The Rural Voice, 1999-02, Page 18While a growing number of
Ontario farmers view with
alarm the increasing
presence in rural areas, a British
professors advises welcoming urban
interaction with farmers.
Speaking to the annual meeting of
the Christian Farmers Federation of
Ontario in November, Dr. John
Wibberley, expressed the view that
Canadians could learn much from the
British experience, since even in
Canada much of our arable land is
close to urban centres. His concept of
"farming systems" is based on
encouraging co-operation between
town and city.
Farming systems means there is
more input from farmers about
society. When they are co-operating
to sell production locally and
contributing to the local community
in order to manage change
effectively, a farmers' function is the
opposite of clashing with the public.
Farming systems for Wibberley, a
British professor at Reading, who
lives on the Isle of Wight, is park
and production together. In Britain,
the farmland is like a patchwork.
Farming systems also means more
farmer -controlled marketing,
reducing middle -men, transporters or
processors. Keeping the costs of
production and transportation under
control, fostering local markets, and
considering the effect on the
. household, the result is a "be big, act
small" message to Canadian farmers
hard-pressed to sustain their
operations.
To include the public, promoting
tourism and markets, a system of
retail outlets as well as farm markets
or farmgate outlets, gets more people
to identify with rural needs.
In the U.K, through farm hiking
tours, people concerned with animal
welfare issues can watch practices,
and decide things are fine and
animals are well cared for.
Farmer -controlled decision-
making reduces government policy
interference. Wibberley sees
bureaucrats as potentially a real
enemy of independent farmers. If the
government has a policy or incentive,
the farmer usually bends to it.
The next farming problem is one
of image, and the traditional pastoral
image of farming has universal
appeal.
The patchwork quilt opposes
14 THE RURAL VOICE
4
Reconnecting with
urban consumers
British professor urges farmers to welcome city
people into the country
By Sandra Orr
"paving the planet," with changing
attitudes between farm and city.
Farming or stewardship concepts
haven't changed, but how to do it
has. With the outlook that
farmers are at one with nature, or
nature has become farmland,
community service and information
is oriented toward getting more
sympathy for farmers.
Through conservation or saving
the environment, farmers are seen as
being interested in ecology, soil and
water, when they take care with
continuity over time, and Wibberley
mentioned the possibility of land -
care payments for maintenance.
A major problem for rural areas is
how to keep more numbers of family
farmers from leaving the occupation.
Wibberley spends time talking with
farmers who are famous, he says, for
their "silence as they practice the
noblest occupation on earth".
Studying farming around the
world, he notes "agriculture
symbolized as a tree, is simple and
4 elemental." A more traditional
attitude toward presenting themselves
gains farmers sympathy.
Wibberley mentioned some points
or goals in achieving co-operation or
better farming systems.
He emphasized some means
toward this might be
unpopular at present, such as
diversifying with extra crops — for
example, fields of buckwheat
destined for pancake houses when
harvested. Also, part-time farming,
an idea which he noted is unpopular
with agri-business, could be
described as additional sources of
income.