The Rural Voice, 1999-04, Page 20I
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At the Canadian Organic
Growers Conference in Guelph in
January, Joel Salatin delivered a
keynote speech on "Creating the
farm your children will want".
Salatin, a Virginian who has
written books and been featured in
many articles, dealt with ways to
involve your children in the
farming operation and to let them
grow in their own way without
being forced into your mold.
While some of the specific
examples he uses in his talk aren't
relevant to Ontario farmers (there
are health regulations in the way
as well as limits on the production
of chicken and turkeys without
quota). his philosophical approach
holds true anywhere.
The speech is reprinted with
permission of Mr. Salatin.
16 THE RURAL VOICE
With
the median age of the
North American farmer
now hovering around the
60 -year marker, our culture is clearly
making agriculture unattractive to the
next generation. Business analysts
use median age of practitioners as a
litmus test to measure the viability of
an economic sector. One that is
below 35 indicates a vibrant, sound
arena while more than 35 indicates
one that is in decline. If you're
betting on the future, don't bet on a
business sector in which the median'
age of its practitioners is more than -
50, not to mention 60.
No matter how much we care
about clean food, air and water, if we
do not structure our farms so that
they will romance the next generation
into farming we cannot have a viable
agri-CULTURE. Our goal is to
structure our farm businesses so that
when the children turn 18, they will
not walk out the gate never to return,
but will instead love it too much to
leave it. This means that our farms
must be environmentally,
economically and emotionally
magnetic to our children. Here are
some basic principles to help us build
those romantic models.
1. Tap into your children's bent. This
refers to their natural strength.
Neither Teresa nor I can draw a
stickman, but our daughter Rachel
can draw, paint, arrange flowers and
even weave potholders using colours
that are truly magnificent. I can't
explain how that happened but we
must encourage her in this area, to
allow creative expression. Guess who
is in charge of making publicity
posters at the farm and at a farmers'
market?
We must understand that our
children have different strengths —
and weaknesses — than we do, and
provide an atmosphere of expression
so that they can release these creative
energies in ways that complement the
enterprise. Yes, she still must help
gut chickens and do other things, but
we also built a large flower garden
that she wanted. We believe in
requiring the children to help in areas
that might not be their favourite, but
at the same time respecting their
uniqueness.
Daniel is our outdoorsman. That
means I must allow him some fishing
time, some hunting time, and some
primitive trap -building time when I
would rather push, push, push on
another project. We must maintain
the fine balance between the
discipline of doing unfavourite things
and the freedom to do our favourite
things.
2. Encourage the children to have
their own enterprises. Daniel has his
rabbit business; Rachel has her
bakery and flower business. In my
youth, I kept a flock of laying
chickens. To be the boss of your own
business, as a young person under
Mom and Dad's shepherding, does
wonders to build positive character
quality, self-concept and business
education. Profit and loss, saving,
investing, marketing, public relations
— all these and more are basic
principles for life that are learned