The Rural Voice, 2003-06, Page 42wasn't a school house in Bruce
County he didn't speak in.
Sometimes the discussions got to be
hot and heavy.
"When the hog producers took the
shipping of hogs into their
organization rather than letting the
truckers do it, I'II never forget those
meetings we had."
Powers became well-known to
many in the region when he took up
the offer from "Doc" Cruickshank to
conduct a weekly program. Later he
also began broadcasting on CFOS in
Owen Sound.
He admires Cruickshank for
sticking up for him when one
of the station's best
advertisers threatened to pull his
advertising over something Powers
said on one of his programs that, a
company official said later, cost his
company a 10 -per -cent drop in sales.
"That's why I said if we had used
the organizations that are depending
on agriculture for survival, they
would have carried a lot of weight.
We did it a little but not enough."
As a director of the county
federation he was sent as part of a
delegation to Manitoulin Island to
investigate the co-operative auction
cattlemen on the island had organized
and find out if it would work in
Bruce and Grey.
"We were impressed with what
we saw, and we recommended that
they do a study and they attempt to
start in a year."
The result was the Grey -Bruce
Livestock Co-operative which holds
sales at Wiarton each fall. Until the
sale buyers used to go to farmers
individually and buy their animals
but the auction opened up the bidding
process. "I'm telling you it sure made
the difference," he says.
Through the connection with The
Co-operators and the Federation he
was invited to join the pioneering
farm debt review initiative of local
MP Dr. Garry Gerbin during the
financial crisis in the 1980s. High
inflation had led to unprecedentedly
high interest rates at the same time as
farm prices collapsed. "Anyone who
expanded at that time got in trouble,"
he remembers.
The committee was set up to
intercede with bankers on behalf of
farmers. "The bank policy was 'when
they miss a payment or two, close
them down'. They didn't give a hoot
38 THE RURAL VOICE
who the guy was. He could have
been a real experienced farmer with
years of success who got trapped
here. It was a stone-cold policy."
The farm debt review committee
set out to help the farmers who had a
long history of good management but
had been caught by the unique
conditions of that difficult time. "Boy
it took a lot of hammering to get that
point across but we were successful
in getting some debt written off."
The work, he recalls, took a huge
toll on him as he saw families
struggling. "Families broke up. Some
people got drinking. It was
depressing. It was so depressing."
Yet it was also gratifying to see
what the group was able to
accomplish and to be able to drive
around the county and see families
still on the land who wouldn't have
been if someone hadn't intervened on
their behalf. What's more, the
success of the pioneering local
committee led to the establishment of
a national farm debt review board.
Powers was also involved in the
Saugeen Valley Conservation
Authority for 20 years, serving as
chair for five years. With no official
plan or tree -cutting bylaws, Bruce
County was a "sitting duck" for
abuse, he recalls. There was a con-
cern that mining of peat moss from
Greenock Swamp would begin. "We
were really concerned that they could
drain it and we couldn't do a thing."
Powers was also involved in the
committee to create an official plan
for the county which he calls a really
great achievement, protecting the
environment against exploitation.
Through his conservation
authority work he was at a meeting in
Eastern Ontario with Harold Wolfe
and heard about the Agricultural
Rehabilitation Development Agency
and a community pasture project in
Victoria County.
At the time, before the coming of
the Ontario Hydro nuclear
development, there were some
depressed areas of Bruce County and
the two men felt there was need for
the program. They called a meeting
in Port Elgin, brought in a speaker
from Alberta, where they had ARDA
experience, and invited all the
township councillors from the area.
The community pasture required a
minimum of 1,000 acres so they
began to scout the area looking for a
large enough area where there were
farmers likely to be interested in
selling. Ontario Minister of
Agriculture Bill Stewart came up to
see the area they had picked out and
brought along the Ontario ARDA
representative.
Eventually, despite the bungling
of a government official who took
exactly the wrong approach with the
farmers, they did assemble the parcel
of land in Bruce Township that
became the Bruce County
Community Pasture.
"Now we have 1,000 head of
cattle on there and it's the greatest
project you ever saw," he says. "We
have busloads of people coming to
see it. It just makes you proud.
"The land is so upgraded and trees
have been planted. The Conservation
Authority has pitched in with tree
planting and stream management."
Powers' long connection to so
many farm groups in Bruce County
led to the Federation of Agriculture
asking him to write down the history
of farm organizations in the county.
"I was down to a couple of meetings
with the younger generation and I
started talking about the old days and
someone said 'you're full of history,
whydon't you write the history of
the early years'."
It took him eight years to research
and complete the book but he's
proud that the book is so accurate
it can be used as a reference on the
history of agriculture in Bruce.
It was a particularly difficult
period because Madelaine, his wife
of 49 years, died just as the book was
finished. "You have no idea what that
does to you."
It's his first wife's contribution
and that of the many wives of the
many other farm leaders that he
hopes to pay tribute to in his accept-
ance speech at the Hall of Fame.
"It's sad that the role of women
isn't recognized," he says. "We'd
leave early in the morning before the
chores started (to attend some
meetings). Our wives had to trudge
to the stables and milk the cows.
Their work was taken for granted."
Men and women struggled togeth-
er to make life better for their fellow
farmers. "We worked darn hard and
put in a lot of hours but we had a lot
of fun and we accomplished things,"
he remembers. "When you look back,
you wouldn't have missed it."0