ST. ALBERT, Alta. — Barry Wilson, the Western Producer’s long-time but now retired Ottawa reporter, used to tell me that throughout his career he insisted he was a political reporter who covered agriculture.
Put him on a farm, Wilson joked while we once covered an agriculture committee meeting, and he’d starve.
His words stuck with me, and I’ve often repeated them in the two years that I’ve covered agriculture and its politics.
If I’m being honest, I’d put myself in the same category.
Read Also
Proactive approach best bet with looming catastrophes
The Pan-Canadian Action Plan on African swine fever has been developed to avoid the worst case scenario — a total loss ofmarket access.
I grew up in the city. My father is an accountant, my mother stayed at home. None of my extended family, going back several generations, farmed.
The closest connection my brother, sister and I had to agriculture was through my mother’s best friend and maid-of-honour, whose parents farm in Macklin, Sask.
My mom and dad piled us into the van once and took us to the farm in an attempt to teach us about where our food comes from. It was a fabulous visit, but I was still young, and I really only remember watching the chickens scratch in their coop and the hours spent playing with the barn cats.
Tears flowed when Mom said I couldn’t bring one of them home with me.
There is a real disconnect between folks in the city and agriculture, which is growing by the day.
It’s a disconnect I know first-hand.
Before I started working as a reporter, I could tell you what a cow looked like and was pretty confident the yellow flowered crop blooming all around us was canola, until someone once told me the field I thought was canola was actually yellow mustard.
My lack of knowledge didn’t mean I was less interested in agriculture. In fact, I was often embarrassed by how little I knew about an industry that was such an integral part of the Canadian economy. I know many of my friends feel it, too.
Two years later, I like to think I know more than I did when I first started, but I’ll leave that up to the industry to judge.
Still, I know there is so much more for me to learn, which is why when iPolitics asked me to stay in Alberta for a few extra weeks, I told my mother I was going to try visiting some farms.
It was time for a crash course in Farming 101.
A route was mapped out with help from a few contacts in Ottawa, the cooler was packed and my brother volunteered to be my chauffeur.
First on our list was D’arcy Hilgartner’s 9,000 acre mixed grain farm near Camrose.
We pulled into the yard after driving past the township road turnoff four times and then D’arcy took us through the basics for the next two and half hours.
We inspected the dozens of tubes on his air seeder, nodding as he explained how seeding worked.
We scampered into the cab of the tractor, listening as he told us about the impact technology and hydraulics has had on modern agriculture.
We crouched under the back of the combine to see how grain was harvested. All of us, including the dog, piled into the farm truck to check out the fields. I’d never seen a fababean field before or what flea beetles can do to a canola field.
My brother and I learned more in those two and a half hours than a YouTube video will ever teach us.
The next stop was CityLifeFarms, a small cattle and mixed livestock operation owned by a family friend who quit his job in the city and moved his young family to the country.
There, I held a two-day-old chick for the first time since kindergarten. I’d forgotten how soft they were, how they nestled into the palm of your hand.
Then it was off to Sylvan Lake for a visit with Allison Ammeter and her husband, Mike, at their 2,000 acre grain farm. My mother came along for this visit, where we saw Ag in the Classroom and held barley, oats, wheat, canola, peas, and lentils in our hand.
We explored Allison’s empty grain bins, learned how the harvest works and talked about how proposed policy changes such as those regarding Occupational Health and Safety might affect the farm.
As we drove home, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much I had learned in the last week. My mother and brother, both classic city-folk, said the same.
The disconnect between the farm and the city is real, but after a week spent in the country, I’m even more certain it’s a gap that can be filled.
