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The Rural Voice, 1986-10, Page 8• • • CONTRACTOR • • • • • • •• J A B� L v Alc. TS• l`�STRUCTI 04, • • c Ltd. • • • RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL • • • FARM • • INCLUDING • • ADDITIONS AND RENOVATIONS • •P" • 482.7290 * ; ••••••••••••••• BRANDY POINT FARMS • Our breeding stock pro- vides our buyers with proven genetics from the top 3% animals tested across Canada • Our program enables us to offer quality and health at a price that is hard to beat • We have an ongoing supply of A.I. sired Hamp/Duroc, York and Land - race boars & F1 York/Land- race gilts • All boars priced from $275 to $375 • F1 York Landrace gilts are priced $50 above market value hogs • Our closed herd is ranked "Good" by the OMAF stan- dards. Come and take a look at our stock anytime! Delivery Available KURT KELLER R.R. #1 Mitchell, Ontario 519.348-8043 6 THE RURAL VOICE FARMERS: PLIANT AND ACCEPTING A little over a year ago I wor- ried about the potential for violence on the farm. Today, if anything, I'm concerned with the quiet acceptance of the farm situation by ordinary farmers and farm leaders. Last summer I was present at the meeting of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture at which Bruce farm leaders unilaterally declared a moratorium on farm foreclosures. I came away from the meeting scared. There seemed to be something in the air: not so much shouts of defiance but a kind of quiet, determined anger that peo- ple were not going to be pushed around anymore. That potential for violence might have been reached if any bank had been foolish enough to push the federation's moratorium and might have spread from Bruce to other parts of the coun- try. Luckily the banks backed off, at least for a few weeks, and the anger dissipated. A year later, there seems little life in most of the farmers or the farm leaders, at least in my part of the country. It isn't that condi- tions have improved that much. With the exception of skyrocketing pork prices, nearly every commodity is in worse shape now than last year. And yet there aren't any marches, there aren't any confrontations, there aren't even any angry meetings in jammed halls. When Eugene Whelan, former federal minister of agriculture, was speaking to the Huron Coun- ty Federation of Agriculture, he put part of the blame for the cur- rent crisis right on the shoulders of the farmers themselves. Part of this comes, of course, from Whelan's conviction that marketing boards are the only real answer to long-term farm problems. But then part of it comes from the fact that farmers are so pliant and accepting these days that governments are able to get away with "solutions" such as giving money to re-train farmers who leave the land. There wasn't much of a turn- out for Whelan's speech, despite the fact that a few years ago tickets to hear the man at the federation's annual meeting were about as hard to get as those for a Tina Turner concert. This may say something about the drawing power of politicians out of office. It may also say something about the message Whelan has tried to sell for years: that farmers need to grab hold of their own destiny through marketing boards. Despite low prices, there aren't many takers for arguments that marketing boards should be brought in for unregulated com- modities. In fact, at the moment there is more talk of marketing boards south of the border in the free enterprise U.S. than there is in Canada. There is no champion of controlled production in government and there are even hints that what marketing boards we have now may be in trouble if free trade negotiations go ahead. One way or another, of course, controls on production are going to get here. It's just a matter of time. We can wait until farm ranks have been thinned out so much that a few individuals con- trol the marketing of farm pro- duce and we have the same kinds of controls we now have in the auto industry. Or farmers can grab control — while there are still rural farms and a rural social structure left — and find alter- natives which will tailor produc- tion to demand more closely. Unfortunately, our farmers seem so tired of the battle to stay alive that they're willing to get picked off one at a time instead of fighting together to save themselves. Keith Roulston is the originator and former publisher of The Rural Voice.