The Rural Voice, 1993-03, Page 29Some time this
month, 75 farmers
in Huron County
will learn to look at
their world a new
way. They'll be doing
something few people,
farmers or urbanites, ever
do — look minutely at how
they affect their environ-
ment and what they can do
to improve their operation.
The farmers are part of a
pilot program for the
Environmental Farm Plan,,
the first of what it's hoped
will be thousands of
Ontario farmers to study the
environmental practices of
their individual farms, and
what they do to foster better
environmental care.
The Farm Environmental
Plan is the product of a
coalition of 28
organizations, led by the
Ontario Federation of
Agriculture, Christian
Farmers Federation of
Ontario, AGCare and the
Ontario Farm Animal
Council.
Huron is one of seven
counties and regions chosen
for a pilot project. The areas
are chosen to represent a
wide cross section of
farming practices and crops,
says Brian Miller, facilitator
for the seven workshops
that will show Huron
county farmers how to
complete the form. This is a
test year, Miller says. The
knowledge gained from
Planning for future
farm generations
Environmental Farm Plan
lets farmers look at how
their operation affects the
environment, and what they
can do to improve
working with the seven pilot projects
will allow the coalition of farm
groups that designed the
Environmental Plan to refine the
program before expanding it to all
areas of the province in the coming
years. The workshops were scheduled
to start in February but had to be
postponed because of delays in
putting the documents into clear
language.
The strength of the Environmental
Farm Plan is demonstrated by the fact
that the Ecological Farmers
Association of Ontario are side by
side with groups representing more
traditional farming methods in their
support. Speaking to the fall
conference of the Ecological
Farmers, Gerald Poechman, an
organic farmer from Bruce County,
said "I'd recommend we all go
through the plan. We as farmers owe
it to ourselves, as well as our
community. There are things we will
learn even though each of us is a
leader in environmental areas."
Dr. Terry Daynard of the Ontario
Corn Producers Association told the
annual Huron County Soil and Water
Conservation Day at Don Lobb's
farm near Clinton last August that he
hopes most farmers will have gone
through the plan by the end of the
century. A key to getting
wide participation, however,
is reassuring farmers that
their plan won't eventually
be used against them.
Farmers need to be assured
that the information
contained in the plan is
confidential and that some
government ministry won't
get its hands on it. The
planners of the agenda also
made sure that it was totally
voluntary to go through it.
"We can't see any way this
will work if farmers have to
do it," he said.
It's ironic, Dr. Daynard
said, that although farmers
are more environmentally
conscious than even 10 years
ago, they are also coming
under more criticism than
ever for their practices, from
environmental groups, from
govemment ministries, even
from within the farming
community. The Farm Plan,
however, lets farmers be pro-
active, rather than reacting
belatedly to the criticism.
Dr. Daynard said that
various environmental
groups, which previously had
been criticizing farm
management of the land,
have been impressed by the
move by farmers to regulate
their own environment.
Dr. Gordon Surgeoner,
professor at the University of
Guelph, who was with the
working group of the farm
coalition that developed the
environmental Farm Plan,
told those at the annual
meeting of the Perth County
Federation of Agriculture in October
that farmers have a higher credibility
rating than any other profession,
according to public opinion surveys.
But there are problems in soil
erosion, water quality and supply, air
quality and with agricultural inputs,
he said. Farmers must begin to act or
they may lose the confidence of
urbanites.
et there are problems of
perception for urban
people. "Farming is not a
natural state of the
environment," he
MARCH 1993 25