The Rural Voice, 1993-12, Page 56Research to continue
at Centralia, Klopp
announces
Centralia College may be closing
but crops research into crops grown
in the Huron -Perth -Middlesex area
will continue, Paul Klopp, MPP for
Huron and parliamentary assistant to
Elmer Buchanan, Ontario Minister of
Agriculture and Food, announced
November 19.
"Research activity at the Huron
Research Station will build upon the
program developed at Centralia
College," Klopp told a press
conference at Centralia. The Stephen
Township facility will be augmented
by a number of off -station sites and
will be transferred to Ridgetown
College once Centralia closes in May
1994. "Thc consolidation of the
programs under one college will also
help researchers at Ridgetown carry
out this program in both
southwestern and western Ontario,"
Klopp said.
Variety evaluation and
management studies will continue for
white beans, corn, soybeans,
rutabagas and other field crops
important to the area as well as for
processing vegetables including
sweet corn and peas. Water quality
management studies initiated at
Centralia College will also be
continued, but with sites in both
southwestern and western regions.
Weed management studies will
continue at the Huron site and will
feature expanded crop insect and
disease studies in the area. Tentative
plans also have been developed for
an expansion of other field crop
management studies that will initially
focus on conservation and zero
tillage systems for the production of
white beans and soybeans. A number
of white bean and soybean varieties
will be evaluated under these
systems.
The possibility of transferring the
variety testing programs in spring
cereals and forages from Ridgetown
to the Huron location, which is closer
to the main growing areas for these
crops, is also being examined, Klopp
said. These plans will have to be
52 THE RURAL VOICE
News in Agriculture
approved by the relevant industry
committees which make research
priority recommendations to OMAF.
One professional and two
technical staff members have
accepted transfers from Centralia
College to Ridgetown College and
will be located at the Huron Research
Station. Ken Stevenson, a manager at
Ridgetown, has been reassigned to
develop and manage programs at the
Huron Station on a full-time basis. In
addition, it is expected that at least
two staff and several summer
students will also be employed to
deliver these programs. The efforts of
these staff located at the Huron
Station, will be supplemented by
professional and technical staff from
the Ridgetown station as required.
An annual budget of approximately
$400,000 will be spent on programs
operated from the Huron Research
Station.°
Interest rates must
decline to drive
economy —Verdun
Lower interest rates, that will
encourage people to take risks rather
than collect comfortable interest
payments, are needed to spark the
economy, Bob Verdun, publisher of
The Farm Gate told the annual
meeting of the Bruce County
Federation of Agriculture on
November 12.
"We have to wean ourselves off
interest (income)," Verdun told the
100 people present at the meeting in
Elmwood. "A high interest makes us
think that idle wealth is good. We
have to get back to equity."
Retired people who now depend
on interest on bonds, etc. will turn to
investment in the stock market and
equity funds if interest rates decline,
he predicted. High interest has made
people comfortable not to take risk
and Canada has lost the spark of the
risk-taking pioneers who came here
instead of being cautious and staying
in their old countries.
Verdun said he has been
convinced that the high interest of the
past few years was part of a secret
deal to get the Canada -U.S. Free
Trade Agreement accepted by the
Americans. "I predicted several
years ago that the dollar would go
down and interest rates would go
down six months before the U.S.
presidential election. It did exactly
that." The dollar was allowed to drop
from 86 cents to 75 cents American
prior to the U.S. election because it
would take several months to work
through the system so Canadian
imports wouldn't jump higher before
Americans voted. After that,
however, Canadian exports to the
U.S., fueled by a lower dollar, would
jump higher, making it easier for the
Mulroney government to get re-
elected. Instead, the Democrats were
elected in the U.S. and changed
economic policy there, slowing the
recovery and making it impossible
for the government of Brian
Mulroney to get the "quick fix" they
had expected.
"It's conventional wisdom that we
have to keep the dollar up," Verdun
said. "What kind of nonsense is this?
As long as we do it reasonably we
could continue to let the dollar go
down." A lower dollar would make
our agriculture and forestry
businesses be more competitive, he
said, pointing out that forestry creates
40 per cent of the wealth in Canada.
Since interest rates went down and
the dollar dropped farm prices have
improved and forestry has started to
recover, he said. Cross-border
shopping is hardly an issue any
more.°
Networking key to
work, Ecological
Farmers told
Small community groups
experimenting in ways to solve
environmental problems can be the
key to widening interest in ecological
farming, a Montana farmer says.
Speaking to 80 farmers at the
Ecological Farmers Association of
Ontario Fall Conference at Ethel on
November 13, Nancy Matheson
explained how her organization,
Alternative Energy Resources
Organization (AERO) used an