Sometimes I wonder, “What box of Cracker Jacks did he get his degree in?” When we were in school we learned to read and write and were made to understand that more education was better. We also learned that the farther up the . . .
education ladder we climbed the better off financially we would be.
As we go through life, we begin to realize that sometimes just because a person has a degree proudly displayed on the wall, maybe it was that paper that got the person a job that the paper cannot successfully handle. When a person like that gets a position of authority the advice and direction given may cost individuals and even communities and countries dearly.
Farmers have been advised and even forced by financial and agricultural advisors, who have those papers proudly displayed on the wall, to pay into some programs that will never pay back in their mixed farming operation.
Crop advisors have led some farmers to adopt fertilizer and spray programs that seem to give great results for a few years but may lock up some other necessary elements in the soil for years. Some countries have even refused Canadian produce because some of these additives have been detected.
Animal producers have been advised to use certain hormones, antibiotics and practices but later found out that they caused health problems to the animal and the public. Luckily most farmers are smart enough to notice problems before going too far. Often the farmer notices the problem long before their advisors do and change practices immediately.
Even though we now have a health care system that employs more people and costs more than farming and food, there are more and more people visiting doctors, clinics, and hospitals.
Our society has progressed from a few rooms in the doctor’s home being used as a hospital and the doctor’s wife assisting in operations and delivering some of us into this world, to bigger and bigger more advanced hospitals. As we now observe some emergency rooms, operating rooms and even obstetrics being shut down. We wonder how this practice will improve our community. We also wonder how many people will die while in transport to the next hospital.
Some of these changes in our health care system have been initiated by the governments that make the laws. Some changes have been made by one of those administrators with one of those papers on his wall. Meanwhile, babies are being delivered in the back seat of a car by firemen, passersby, and fathers that may not have that paper on the wall. Rural medicine is different than what is expected in heavily populated cities.
Maybe this old farmer is just too simple in the way he thinks.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
