The Rural Voice, 1994-09, Page 3R.V.
Editor: Keith Roulston
editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron County
John Heard, soils and crop extension
and research, northwestern Ontario
Neil McCutcheon, farmer, Grey Cty.
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.
George Penfold, associate professor,
University of Guelph
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
contributing writers:
Adrian Vos, Gisele Ireland, Cathy
Laird, Wayne Kelly, Sarah Borowski,
Mary Lou Weiser -Hamilton, June
Flath, Ian Wylie-Toal, Susan Glover,
Bob Reid, Mervyn Erb, Darene
Yavorsky, Peter Baltensperger, Sandra
Orr, Yvonne Reynolds, Carl L. Bedal
marketing & advertising sales manager:
Gerry Fortune
advertising representative:
Anna Vander Heyden
production co-ordinator:
Anne Harrison
advertising & editorial production:
Dianne Josling
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Behind the Scenes
There's a revolution of entrepreneurs
Whether by luck or good timing,
the push of the provincial and federal
governments to spark entrepreneur-
ialism in rural Ontario seems to have
coincided with a determination by
rural people that they must take their
future into their own hands.
The result has been a grassroots
movement to set up new businesses
to do everything from adding value to
traditional farm products to supplying
new services to fill the needs of
modern farmers.
To students of history it seems we
might be rediscovering a drive that
originally built rural Ontario into a
thriving part of the world at the end
of the last century.
We tend to think of the pioneer
years as a time when people arrived
in the bush and fought for years to
clear the trees and pull the stumps.
But this was also an era of off -farm
entrepreneurialism unmatched in our
history since, much of it based
around serving the farmer and
marketing his product. There were
grist mills and flour mills, woolen
mills and tanneries. There were
factories to build equipment., wagon
companies to transport farm products
and farm supplies and barrel factories
to create containers for the product.
Later came creameries and cheese
factories, apple evaporators for dried
apples which were shipped abroad,
small packing plants and flax mills.
Look at the population of most
villages in western Ontario at the turn
of the century and you'll see it was
actually higher then than a half -
century later. The reason was that
better transportation and efficiencies
of scale killed off many of those
small enterprises that employed local
people to process local farm products.
Now, at a time when there is a
realization that the mass production
techniques of food processors has left
a niche for small-scale, quality food
producers, there is a move to cottage -
industry food processing.
The stories we have this month are
special in that they also represent a
move to encourage more rural wom-
en to become entepreneurs. The three
businesses we feature may never
become large enough to change the
future of their communities but they
represent an exciting trend. If enough
people have enough good ideas and
enough energy, they may begin a
grassroots revolution that could
change rural areas forever. — KR
Update
More power from the wind
Back in April we featured a story on an upcoming wind energy conference
and particularly on the efforts of Canadian Agra to harness the winds from Lake
Huron to create power.
In July Canadian Agra, along with CANMET, the research and development
arm of the federal department of Natural Resources Canada and Tacke
Windpower Inc. of London, Ontario; announced an agreement to design, build
and evaluate a prototype 600 kW horizontal axis wind turbine.
The project will cost $1.29 million with Tacke contributing $940,000 and
CANMET, $350,000. Based on technology designed by Tacke's parent
company, the family-owned Tacke Windtechnik of Germany, the project will
redesign the turbine for Canadian conditions and build it at the facilities of
Diamond Aircraft in London. The prototype will then be installed at Canadian
Agra's windfarm north of Kincardine.
The new machine is much larger than the current turbine (600 kW compared
to 80 kW for the present system). It is large enough to provide for the needs of
up to 150 homes.
Series production of TW 600 wind turbines is scheduled to start in 1996 and is
expected to produce up to 100 direct and indirect jobs in that year. Production of
turbines and wind farms in recent years has become a multi-million dollar
industry world wide.°