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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
When ideas become unfashionable
shift toward the position that supply
Though I'm hardly a fashion -
plate, I've generally got perfectly
good clothes sitting at the back of the
closet that I don't wear anymore •
because they're just too out of date.
Ideas seem to be like that, too.
The basis behind an idea may be
as sound as ever
but fashionable
thinkers have
moved on to
some other trends
and an idea is cast
aside like plaid,
bell-bottom pants.
I got thinking
about that
recently while
listening to
former federal
agriculture
minister Eugene
Whelan speak to
the annual
meeting of the Bruce Country Feder-
ation of Agriculture. I guess I'm
showing my age to recall a similar
meeting in Huron County when
Whelan was still minister. It was the
hottest ticket in town back then as
people crowded in to hear this
passionate, controversial and often
funny man.
Despite now being in his late 70s,
Whelan is still passionate, still funny
and still controversial. He stands for
the same beliefs he did at the height
of his power: farmers having the
power to control their destinies;
farmers working together; govern-
ment working to help farmers
withstand the bad times so they could
prosper in the good times.
Tod"• however, his appearance is
a footnote, not a headline. While he's
still strong-minded to the point of
being controversial, times have
moved on to the point that his
statements are inconsequential to
today's leaders — among farm
organizations, in the government
agricultural bureaucracy and among
the political leadership.
It's not that what he's saying isn't
as true today as it was 20 years ago,
it's just that it's out of fashion. A
champion of colective marketing
through supply management, he can
only sit back now and watch thinking
The idea can be
as valid as ever,
yet be ignored
management is out of step with a
global marketplace, keeping
producers thinking small, content to
supply the national market when they
could be supplying the world.
Whelan stands for a time when
government research labs were
primarily responsible for creating
new breeds that reshaped farming.
Now it's taken for granted that
government is bad, private industry
is good, and research should be done
by for-profit, private firms.
Whelan reminds people of their
less -fortunate brothers and sisters in
distant parts of the world who are
starving to death while we cut
foreign aid because we're worried
about government deficits and tax
cuts. Many today don't want to know
about those suffering elsewhere; they
just want to guiltlessly accumulate
more possessions.
Because his ideas are out of
fashion, even Whelan's passion
probably doesn't count for much in
the big picture. He attacked farm
leaders, for instance, for supporting
genetic engineering, but these
normally vociferous defenders of this
wave of agriculture's future probably
don't even rise to the bait anymore
when it comes from an "old guy".
Yet Whelan's message seemed to
connect with his audience as strongly
as ever. He held his audience through
a sometimes -rambling, hour-long
speech late into the evening, and
people rose to give him a standing
ovation at the end then lined up to get
his autograph. The truth of many of
his opinions seems as valid today as
when he was power, but he's not in
power and so isn't shaping policy.
It must be frustrating to remember
how people once listened to your
opinions but to not have your opin-
ions valued now. It must hurt to see •
the things you fought for in your life
being dismantled by others. "I just
wish I had the resources and I was
younger because I'd be doing more,"
he said near the end of his speech. If
so, perhaps he could change what's
fashionable in agriculture.0
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. He
lives near Blyth, ON.