The Rural Voice, 1990-11, Page 34"In a country as large as Canada, it
should be possible to make a living on
a small scale," Mathew maintains.
"Besides, if we can't afford to keep up
a healthy farming community and
profitable agriculture, we won't have
much of a future."
The Staehlis believe that the small
family farm plays an important role in
the over-all scheme of things. They
see it as a means of teaching urban
populations the values of rural living
and of the land in which we live, the
importance of working for the
satisfaction inherent in the work, the
intrinsic values of human existence.
"It's especially important for
children," Cathy argues, "to be able to
learn the basics of food production
and get a healthy respect for life. City
life tends to be detached from the
basics of existence. A family farm
can teach them the important aspects
of life."
The Stachlis think that large-scale
farming that is becoming more and
more widespread in our industrial
society, is not any different from
factory work and tends to become as
impersonal and routine as working on
an assembly line. "Dealing with
animals requires a personal touch,"
Mathew says. "It's the small family
farm that affords the important
overview and the direct personal
involvement that are the key
ingredients of successful farming."
He thinks governments should be
doing more about creating production
values for farm take-overs rather than
basing them on market values. Intro-
ducing regulations for the sale prices
of farms, he maintains, would make
the continuation of the family farm
much easier and hence more viable.
This, in turn, would contribute to
the propagation of the important
values of rural living. It would enable
our society to pass those values on to
the next generations, to instill in them
the importance of living with, and not
against, nature, to nurture in them a
respect for the conservation of our
land and the intrinsic values of food
production and agricultural self-
sufficiency.
This may all sound like dreaming
the impossible dream, like a Man of
LaMancha kind of idealism for which
30 THE RURAL VOICE
there is no room any more in our pro-
gressive and technological society.
Everything is geared towards becom-
ing larger and more efficient, faster
and more impersonal. Bigger is al-
ways praised as being better, and the
small-scale operation is being replaced
by the conglomerate everywhere one
looks.
Yet for Mathew and Cathy Staehli,
small is what is beautiful, what is of
real importance, what propagates the
genuine values that make us human
and that will ultimately help us
survive. The family farm as they
envisage it, with all its difficulties but
also with all its many genuine joys and
rewards, is one of those beautiful
small things that deserves to be
preserved and that they are sure will
stand their children and all future
generations in good stead.°
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