The Rural Voice, 1983-05, Page 4RURAL WOMEN:
MANY BANNERS
I sympathize with the anger Ruth
Harding feels of "new" groups forming
and doing similar work that the Women's
Institute was founded to do. In her article,
"The relevancy of the Women's Institute
in the April edition, Harding describes
much of the good work the Women's
Institute is performing in our community,
as well as the historical role the W.I. has
played in the education of rural women.
Adelaide Hoodless (founder of the W.I.
in 1897) could well be one of my heroine
role models. However, I've found that the
Helene Cameron's, Dorothy Middleton's
and Eloise Calhoun's of the "new"
groups to be a more dynamic example of
her spirit for me than the W.I. has been.
I don't knock W.I. or any other group
that is demonstrating it is meeting
women's needs. I do not feel they are
representing the entire rural women's
community however, and I don't claim
that Women Today. W.S.A. or any other
women's group does either.
Rural women are not a minority or a
homogenous group and it is quite
sensible that a variety of groups exist to
meet their needs. It disturbs me to read
in these debates such a value placed on
appealing to "young" women. I feel aging
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women have as many needs and as much
to contribute to our community as young
women.
If the W.I. has the privilege of
attracting older women then they should
be creative in finding ways of utilizing the
resource of this membership rather than
competing for new members.
Rural women do not need to meet
under the same banner if indeed we have
a healthy and friendly respect for one
another and for the work we are doing.
We certainly would be foolish to waste
our creative energy competing for the
crowds, government funding, or in
sitting in judgement of one another. Each
of us knows what work we have to do.
Let's get on with it.
Valerie Bolton
WOMEN TODAY
MODERN CORNFIELD
A CHEMICAL DUMP
To Dianne Harkin, and the list of
"do-badders' listed in the article "Look-
ing at Agriculture Chemically speaking"
(April '83), B--- S---! Or Worse,
Herbicide! At least you can compose
B--- S---! and return it to the
land to improve soil structure and
fertility.
An organic approach to soil manage-
ment produces healthy soil, thus healthy
plants, then healthy animals and last in
the chain, healthy humans. This can't be
accomplished by systematically poison-
ing the soil and mining it to produce the
maximum cash return needed to finance
the huge debt loads of "modern" agri-
culture.
Dianne Harkin says we now enjoy "the
lowest priced, highest quality and great-
est variety of food". In fact historically
people have eaten up to 1500 different
plants yet today 80 per cent of our food
comes from fewer than a dozen plants.
Corn wheat and rice account for 75 per
cent of human grain consumption.
Potatoes marketed a hundred different
ways is not diversity. No one will
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convince me that square card board
tasting tomato imports are "high qual-
ity". As for price, it is not just the interest
rates that are bankrupting farmers but the
high cost of continual and increasing
chemical use.
We need a new approach. Bio -dynamic
farmers are not regressing to the 1920's.
They are forging a new direction for
farmers. A direction that conscientious
people with a respect for the life in soil
can implement for viable farm opera-
tions.
There are farms, 200-500 acres that
utilize "natural" or bio -dynamic" meth-
ods. There are one acre or less intensive
organic gardens. Both systems have
yields that compare or better their
"modern" neighbours but with one half
the input costs. To say that we would
need thousands of acres and that people
would starve is again Herbicide!
As one of the "cockeyed, sensationa-
list do-gooders" that Harkin refers to, I
say it's the agricultural chemical pushers
that need to be educated to the fact that
good soil is alive and dynamic.
To walk in a natural organic field or
garden is a joy and a pleasure that can
even reach a spiritual level. To walk in a
modern cornfield is to find a hostile and
depressing chemical dump. We are not
the masters of the land to disrespect,
rape and poison it. We are the stewards
of the earth and must tend it with love
and respect and it will support us and our
descendants richly.
Dean Walker
R.R. 1, Belgrave
KEEP RHEA
ON THE ROAD
Hope Rhea Hamilton does more travel-
ing (Bringing Home the Bacon, March
'83). Her trip through Schneiders was
extra good when one cannot see it for
themselves. I passed it around for several
to read. I am 82 years old, so the process
was sure different to when we would
butcher one pig at a time, but we
managed. I also enjoy Gisele Ireland.
Mrs. L. Shortreed,
Wingham
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