The Rural Voice, 1985-12, Page 57KEITH ROULSTON
No leg
to stand on
I guess I was about seven or eight
when I realized I wasn't going to
grow up to be a carpenter.
My friend and I had decided we
were going to make little folding
stools for ourselves. It looked pretty
easy: just cut four pieces of wood for
the legs, tack on a piece of canvas for
the seat, and put in some braces.
Everything went well until I finished
and tried to set the stool up. Three
legs met the floor and the fourth
didn't.
Even then I had, I must confess, a
temper, but I held it in control while I
went to work with the saw to shorten
the other three legs. Task completed,
I set the stool up again and ... well,
you know, don't you? So, slightly less
calm this time, I went to work with
the saw again.
Every time I thought I had done the
job I'd find there was yet another leg
that was too short. Despite all my
work, the legs kept getting shorter —
and so did my temper. The process
went on until I finally lost my temper
completely and threw the stubby stool
against the wall. The project ended.
So did my carpentry career.
It seems to me that government
farm policy has been a little bit like
my carpentry project, like a stool
with three legs that touch the floor
and one that hangs in mid-air. We
know that there's something wrong in
agriculture. The government tries to
fix it by adjusting the other legs, only
to find that the attempt has just mov-
ed the problem from one side of the
stool to another. All that happens is
the stool gets shorter.
We've been patching up problems
in farming so long we forget
sometimes what the aim of the whole
process is. To mix similes for a mo-
ment, it's like patching an old inner
tube so many times that there's
nothing left showing of the original
tube and we're patching the patches.
Maybe it's time somebody stepped
back and took a look at the entire
policy of the governments in regard
to farming. We set out, for instance,
to install people to help farmers:
economists, researchers, management
experts and other representatives of
the Ontario and federal government.
Yet in recent years it has been the ad-
vice of many of these "experts" that
has done more harm than good for
many farmers.
We started out with a policy to pro-
duce food and now it seems that we
see farming just as a way of produc-
ing urban jobs: jobs making farm
equipment, jobs formulating new
chemicals, jobs processing food.
And the positions in colleges and
governments to do research and give
advice naturally only increase the
rapid depopulation of farming com-
munities. Crop researchers, for in-
stance, keep working at high salaries
producing ever more "efficient"
crops, even though we can already
produce more of nearly every crop
than the world can use. Recently peo-
ple at Guelph were bragging about a
program's ability to make beef cows
have twins — as if there isn't already
a surplus of beef cattle.
We are taking jobs away from
farmers and making white collar jobs
in the towns and cities in the name of
"efficiency." A former farmer men-
tioned the other day that he can
remember being lectured by a
specialist from OMAF a decade or so
ago about farmers needing to be more
efficient. Today there are about half
as many farmers left and OMAF
specialists have multiplied several
times over.
Maybe it's time to look at the
paraphernalia that has been built up
around the farm. Maybe instead of
terming the farmer redundant, we
should get rid of the frills.f!
Keith Roulston is the originator and
former publisher of The Rural Voice.
From the
Management and
Staff of Beckers
Farm Equipment
One of the
nicest things
about Christmas
is letting our
customers know
that we care
MEM
V.L. BECKER
Et SONS LTD.
Dashwood. Ont.
519-237-3242
I)F(-FMRER 1985 55