORY CONSULTANT FOR THE WESTERN REGION. Bill will remain here in Huron as our fieldman and assume the additional responsibilities as liason consultant for the 10 -county Western Region. Bill's new job will involve working as a liason person to improve communication, upgrade skills and improve service to I.S.M.'s and member organizations. There are four other fieldmen in the Western Region. An office to accomodate work deriving from Bill's new position will be handled through facilities at the C.I.A.C. Office in Goderich. Please continue to contact your fieldman at the Vanastra Office. EDUCATION, NOT LEGISLATION COULD CORRECT EROSION PROBLEMS Guelph: Soil erosion was the subject on the final day of the annual three-day Agricultural Conference at the University of Guelph, January 3, 4 and 5. In a crowded lecture hall eight speakers presented their ideas with a richness of slides to illustrate. their recommendations. "Why be concerned about soil erosion?" asked W.T. Dickinson, School of Engineering, O.A.C. "How much erosion is too much?" was the question posed by Neil E. Moore, Soils and Crops Branch of O.M.A'.F. Two of the speakers were well known Huron County residents. Norm Alexander, Londesboro, spoke on "Erosion as I see it from a Drainage Commissioner's Viewpoint" and Jim - McIntosh, a Federation of Agriculture Regional Director from Tuckersmith Township, spoke on "Soil Conservation: A Farmer's Viewpoint". Norm Alexander has become well known beyond the borders of Huron County for his work on soil erosion. Many people believe that the current spotlight on soil erosion is due, in part, to Norm's persistent knocking on the doors of government and farm organizations trying to alert them to the dangers of ignoring this problem. Norm presented many excellent ideas to the audience at the Agricultural Conference and they were well received. He wants some provision made to train back -hoe operators in drainage installation and repair, so they would be available as sub -contractors for hire by ditch and tile contractors, and also would be available for municipal councils, drainage commissioners and contractors to hire for repair work. He recommends instruction and training for tile installers and ditch contractors in rip -rap construction, and other >rosion control measures, which might include seeding graded runways. "Much of the information on cropping practices, grassed waterways, permissible water velocities and how to control the speed of water from private tile endings exiting into municipal ditches is available from the United States", Norm says, "but could be adapted to Ontario conditions." While preparing his talk for Guelph, Norm came across a book by a Dr. McConkey called "Conservation in Canada". Amongst the recommendations made by Dr. McConkey were: 1) Research to develop a co-ordinated national plan and organization to carry out a long term action program to conserve the natural resources of Canada. 2) More personnel trained in the techniques of conservation. This calls for more scholarships to support graduate studies in conservation in other countries, especially the United States. Norm concluded by saying: "About 25 years have passed since Dr. McConkey wrote this and what has been done about it? What would a scholarship cost? How long will it be before these suggestions are put into practice?" Whereas Norm Alexander was the first speaker of the day, J im McIntosh had the difficult task of following seven other lecturers. He rose to the occasion with true grit. He pointed out that farmers must juggle soil preservation with the attempt to obtain maximum productivity. "If certain soil preparation techniques such as zero tillage or chisel plowing reduces the surface loss of soil, but also reduces the corn yield by 16 percent, who is going to pay the price of the yield reduction?" Jim asked the audience. "And who is going to be responsible for determining what percentage of the population would go hungry because of the shortfall in total yield?" He said that we are living in a very materialistic society, "Get what you can -and get it now" type of morality, in that it does not matter so much how you get what you're after. However, a farmer cannot operate his land on this principle. The soil must be operated the same as a bank: continued withdrawals with no deposits would soon lead to bankruptcy. Economic stewardship of our land resource may well be the call of the 1980's, just as the requirement of the 60's and 70's was to grow two blades of grass where one grew before, or 100 pounds of corn where 50 pounds of oats grew befog e. Jim told the audience of farmers, students and professors that possibly one of the main reasons farmers in the past have never been too concerned about soil loss from erosion is due to the attitude of government and society in general, permitting the rapid loss of good agricultural soil under the developer's bulldozer. "I expect that the total tonnage of soil lost from farm land due to erosion in Ontario in the period 1971 to 1980 would only be a small fraction of what is being lost to urban and industrial development, the building of highways and the construction of energy (hydro) corridors," he said. Jim described how he used the annual harvest of rocks from his fields to form stone dams aligned parallel with the direction that the field is normally cultivated. These dams do not significantly interfere with the operation of equipment, but they slow up the flow of water and cause sedimentation behind each of the stone piles. "I prefer this system over the normally suggested grassed waterways" J im explained."in a corn field, I always associate a strip of grass, whether in the field or at one of the boundaries, as a source of twitch grass to be spread throughout the entire field." Agriculture should be permitted to develop methods of soil conservation which are both efficient from an economic end result and from improved soil loss results. J im McIntosh feels strongly that this could best be accomplished through education programs and not through legislation. He quoted one official from the Ministry of the Environment who admitted that they have problems enforcing all of their regulations now. He concluded by saying "Most farmers who own their land value is highly as a resource, even more so today with high land values, and do not want to see it slowly wash or blow away. If programs can be developed to reduce the loss of soil due to erosion, which can be economically adopted, then I am sure that farmers will be only too willing to adopt them." CONTINUO ON PAGE 30 THE RURAL VOICE/t.E0RUARY 1978, PG. 29.