The Rural Voice, 1981-07, Page 21(FARMATIC)
KEITH ROULSTON
Why do people still want to farm?
Why would anyone want to be a farmer
these days? The price of land has soared.
Equipment costs slightly less an ounce
than gold. The shieks of Arabia and
Alberta and the tax -collectors of Ottawa
and Toronto have made running that
equipment about as expensive as running
an ocean liner. When you lose money the
bank now charges you 20 per cent interest
to cover your losses. In this day and age
you have to be crazy to want to be a
farmer.
Seems to me though it's been that way
as long as I can remember. Back in the
fifties when 1 was growing up on the farm
and the whole face of farming was
changing and many farmers couldn't
survive those changes people were saying
you'd have to be crazy to be a farmer.
Back in the early part of the century the
trend away from the farm had begun.
You had to be crazy to live out there on
the farm, working 16 -hour, back -breaking
days with no conveniences like electricity
or telephones when you could work a
10 -hour shift in a city factory and go back
home to the relative comforts of city life.
"How you going to keep'em down on the
farm" was the song of the twenties as the
soldiers came home from seeing the
world and realizing there was more to life
than manure in the barn and oats in the
granary.
I suppose the same kind of trend goes
back a lot farther in history: to the
industrial revolution in Europe and
probably to ancient Rome and Greece
where people were happy to go into the
army or government service to escape the
hard work of the land.
Why then, why with all the disincentiv-
es do people still want to farm? Are
farmers really the stupid hayseeds
they've so often been portrayed as in
urban media? How else can you explain
someone investing hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars and long hours to earn
less on a farm than the supermarket
derk who sells his food in the stores?
Even farmers know it's stupid, recogniz-
ing it in the joke about the farmer who's
asked what he'd do if he won a million
in the lottery and answers he'd just go on
farming until it was all used up.
Farming doesn't make sense. It's one
of the last things in the world that can't
be computerized and rationalized. I know
why people insist on farming when spring
comes on my own little place in the
country. Farmers claim not to be
romantic but there is still a mystique
there in the warming soil, in the
new-born young. You take a relative
handful of seeds, plant them in the
ground and watch them grow into a
bushel -sized crop. You take that crop and
you feed it to tiny chicks, or calves or pigs
and you see them grow into huge
market -sized animals. You take so little,
just the seed and the soil and the sun and
the rain and your own know-how and you
create something so much bigger.
Nova Scotia train
There is a new, unique training
program for young people desiring farm
work in Nova Scotia.
The Maritime province has developed a
program which will train young farmers
both in the classroom and in field work.
The course. which runs for one year,
includes 10-11 months of on-the-job
training on Truro area farms. The first
class of trainees will graduate this year.
The only requirements for this program
are that the student (male or female) be
It's the same kind of drive, I suppose,
that makes men gamble, hoping to turn
their small stake of money into a fortune
in a Las Vegas casino. In another way, it's
the same kind of creative drive that
makes people give up security, often even
family, to be writers or artists or poets.
In a way perhaps the hardships of
farming are a balance. If farming was
easy, think of how many people would
want to do it.
s farm workers
at least 16, and has completed Grade 9.
One student, Aron Laking, is 32 years old
and a university graduate.
Both the students and the farmers who
employ them are satisfied with the
program. According to Jeff Cutten, an
employer, "It will provide farms with a
better class of hired people." His trainee
is Aron Laking, and he too is pleased,
Program wages are subsidized by the
provincial government which pays 75 per
cent of a nominal wage of $135 per week.
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If you are about to buy a hammer mill,
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LOWRY FARM SYSTEMS
R.R. 1 Kincardine, Ont.
395-5286
THE RURAL VOICE/JULY 1981 PG. 19