The Rural Voice, 2001-11, Page 30Jack Wilkinson
OFA President
concept is modeled after an approach
used in Sweden which convinced
consumers to pay slightly more to
support Swedish farmers. The
concept not only gets consumers
listening to farmers, but has farmers
more aware of consumers' concerns,
Wilkinson said.
Through this system, Swedish
farmers got financial benefits for
reducing the use of pesticides to meet
consumers' concerns. Since the early
1990s Ontario farmers have cut
pesticide use by 50 per cent but few
people knomi it, and farmers were not
rewarded with higher prices, he said.
In order to convince the consumers
of the value of supporting Canadian
agriculture OFA is going to trumpet
success stories, he said. Agriculture
has been denigrated as an "old"
economy in the computer age but at a
time when "new" economy high-tech
companies are laying off 50 per cent
of their workforce, Ontario's
greenhouse industry is exploding,
exporting fresh vegetables to the U.S.
"If we can beat California growing
tomatoes, what's more to be said,"
Wilkinson said.
Meanwhile in Quebec, where there
is more support for pork processing
than in Ontario, the workforce has
expanded 50 per cent.
If the Ontario government wants to
stimulate the economy then get the
Nutrient Management Act in place
28 THE RURALVOICE
News
quickly and many farmers who are
holding back on new barns will start
to build because they'll know the
rules, Wilkinson predicted.
While farmers here look at the U.S.
and worry about higher subsidies
there for farmers, in comparison to
the rest of the world Canadian
farmers still have clout, Wilkinson
said. He pointed to Britain where
Prime Minister Tony Blair
announced the abolition of the
ministry of agriculture saying that
there was more money in agri-
tourism than in agricultural
production. The National Farmers
Union in Britain, once one of the
most powerful farm groups in the
world, now is ineffective, Wilkinson
said.
But in the pork price disaster of
1998, the only farmers in the world
that got additional government help
were. in Canada. "The farm
community knew how to lobby,"
Wilkinson said.
He promised to keep on fighting
for farmers. "We're where we are
today because we're involved," he
said.0
AALP class sees a
different kind of
farming in Costa Rica
One of the purposes of the annual
international tour for the graduating
class of the Advanced Agricultural
Leadership Program is to challenge
class participants with different
views of farming and the class 8
participants who visited Costa Rica
certainly had that opportunity.
From growing bananas to raising
butterflies and iguanas, Phil
Anwender and his classmates saw
farming from a totally different
perspective during their visit to the
Central American country where
farming is carried out by huge
corporations on one hand, and. tiny
farms on the other. Anwender, who
runs a farrow -to -finish hog operation
on 400 acres in Perth East, described
his observations to the annual
meeting of the Perth County
Federation of Agriculture in
Milverton, October 10.
Costa Rica is divided into three
climatic zones from east to west. The
east side of the narrow peninsula
between the Pacific and the
Caribbean is tropical and bananas are
grown in this region. The central
plateau contains the cities while the
west coast has most of the tourist
resorts and beaches.
Ecological tourism is a big industry
with visitors wanting to see the 850
species of birds and visit the rain
forests and the cloud forests where
the tree canopy is 150-200 feet above
the ground. For tourists it can be
difficult to really see much of the
wildlife in the trees, Anwender said.
One of the small farms the class
visited was a butterfly farm where
native tropical butterflies are kept for
breeding. Cocoons are then gathered
and shipped to butterfly
conservatories like those in Niagara
Falls and Cambridge where the
butterflies hatch out.
Ecological tourists also pay to visit
the farm and see the butterflies.
Another farming oddity Anwender
and his class visited was an iguana
farm. Originally the farm was set up
to produce iguana meat but now it
supports itself from tours and
donations and releases iguanas into
the wild. The native iguana
population has been depleted over the
years as the rainforest is destroyed.
But locals resent questions about
the destruction of the rainforest,
Anwender said. If a North American
asks about it he's likely to be
reminded that eastern North America
was covered with trees until our
ancestors cut them down 200 years
ago. Today 11 per cent of Costa
Rica's land is protected in national
parks.
Though butterflies and iguanas are
colourful niche farms, the main crops
are bananas, sugar cane and coffee.
Coffee farmers seem to have
followed similar trends as North
American farmers, Anwender said.
When prices were high, they
expanded production, then surpluses
drove down prices.
Yields of coffee beans at higher
elevations are not as large as in the
lowlands but the flavour is better.
One coffee plantation had keyed
into the eco -tourism business