The Feb. 3 issue ofThe Western Producerhad a front-page article titled “Land a wise choice for investors, farmers”.
It’s the kind of headline which makes me start muttering to myself.
The article starts out more or less stating that farmers can expect to live poor and die rich having sold their land … It was a sad day when land became nothing more than a commodity.
The future of food production is in jeopardy around any of our boom-towns. The signs go up, “Prime development land for sale”.
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Oh, it’s prime all right, often rich soil which has raised cattle and crops for over 100 years. Once it is developed, there won’t be a mouthful of food grown on it.
Then, as people in the city see all that the boom is bringing, such as increased crime and drug pushing, they want to move out into the country. They shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking the criminals don’t visit farms and acreages.
The developers will have paved the way for them. Usually from another province, these people show up with a wad of tempting cash and buy up pasture land/wildlife land, parceling it into acreages.
The nearby cattle owner who could have added it to his/her cattle grazing program hasn’t a chance. They can’t afford to invest in it.
The wild creatures which have lived there for generations will be disrupted or completely displaced. Road kills increase in boom areas, and the media call the wild animals a hazard. Just who is the hazard?
People with money seem to think they deserve a view, that they have the right to put pavement on paradise.
Lakes which once had little cabins hidden in the bush now are almost obscured by three car garage mansions where the native trees and undergrowth have been destroyed and replaced with tracts of sod, and a huge ride-on mower.
Some people hold our Charter of Rights and Freedoms up as a model, although I’m still waiting for a Charter of Responsibilities. When will we have a Charter for the Land?
Oh, I forgot: it’s a commodity and if someone from the United Arab Emirates shows up and wants to invest in the last chunk of untouched land to build a giant wild west home, who cares that it means an end to the untouched land.
Mind you, the foreign owned oil companies have already done something similar. Money talks. The land is silent, just as we are supposed to be when the investment people roll in.
C.D. Pike,Waseca, Sask.
