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R.R. 1, Kincardine, Ont,
519-395-5286
We Handle Everything (Almost)
12 THE RURAL VOICE
AN ADDICTION,
NOTA BUSINESS
For years people have been saying
that farming is a business. This is the
time of year that proves it's impossi-
ble to treat farming like making shoes
or selling condominiums.
In business, people are supposed to
make coldly rational decisions. There
may be some who can be coldly ration-
al about the basics of farming, but for
most it's impossible to separate reason
from the passions that call up our love
of growing things or raising animals.
This is the time of year that drives
people outdoors looking for a piece of
dirt to dig up, for sun -warmed soil to
run between their fingers. It's a time
of year when millions of people across
the continent plant tomato seeds in
peat pots or styrofoam coffee cups.
It's the time of the year when the
most booming business in the city is
the nursery. Warm weekends send
people in the thousands to the urban
outskirts to buy rosebushes and potted
trees, even pre -started lettuce and corn.
You might be able to take the
country out of the boy, but you can't
take his feeling for the soil, no matter
how urbanized he becomes. People
festoon their highrise balconies with
planting boxes and hanging plants,
desperately trying to put a little nature
into their sterile lives.
In the suburb where my in-laws
live, the houses are now about 15
years old. One can see the effects of
the planting mania that the first own-
ers of those houses had. In some cases
they stuck in so many trees that now
the houses are nearly lost in a jungle.
One house has a miniature orchard in
its postage -stamp yard, leaning right
out over the sidewalk.
The fascination of human beings
with animals is equally as strong and
much more expensive. Visit a pet
shop these days and get a glimpse of
how much people will pay to have
warm bodies around. Parrots sell for
sums farmers would hesitate to spend
for a prize cow (and the farmer can
look on his expense as an investment).
Next to owning a nursery in the
suburbs of a large city is owning a
shop catering to the extravagances of
pet owners. People will gladly pay
more to have their poodle's nails clip-
ped than to put groceries on the table.
Anyone questioning the compara-
tive profitability of serving the real
farmers or serving urbanites dreaming
of touching nature need only look at
what percentage of graduating veteri-
narians goes into doggy doctoring
rather than large -animal practices.
They might also look at how many
farm equipment companies are depen-
ding more on selling garden tractors to
city farmers with 50 -foot -wide estates
than they are on farmers who find it
hard to afford tractors for 500 acres.
Farming is not a business, it's an
addiction. Farmers are just addicts out
of control, like the raving drunk. The
urbanite is the controlled drunk, able
to drink a little and then leave it alone.
Farmers can't leave it alone. Like
junkies who will do anything to sup-
port their habits, farmers will send
their wives out to work, even take one
or two jobs themselves to stay on the
land. Junkies will borrow from loan
sharks, not caring about the terms be-
cause they can only think about get-
ting their next shot. Farmers will bor-
row from banks, signing legal forms
without knowing what they entail be-
cause they think if they have their one
more shot at growing a crop, at put-
ting pigs through the barn, at a feedlot -
full of cattle, they'll be all right.
There are people who feed off the
junkies of skid row and there are peo-
ple who feed off farmers. In fact, near-
ly everybody benefits from the farmer's
addiction. As long as there are addicts
who want to raise sheep or cattle or
pigs, we won't have to worry about
starving, no matter how little we want
to pay the addicts for their efforts.°
Keith Roulston, who lives near
Blyth, is the originator and former
publisher of The Rural Voice.