The Rural Voice, 1983-03, Page 45fir
RALHEN
HAMPSHIRES
and
SPOTS
Registered R.O.P.
breeding stock
RALPH HENDERSON
R.R. 1, Atwood, Ont.
(519) 356-2656
If you're looking for a
manure handling system,
look to the people who specialize
P
tz
Soil Injector
Slurry Manure Pump
Air Manure Movers
Contact.
KEITH SIEMON
FARM SYSTEMS LTD.
R.R. 4, Walton
345-2734
PG. 46 THE RURAL VOICE,
KEITH ROULSTON
Just who is efficient?
If I were a farmer, one of the things
that would bug me the most would be
having people constantly tell me how
inefficient I am.
I know a bit of the feeling already. I
think I'm a reasonably efficient person,
at least when I'm at a "real" job. There
is nothing remotely efficient about
writing of course. You sit there and
stare out a window for ten minutes then
type one line and go back to staring out
the window again, waiting for inspira-
tion to put the right combination of
words together so you can write the
next.
But when I'm at the office I think I
run a pretty tight ship. The problem is
my desk. I don't run a neat deak. In
fact, I run a chaotic desk. I'm always
laying something on a corner of the
desk because I can't see the use of
filing it because I'm going to need it in
a day or so. Of course those piles
multiply and people are sure I can't find
anything. And sometimes I can't. But
most of the time I can lay my hands on
something as fast this way as if I had
filed it and had to go back to the file
cabinet.
But I have this image problem, that,
because I don't have a neat desk,
people don't think I can be efficient.
That's one of the reasons, like farmers,
I have a certain distrust of bank
managers. Anybody who can keep his
desk as neat as a bank manager will
always make me suspicious.
Perhaps I would be more efficient if I
had a desk like that, but in the long
run, I think it all about evens out. The
time I lose by not being able to find
something on my desk now and then, is
usually made up for, by the time I
would have spent filing. And I've saved,
on top of that, the wearisome decision-
making of just which file some of those
things should go in when they seem to
fall half -way between two categories.
That leaves me fresher for real decision.
half -way between two categories. That
leaves me fresher for real decisions.
Sometimes, I think we spend too
much time worrying about efficiency
and not enough just getting down to
MARCH / 1983
work. And I think there particularly has
been too much time talking about how
much more efficient farmers should be.
Sure, I know there have been a lot of
inefficient farmers over the years and
there still may be some. But what gets
me is, no matter how many "inefficient"
farmers have dropped by the wayside
and no matter how efficient the remain-
der become, there are always farmers
going out of business and always
people saying that farmers just have to
get more efficient. And this from an
industry that has shown greater effi-
ciency gains in the past few decades
than any other, an industry that is often
being strangled by its own over -
efficiency.
Quite frankly, I think a lot of the
stress on efficiency of the farmer is a
way for society to wipe its hands of the
problems of a cheap food policy. Lately
we've had Peter Pocklington going
across the country spreading the gospel
of free enterprise. He's one of those
confident men who can look out at all
the people who aren't millionaires and
say it's all because they're slackers or
just plain dumb. After all, if he can
make a million, then everybody can.
Men like that manage to overlook the
fact they may just have been doing the
right thing at the right time. Was
Nelson Skalbania, for instance, any
worse a businessman when he lost his
millions than when he made them or
did somebody just change the rules of
the game and catch him in the middle?
I think our society, rich and fat as it
has become, is like Peter Pocklington.
It is able to overlook the rules stacked
in favour of urban dwellers, and look
out at farmers and blame them for their
own misfortune. Nobody talks about
the efficiency of the lawyer who makes
$50,000 a year or the government
employee who makes $30,000, but they
can turn and tell the farmer to quit
complaining and be more efficient.,;
SHOP CANADiAN