Like never before since WWII, we are seeing the extreme of givers and takers. In every community, we can name people who are continually involved in helping others. Here, we have 4-H, Lions, Rotary, many church go-ers, and volunteers in dozens of organizations where time is donated to help others. We also see it in our farming community where many farmers donate their time to make sure that the food we eat is produced as efficiently as possible, so every person has access to healthy affordable food. Yes, food is expensive, but in North America, our consumers spend a lower per cent of their income to buy food than any other country in the world!
Most of our farmers agree that we are but temporary custodians of our grandchildren’s land. Our farmers feel that we must leave our land, rented or owned, in better condition than when we started. Some of the farmers that do not have anyone to take over the farm after they get too old begin to act like miners who just use up the good in the farm, and then sell or rent it to some unsuspecting farmer. If those people go to church, they are not getting anything out of the sermons!
The way countries are run are much the same. Most countries donate food or expertise to “have not” countries to help them through droughts, famine, or just periods when those countries are missing guidance in basic irrigation, maintaining organic matter in the soil, or expertise in animal care and feeding. Sometimes donating food only makes their own farmers go broke because their own food is so scarce that the price is more than consumers can afford and dumping in free food only makes it harder for their already poor farmers and they go broke.
What the country really needs is expertise in best use of water and cropping practice. Donating our best GMO seeds doesn’t help either, because they cannot afford fertilizer, sprays, or even buying new seed next year. They rely on using their own seed for next year’s crop, and GMO grain cannot be used again next year because it reverts back to the seed varieties that the GMO seed was bred from.
Unfortunately, some countries cut off aid to the countries in most dire need, thinking only of their own country. Often the grain that was grown in countries that use their own seed year after year is higher in nutrient density than new modern GMO grain donated from another modern country. A very large per cent of the farmers in the world cannot afford fertilizer, crop sprays, or even new seed every year. I only learned this at a world agriculture congress a few years ago in Alberta.
Many countries have worked together to grow, manufacture, and trade crops, machinery, cars, oil, minerals, and other products that they are better at than some other country. Some countries want to impose trade tariffs on other countries to compensate for bad decisions made in their own country in years gone by. The countries that have had those trade tariffs imposed on them will never forget.
Some countries like Canada have implemented supply management to assure Canadians a safe, secure supply of some food products while avoiding “dumping” surplus food into the world market which often disrupts farmers in other countries from making a living. Some farming requires years of planning and growth to build an efficient production facility (like milk, chicken, or egg farms).
Warmer countries like New Zealand do not need barns and can switch production from milk to crops and back quickly. In our climate, farmers have to build milking barns and storage facilities for hay and other feed to keep steady production throughout the year. Much of New Zealand’s milk production is seasonal when cows just eat grass and milk is turned into butter which can be stored and sold or exported throughout the year. A creamery or cheese plant in New Zealand can just shut their doors when the cows go dry because there is no cold winter. A few New Zealand farmers have barns and store winter feed for the animals. Those few farmers receive a higher price for their milk (like in Canada) so they can supply a steady supply of milk for their small population.
In Canada, most dairy farms in the ‘50s only milked in summer but their cows went dry in the fall. Those farms supplied milk for butter and cheese. Grandpa and Arthur Dagg milked cows all year long and delivered milk and cream in Shawville all year long. There used to be creameries that made butter when the seasonal farms produced cream. The local creameries still had to be heated in the winter, and bought butter from New Zealand when they couldn’t produce what was needed. Some years, New Zealand didn’t have butter for these plants. Trade is great when all countries co-ordinate their supply and work together. Sometimes there is a country that tries to take advantage of everyone else and that’s where we are today.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family
