An old saying, “When someone throws you a lemon, make lemonade,” still holds true.
I had planned all week to relax on Sunday, sitting in the park, where in this time when COVID-19 is still a threat and social distancing would be easy, listening to . . .
some great local music would be a safe, relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Well, Sunday was another greatly needed rainy day but not for relaxing in a lawn chair in the park. When two retired farm wives decided Sunday, those two old farming families should relax touring together, the shower had stopped and Music In The Park was back on.
By the time we arrived at the swinging bridge park it was raining again, so we just sat in full view of the stage but dry, in the truck. Music was still great with local entertainers happy to entertain in a covered band shell and the rain quit too.
Later after supper at a restaurant managed by another old friend, we went on a crop tour of our Ontario farmers just over the Ottawa River. It was very enlightening to watch some farms transformed into large dairy or crop farms while beside them were other farms operated by farmers who still used horses to do the heavy work. Both the large farms with giant tractors and the little farms using horses were well kept and their crops and animals looked equally good.
We saw huge hundred acre fields of perfectly tended corn, beans, and alfalfa. Only a mile away, we also saw a field with hundreds of huge stones as big as a tractor with lush green grass pastured by fat sheep and cattle. Although it would be impossible to plant this field of huge stones in crops of grain or corn, it was being farmed successfully by a farmer who made the best use of this land that most people would call a useless farm, by keeping animals.
Humanity has advanced through thousands of years by adapting to whatever we encounter. Farmers are quite used to accepting whatever weather, soils, topography or consumers demand. On the exact opposite end, farmers are long term planners, trying to supply the crops that they think the world will want to buy months after they will plant them. Animal farmers plan and spend fortunes building dairy, beef, hog or chicken barns that take years to pay for hoping that the prices will remain constant that long.
Unfortunately, many of our world leaders work in short term economics that force price changes by the second. Many politicians make decisions based on getting re-elected in a few months’ time while many items that we eat or buy are produced by companies or farmers who are financed over decades. Sometimes little or no thought is given about the cost of these decisions on future generations.
Luckily for the public, some people had enough vision to create marketing boards that look at past history of consumer buying trends, the cost of producing various products or foods, transportation and marketing costs and they try to buffer any large changes in farm-gate prices. This also guarantees the consumer a consistent supply that they need.
Ellard Powers was one of those visionaries who was an early member of the Canadian Dairy Commission. He was one of the farm leaders who worked with former minister of agriculture, (Eugene Whalen) to create the Canadian supply management system for milk and eggs. In former years, some years had surpluses that couldn’t be sold or even given away. Those surpluses were shipped out to sea on ships and dumped into the ocean. During years of shortage, dairy products had to be imported at high prices.
When COVID-19 threw the entire world into chaos, many huge dairies in the US went bankrupt leaving their dairy farmer milk suppliers with no place to sell their milk. Some of these dairy farmers also went bankrupt while others took their own lives.
In Canada, some farms were instructed by their milk board to dump milk when the processing sector couldn’t get the dairy products to the consumers. Because of the marketing system in Canada, all dairy farmers shared equally in the cost of a few farmers directed to dump milk. Soon the farmers’ milk boards found dairies who could process this surplus milk into cheese or butter which could be stored until needed. They also donated dairy supplies to food banks who helped keep out-of-work families fed. Each dairy farmers milk quota was reduced a little to meet the consumer demand.
All the people in the world are learning how to work more efficiently, many using new computer and email technology from home. Both employees and firms that employed them have realized that many people can work more efficiently from home and the employees don’t spend time and money traveling to and from work. Fewer cars on the road and vacationing closer to home has caused the entire oil industry to re-calibrate. The inevitable coming of more electric vehicles, cars, trucks and even tractors will cause even more long term economic thinking.
In my grandfather’s day, sourcing and buying local was a way of life. This COVID-19 upheaval has made us all think that supporting local still has its advantages.
Short term economics has had its day. Time to think a little farther ahead.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
