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The Rural Voice, 2002-02, Page 12GREAT LAKES FOREST • PRODUCTS Buy " Sell ' Transport of Standing Timber, Logs & Lumber * FREE ESTIMATES * ALL WOODLOTS PAID IN FULL BEFORE LOGGING BEGINS (519) 482-9762 Jake or Bob Hovius 142 Maple St., Clinton, Ont. NOM 1L0 "Our Money... Grows on Trees" FARM 8. MUNICIPAL DRAINAGE Specializing in: • Farm & Municipal Drainage • Clay & Plastic Tile Installations • Backhoe & Dozer Service • Septic System Installations For Quality; Experience, & Service cal/.' Wayne Cook (519) 236-7390 R.R2 Zurich, Ont. NOM 2T0 PARKER PARKER L 1 M ITE D www.hay.neU-drainage 8 THE RURAL VOICE Jeffrey Carter Why beat a dead horse I suspect that Adam Hayes and Anne Verhallen, soil and crop specialists with OMAFRA, do not consider themselves especially inspirational. Yet their talk at the Kent soil and crop annual meeting in December captured my full attention. Hayes and Verhallen talked about the disappearance of soil organic matter in Ontario. The message that I heard was that while substantive steps have been taken toward halting this trend, much remains to be done. It was a concern a half century ago. It's a concern today. What proved inspirational for me were their comments on crop rotation. Corn, for instance, may return an abundance of organic matter to the soil but it's a crop that can also have a negative effect on soil structure. Hayes and Verhallen were not speaking against corn as a crop. They were just stating facts. Those facts got me thinking. In this, Hayes and Verhallen are not be blamed. I take full responsibility. If corn can be hard on the soil, why do farmers grow so much of it? In fact, why do farmers bother growing any number of crops when the chance of earning a fair return from them is remote? Are commodity organizations representing the farmers' interests when they encourage farmers to grow more corn, more soybeans, and more wheat, when at the same time the market is telling them not to? Ken Goudy, the Saskatchewan agriculturalist behind the "Focus on Sabbatical" movement, has had similar thoughts. He's going one step further, however, by trying to convince North American farmers to take land out of production in order to reduce supply and force commodity prices higher. Goudy's detractors have questioned his scheme, saying it would be cruel to reduce the world's food supplies when so many people are hungry. The detractors are wrong. There's abundance of food today in the world, more than enough to feed everyone, but people are still hungry. It can also be argued that the overabundance, along with poor distribution, are primary reasons for this sad state of affairs. In the December 6, 2001 Western Producer, journalist Barry Wilson writes of an Ethiopian farmer who committed suicide because what he received for the maize he produced was not enough to cover his debt for the year. The retail price for corn in Addis Ababa fell to the Canadian equivalent of $8.73 for 100 kilograms last summer, less than half the price of one year earlier. In the coming year, it's expected yields in Ethiopa will suffer as farmers reduce their fertilizer use and their acreage. What stands in the way of Goudy's plan is a reluctance among farmers to commit. The risk, however, is not so great as you may first think. Goudy isn't asking farmers to quit farming. He's simply asking them to leave some of their land out of production. (For further details on the Focus on Sabbatical plan go to the website www.focusonsabbatical.com.) This brings me back to Hayes and Verhallen. If farmers do decide to take land out of production, why not make a positive contribution at the same time by planting a cover crop that helps protect the precious few inches of our planet. Even if Goudy's plans go nowhere, does it really make sense to be growing crops that are not adequately valued in the marketplace?0 Jeffrey Carter is a freelance journalist based in Dresden, Ontario. Letters may be sent to P.O. Box 1207, Dresden, Ontario, NOP IMO or to this magazine.