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The Rural Voice, 1998-04, Page 74BRUCE County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER 446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1 P9 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 • The Rural Voice is provided to Bruce County Farmers by the BCFA. We are losing touch with the consumers of tomorrow If you don't eat, read no further. We are losing touch with the consumers of tomorrow. As generation after generation gets farther away from the farm, the consumers are losing touch with true reality of how their food is produced, processed and how it ends up at the supermarket. If producers and processors don't re-educate the consumer we eventually will be in big trouble. Take the livestock industry for example. Thousands of years ago people were sent out to hunt for their food. It was a huge event if they were successful and brought fresh meat home for the village to consume. As times progressed, the hunters domesticated wild animals to secure a consistent supply of meat. Village people were still involved with livestock raising until refrigeration came to be common. Later small abattoirs were everywhere and people purchased their meat from these businesses. Today the local abattoirs are disappearing. Even the local butcher in the grocery store is disappearing. The economics of the industry dictate that you must be competitive and the super large abattoirs are the only option now. The Maple Leaf Foods situation, is a cast in point. Skills in the industry are disappearing. Now only people where these large facilities are located deal with the processing (kill, cut up and packing) of the meat. Some people already have a problem with these words. Same goes for the livestock producers. Feedlots in the American and Canadian Mid -West arc getting larger and larger. Fewer people arc being involved with the industry. Consumers do not see the livestock being raised or processed. Thcy have less and less opportunity to deal with the local butcher as cuts of meat are packed directly at the plant. We even see food marketed to our children as cartoon characters e.g. hamburger, by fast food chains. They have removed completely that beef hamburgers are made from cattle. Even as we watched the Olympics we saw cows watching television with the farmer. Milk producers have an extremely good image for milk — however, when the milking is done, farmers do not watch TV with the cows. BRUCE COUNTY FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE 446 10th Street, Hanover, Ontario N4N 1 P9 Phone: 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 Fax: 519-364-4119 E-mail: bcfa@greynet.net or bruce@ofa.on.ca COUNTY EXECUTIVE Phone Fax Past Pres. Jim Farrell RR 3, Ripley 395-5628 3928 President Gerald Poechman RR 3, Walkerton 364-5657 6112 1st Vice Pres. Murray Clark RR 4, Kincardine 395-3452 3452 2nd Vice Pres. Tom Sweiger RR 2, Dobbinton 363-5704 2314 EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS Peter Canning RR 1, Clifford 327-8877 8942 Jayne Dietrich RR 5, Mildmay 367-2740 5930 Chris Freiburger RR 3, Walkerton 881-1658 Lloyd Graham RR 1, Lucknow 528-2406 REGIONAL DIRECTORS Bruce South Bruce North Bruce West Bob Bregman Allan Smith Lloyd Schnurr 70 THE RURAL VOICE RR 3, Teeswater 392-6272 8461 RR 2, Tara 934-2928 RR 3, Walkerton 881-3997 1691 We have to start early with our children and shape a true and wholesome image of what the livestock industry is all about. Steaks, roasts, chops, hamburger plus hundreds of other products come from these live animals. Young people will accept this as a natural phenomenon and a part of !ife if taught early. People have to be educated that livestock can convert fibre (grass) that humans cannot use into edible high-protcin foods that we can utilize. Cattle can convert virtually anything that is left over from our processing plants — brewers grain, distillers grain, cull vegetables, canning and bakery wastes. There is not much that cattle will not eat and convert into food humans can utilize. Cattlemen have a lot going for their industry, but we are losing touch with the consumers of tomorrow. It is a seemingly tough sell but we have to start somewhere before another Oprah Winfrey or Ilard Copy show sensationalizes problems with the industry. It is not a perfect world even though we try so hard to make it so. We must have consumer confidence in the livestock industry and we must have an educated consumer to what really is involved. People and agriculture are the two most valuable assets the world has today. Let's not lose touch with each other.° Submitted by Thomas M. Sweiger BCFA 2nd Vice President BRUCE COUNTY FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE Directors' Meeting Monday, April 27, 1998 8:00 p.m. OMAFRA Boardroom, Walkerton Members are welcome to attend