AIRDRIE, Alta. – A fascination with Alberta’s rural history inspired a former Calgary schoolteacher to take on the story of Unifarm.
Unifarm, A Story of Conflict and Change, by Carrol Jaques, traces the history of Alberta’s farm organizations from the homesteader days to the formation of Wild Rose Agriculture Producers in 1995.
Jaques’s interest started in university, where she eventually turned the history of the United Farmers of Alberta into a master’s thesis.
“Every time I had an opportunity, I wrote a paper on the United Farmers of Alberta,” she said during the book launch in Airdrie.
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Members attending Wild Rose’s inaugural meeting voted to commission a history while memories of the organization’s accomplishments were still fresh.
Stan Bell, a lifetime Unifarm member, eventually approached Jacques about writing the book.
Members of the Wild Rose committee that was formed to organize the project made every piece of information they could find available to Jaques.
Her research included 40 interviews and poring over meeting minutes, newsletters and newspapers.
After studying the group so intensely, Jaques believes farmers still need to be represented by a general farm organization.
“Who represents all of agriculture to government, to the press and different economic organizations that are making pronouncements about agriculture?” she said in an interview.
Commodity groups have sharply focused concerns, she said, but as farmers, they all face questions about taxation, the environment, biotechnology and the quality of rural life.
“They need a general approach on those issues that affect them all.”
