The Rural Voice, 1993-08, Page 20Farm Forum
anniversary
celebrated
But some people think
it's time the old tradition
was reborn
By Keith Roulston
The 50th anniversary of the
founding of the Farm Radio Forum
movement in Canada might also be
the trigger for a rebirth of some new
kind of Forum.
At the 50th anniversary re-
enactment of the Farm Forum
broadcast, held in Blyth June 19,
Dale Hamilton, a member of the
executive of the Ontario Rural
Learning Association (ORLA) said
the group is looking into ways of
reviving some sort of Farm Forum as
a way of getting rural people working
together again. Others in the audience
were not so sure the conditions that
brought about the success of the Farm
Radio Forum could be duplicated
today.
And a success it was, said Rodger
Schwass, the Bruce -county native
who was Ontario secretary for the
Forum at one time. On average, there
were 800 Farm Forums meeting
across Ontario each Monday night
during the winter months when the
Forum was in its heyday in the 1940s
and 1950s before television had
people turning in other directions for
their entertainment. As well, Schwass
told the 100 people gathered to watch
the re-enactment of the broadcast,
there were several hundred 4-H
groups and co-ops listening in and
conducting debates. After listening to
a panel discussion on the topic of the
week, and reading the Farm Forum
Guide sent to the secretary, each
Forum would carry on a discussion
on the topic. The secretary would fill
in a report on the discussion and send
it along to the provincial secretary
who would compile the results and
report in a short segment at the end of
the following week's Forum.
16 THE RURAL VOICE
Lamont Tilden, former Farm Radio Forum announcer introduces the panel of
(from left) Rodger Schwass, Marion Mundell, George S. Aitkins, Alex Sim and
Harry J. Boyle, at the 50th anniversary re-enactment in June.
After the discussion the groups
would turn to games, usually cards,
and finish the evening off with lunch,
making the Forum a combination of
an intellectual exercise and a social
time. Schwass said the Farm Forum
movement resulted in more than 600
co-operatives being started.
Simon Hallahan of Blyth told of
the formation of a co-operative
cheese factory that grew out of Farm
Forum discussions in his
neighbourhood in East Wawanosh.
"On January 1 we organized the
factory and by July we were making
cheese." Now in his 90s, Hallahan
recalled of the Forum movement, "It
was the best adult education 1 ever
heard of."
The Forum movement became
such a superior model for rural
education that in 1954 the United
Nations undertook a study of the
movement and how it could be
applied in third world countries. Alex
Sim, one of the founders of Farm
Radio Forum was part of the study
(Stuart Marwick, who first met Sim
while working on rural development
in the Eastern Townships of Quebec
in the early 1960s remembers him as
someone who was always "the guy in
the background; always pushing other
people forward") The study led to
such things as the Radios for India
Project which allowed radios to be set
up in Indian villages where the All -
India radio program was broadcast
over loud speakers, helping teach
local farmers new techniques. This
was, Schwass said, at least partly
responsible for the Green Revolution
that greatly boosted food production
in India.
Harry J. Boyle, former CBC
executive, who was part of the panel
for this re-enactment, recalled how
the Farm Forum helped, with the
work of organizers like the priests of
St. Francis Xavier University, to start
credit unions in the Maritime
provinces. (At one meeting a
collection was taken to start a village
credit union. A grand total of 85 cents
was all village residents could spare.)
Others pointed out that the Forums
were used to help organize county
medical insurance programs that
helped provide protection from the
devastation large medical bills could
bring before provincial medicare
programs were born.
One audience member said the
Farm Forum was one of the quickest
ways of accumulating information.
"I'm irked to see consultants being
paid millions of dollars by school
boards and governments (to gather
public opinion). We could do it in
minutes with the Farm Forum."
Some of those at the meeting were
downright bitter about the demise of
the Forum. "When Farm Radio
Forum went off the air, the country
was stabbed in the back," Marwick,
now living near Chatsworth, said. "I
think it is time to try to do something
again."
But some, including professionals
in the broadcast business, doubted the