Western Producer staff
Rural Canada represents a large area but a minority of people in the country. We do our best to supply the products that are demanded by the consumers. We must continue on getting the positive support we deserve and not all the extras that are giving us a bad name… Rural Canada is a very important part of Canada’s economy and some positive support is necessary.
– Julie Hadwin,
Consort, Alta.
If Canada’s agriculture industry is to continue to do all that is expected of it, that is to feed Canadians, to earn export credits and to fill its role in reducing hunger throughout the world, Canadian farmers will need the support and the understanding of all Canadians – urban as well as rural.
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– Jennifer Barton,
Vankleek Hill, Ont.
These are simple words, expressing relatively simple sentiments. The farm economy is important to the country and deserves support, even from government.
They are not the pleadings of farm lobbyists with an attachment to subsidies of the past. They are not the voices of politicians mouthing clichŽs nor of bureaucrats, hell-bent these days on proving their theory that farmers should live off the market without expecting special government support.
These are the voices of young rural people, active in 4-H and anxious to see rural Canada preserved and the farm economy maintained.
They are among 16 winners of Farm Credit Corporation scholarships to help pay for post-secondary education, all of whom had to write an essay on a rural topic. They are excerpts from those essays.
Jennifer, Julie and several others tackled the topic: “Why support rural Canada?”
Their conclusions are interesting, in part for the somewhat unsullied view of rural life that they offer and in part because of their conclusion that rural Canada is vulnerable right now.
It was a recurring theme.
“Whether through a vote in a ballot box or choosing between produce at the grocery store, each of us can support or abandon rural Canada,” wrote Andy Preto of Victoria, B.C.
The alternative, he said, was Canadian dependence on imported food of questionable safety and quality.
While proclaiming pride in what farmers have accomplished, Ontario’s Barton said they cannot do it alone. “The only possible way that rural Canada can keep up with the demands that are being placed on it is through the support of each and every Canadian, including our government, for years to come.”
Hadwin made the same point, but with an Alberta spin. Farmers will always need some support because of the uncertainty of weather. But there should be limits.
“Because of this variable, farmers are entitled to some sort of subsidies but not so lazy, unethical farmers are created.”
Federal and provincial safety net negotiators, mired in the subtleties of inter-governmental power games, bureaucratic nuance and manufactured complexities, would do well to remember that common sense doesn’t have to be that complicated.
