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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
So what's efficient anyway?
I try to be as efficient as possible
but sometimes I wonder if I'm
spending so much time figuring out
how to make the best use of my time
that I end up being inefficient.
What is efficiency anyway? Even
when we are efficient, we're efficient
only in those
things we choose
to measure. If we
don't measure it,
or can't measure
it, then it's not
not worth
considering in
most equations. If
you're measuring
bushels per acre
yield on your
farm, or dollars
per acre return,
for instance, how
do you measure
the value of
planting trees along a stream or open
drain to form a buffer strip against
runoff from nutrients entering the
water? That buffer strip might save
the cost of cleaning out an open ditch
as often but we don't have computer
programs to measure that benefit.
The environment regularly loses
out in our efficiency -based models. A
company that pollutes often has a
better bottom line than one that
doesn't. And ironically, activists
point out, while preventing pollution
isn't measured, money spent on
cleaning up a spill actually increases
the gross national product.
There are things we take for
granted as being efficient because of
the way we calculate efficiency. It's
accepted that our big modern farms
are efficient but the Oakland,
California-based Institute for Food
and Development Policy argues that
small farms, ones we would term as
backward, produce more food per
acre than our large scale farms. In
fact, institute's director Peter Rosset
says, "For every country for which
data is available, smaller farms are
anywhere from 200 to 1,000 per cent
more productive per unit area."
In our monoculture method of
farming, Rosset says, we grow crops
in rows with bare dirt between the
rows. Anything that grows in that
bare space is a weed and musit be
eradicated with extra labour or
expense.
Small backward farmers,
however, mix their crops and I;row
things in that extra space, turning it
into productive space. We grow one
variety on an entire plot of land.
Small farms may grow five to 12
different crops. We measure th.e yield
of that one crop and pat ourselves on
the back but nobody measures t he
total productivity of our farming;
system.
Then of course you can measure
the yield of our farms and say w e're
the most efficient in history or you
can measure the net energy gain from
our farming and realize we're not so
far ahead of our grandfathers. In fact
some people say that when you
consider the energy used to make. our
tractors and combines, the oil used to
fuel them for planting and harvest,
the energy used to create the
fertilizers and herbicides, there's
actually a net loss of energy from
growing corn. '
The late rural commentator and
former Family Herald editor H.
Gordon Green used to debunk the
boasts about the efficiency of mode rn
farms by pointing out that when he
was growing up near Arthur, the on ly
energy imported onto the farm was a
little coal oil for the lamps. His farni
didn't export as much as today, he
said, but it was all a net energy gain
from putting sun, rain and earth to
work for the benefit of mankind.
All this doesn't change the
realities of farming in Ontario in
2001 but it should remind us that
there isn't one right answer to the
question of food production. Too
often our farm publications, the
professors in our ag school, our
government advisors and private
industry consultants — all the
experts, in other words — never
question there's only one right and
true farming model. In doing so, in
not going back to look at basic
principles now and then, we may be
missing out on some interesting
possibilities.0
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. He
lives near Blyth, ON.