The Rural Voice, 1989-07, Page 22in Western Europe, has been a com-
mon feature throughout agricultural
history. I would propose that the
experience of full-time farming in the
middle part of the twenieth century, or
families engaged only in farming, is,
in historical terms, something of an
aberration. It's a very brief period
when this level of specialization was
dominant.
Clearly, 50 to 100 years ago, most
farm families in Ontario engaged in
multiple activities. These may not
have been wage labour jobs off the
farm, but certainly within the farm
system and in the community there
were many activities which took
different members of the family off -
farm to deliver their goods, to work on
the road, to work in the bush, to make
potash from the trees that were being
felled and bumed for fertilizer, and to
do all manner of things which were
not directly related to producing food
commodities but were part of the
overall community and family system.
If you choose to include these as
pluriactivity, then in many ways the
present form of multiple job holding
and pluriactivity is not really very
different. The nature of the tasks is
different, but the actual diversification
of activity throughout the year and the
differentiation of roles among family
members is really not that very differ-
ent than it was perhaps 100 years ago.
People do different things at different
times while also running a farm.
6. Europe is a varied "entity."
How, for example, would the
relationship between farming and
industry in the Italian countryside
differ from the situation in 'fhe
Netherlands or Sweden? Which
country has the least pluriactivity
among farmers?
In southern Europe, for example
in Italy, there has been an enormous
development over the past 25 years of
small industries in the rural areas in
the countryside, and this has made it
possible for farm families to engage in
non-farm activities while they've been
farming. They supply a fairly techni-
cally competent labour force to many
of these small factories and various
businesses that have been set up in the
countryside.
This contrasts very markedly
with northwest Europe, for example
Sweden and The Netherlands, where
planning control has not allowed the
diffusion of industries, small or big,
into the countryside, except under
special circumstances, which in
Canada we would call mega -projects.
But there are very few of these and in
northwest Europe one finds only a
small amount of rural industrializa-
tion, and as a result the nature of
pluriactivity is quite different.
People in northwest Europe com-
mute from their farms into the big
cities to participate in wage labour,
whereas in the southern European
case, they are likely to be able to find
lots of different types of jobs, possibly
on a short-term basis, with a brother or
an uncle, in the local community, and
may be able to work there for four or
five weeks, do some farming, and then
work in another place for four or five
weeks, as demand and availability
dictate.
So we have a very different picture
in Europe between the north and the
south: one of a highly organized
labour market, a very highly organized
land -use control in northwest Europe,
particularly in places like Sweden, and
in The Netherlands even more so; and
another in southern Europe — Greece,
Spain, Portugal, and Italy — where
there is a very open market for devel-
oping small industries wherever it's
deemed suitable, much of it based on
remittance money.
Italy has the most pluriactivity,
while The Netherlands has the least.
Canada is on the side of The Nether-
lands; it tends to control and prevent
rural industrialization.
7. If I understand correctly, you
advocate support for pluriactivity in
rural communities, which seems to
imply, among other things, more
industrialization in the countryside.
Some studies actually suggest that
the preservation of agricultural land
should be de-emphasized. In practi-
cal terms, what might support for
pluriactivity entail?
Pluriactivity stabilizes farm
communities. I suppose that's an
assumption that I've been making all
along. Pluriactivity is a way of keep-
ing farm people where they are. I'm
assuming that most farm people want
to stay where they are, on their farms,
and do some farming. And part of the
price that many of them will have to
pay — if it's a price at all — is that
they as a family, as a unit, will have to
generate, on occasion, incomes other
than farm incomes.
Now it's turning out, I think, on
the social side, that people want to do
that ... But you've got to be able to
do something, otherwise you have to
leave altogether. For some people to
stay on their farms with their families
and to have a good lifestyle they're
going to have to find jobs in the coun-
tryside. Sometimes they're willing to
participate in some of these jobs, but
don't want to give up anything to
create them. They're going to have
to help to create them.
... In Canada there are big
distances between Huron County and
London, or Huron County and Guelph,
or Kitchener, and probably there has
to be something in between. There
has to be something in the countryside
because of the scale of our country.
There has to be something out there
if you want to keep people out there.
Like it or not, the countryside needs
to "fill up" a bit. More people, more
activity, more jobs, more diversity —
more diversification. Yes, and more
headaches, but of the preferred kind.
I think if it were confined to the
small town jurisdiction rather than
put out as an industrial develop-
ment in the actual fields...
Well, okay, that's as may be.
That's a finer point to make. I agree
with you that's debatable. But I think
the more important issue is you've got
to get the jobs out there. While farm-
ers are debating the fine points and
where development should go, the
people with a bit of money to spend
and the job -creation capacity have
disappeared. They can't hang around
for too long.
... And we are smart enough to
20 THE RURAL VOICE