Oddly, I’m enjoying the winter. Not the cold of course; I get a shiver of envy just thinking of those 1900-era full-body wool long-johns with the flap in the back. (Don’t tell my wife.)
But I do enjoy the rest from yard-work. Last summer was an unending fight with weeds and excess water. Sadly, the kids we used to rely on for unpaid labour have all left home. Is there a connection?
For now, it’s peaceful. But imagine how different it would be if our urban domicile was treated like a rural institution. We’d get this notice in the mail: “Dear residents. We regret to inform you that having lost 60 percent of your members, your household falls below our standard for efficiency and productivity.
Read Also
Interest in biological crop inputs continues to grow
It was only a few years ago that interest in alternative methods such as biologicals to boost a crop’s nutrient…
“In July 2011, your house will be boarded up. You will move in with the Smiths and their eight children just three kilometres away. Till then you are to close all rooms except the kitchen, or heat your rooms with an off-grid energy source, a cozy campfire perhaps.
“Effective immediately, family health facilities will also be consolidated. The doors to your three under-used bathrooms will be locked and you will be given access to the efficient six-holer newly installed at the Smith family residence. We understand this may require some extra travel to address your health needs. If nature calls, please feel free to call a taxi (at your own expense).”
Of course urban home owners don’t get notices like that. But rural schools and hospitals do. InWriting Off the Rural West,Roger Epp shows how rural communities are being “de-skilled” by the closure of such capacity-building institutions.
One could assume that this undevelopment is an accidental byproduct of industrial growth. But there is solid evidence that it has its roots in a deliberate, nefarious scheme of social engineering.
InFood Sovereignty,just published, Jim Handy and Carla Fehr examine Britain’s rural to urban migration in the 1600 to 1800s. They carefully document the fact that this migration pattern, now worldwide, was no accident. British industrialists were concerned that their new factories couldn’t find enough cheap urban labour but they couldn’t find rural folks interested in giving up their homes, communities and independence to join the poor urban wage-workers.
The industrialists’ solution, documented in writing, was to dislodge rural people by impoverishing them. A systematic enclosure and sale of the common lands used by British peasants was instituted.
They also generated a campaign (in papers like theEconomist)painting British peasants who stayed on the land as “lazy,” “wretched” and “ignorant.” It worked. Hundreds of thousands left the land.
This pattern parallels our Canadian experience. Though farmers are leaving the land, my research shows them deeply reluctant to leave unless forced out by insolvency.
And sadly, the public portrayal of those who choose to stay has sometimes been pretty noxious.
The 1969 Federal Task Force on Agriculture branded two-thirds of Canadian farmers as (paraphrasing) lazy, stupid and stubborn, urging the government to develop “more effective ways to take men out of farming.”
Let’s make waves to ensure that more Canadian families can enjoy this winter on the land.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon.
