Agriculture

I was born on a farm. Yes, on a wooden table in the kitchen surrounded by midwives and people waving sage. I would like this to go into my official biography, but I was actually born in the old Picton hospital. It was still operating then, so I wasn’t born in an empty hospital, with empty corridors, like in a Stephen King novel. But a proper hospital. I know it was proper, because I am alive.

The fact that I was born into a farming family did not mean I would inherit the job. Farming is hard work, and I was a short and spindly kid who could lift a bale of hay about knee height, so someone else could throw it on the wagon.

I have great memories of almost being killed many times, because farming is also dangerous work. So why do farmers do it? Because it’s in the blood. Because it’s important to our survival. Without farmers, we would be dead. Or worse, living off tofu and seaweed, except for the tofu, which is a soybean derivative. Even the surprisingly popular ‘avocado on toast’ would just be ‘toast’, except for the toast, which is made from wheat and rye. So it would be ‘air’.

SO WHY FARM?
Farmers farm for the same reason I write. They are driven to do what they need to do, and what needs to be done. And there is always much to be done.

Farmers rely heavily on the weather, just as stock market advisors rely on projections that may or may not come true. If things go bad, financial advisors shrug, and invent reasons why this happened. Not so in farming. If a drought comes, doomed. If an early frost comes, doomed. Too much rain at the wrong time, doomed.

Even as a kid, I felt the tension when conditions weren’t right. I swear, after a long drought, we got a heavy rain, and my parents went out in the soaking downpour and danced in the driveway.

When I was 13, I drove a tractor with tomato wagons to Lipson’s factory in Wellington. Too young to drive, but Dad duct-taped 2x4s to the clutch and brake, so everything was good. [Can’t help but think: Now we replace wooden playground slides with plastic ones, so no one gets a splinter. Back then, if you came home alive, that was “Good Work.”]

On the farm, you learned the value of good work. Dad and my older brother took the bulk of the work (me being the aforementioned ‘spindly’), but I was designated jobs which required eyesight and no other skill. That was row-crop cultivating. For those unaware, I drove a Farmall with cultivator tips the width of a corn row; it had fertilizer bins on the side. My job was to run down rows of acres and acres of corn, and not knock the corn down. Every night when I went to sleep, all I could see were corn leaves blowing by me. That’s why they chose me.

I never said to Dad: “I have nothing to do,” or I would end up doing a valve job on a diesel tractor. [On the ‘dangerous’ note, do NOT look at the valve spring when you make the last turn of the wrench.]

THAT WAS FUN
And I beg your indulgence. I did not decide to become a farmer. My parents sat me down and said, “Steve, you are never going to be a farmer.” And I wasn’t even spindly by then. But I knew they were right. Farming was terrifying to me, because farming is complex. It requires brains and drive and strength.

Trouble is, no one knows this. By that I mean no one! Food magically appears. If you are alive, thank a farmer. Some restaurants use locallygrown sources, which is good. In the winter months, we get vegetables packed in Mexico which turn brown before you get them home, and then get recalled for bacteria dangers after you’ve eaten it.

NOW, TO THE POINT
Traditionally I get to my main point round about now. Here it is:

Agriculture built Prince Edward County. It ruled for centuries. We were once known as ‘The Garden County of Canada’. In 1941, 1,500,000 cases of tomatoes were shipped—43 per cent of the total Canadian production. I won’t explore the rise and fall of County canning, as it is well-documented in Doug Crawford’s book County Canners.

Now let’s jump ahead to today. For a long time, agriculture ruled. It was King. It employed more people than our beloved cement plant, whose name I can’t remember, because it changes monthly.

When we decided to attract ‘visitors’ to the County, Council money poured into boosting tourism. I don’t need to tell you how that turned out but, from then on, Tourism was King. I was actually at a meeting in which someone asked: “Shouldnt we include the farmers in this, since we’re a farming community?” No, farmers do what they do, they are not in the mix. Tourism is King. Eventually, this morphed into ‘agritourism’, but I don’t know exactly what that is, other than to toss a bone to a huge segment of our population. What? Pet a goat? Hug a sheep? That’s a petting zoo. Want some real fun? Try milking a cow dry by hand. You won’t be able to pick up a coffee cup for a week. Try throwing a bale of hay over your head.

WHY DOES THIS BUG ME?
Farmers have been underappreciated for years. Putting their work aside, they are a large part of what draws people here. I often say: “Why do people come here? City people can get bars and wineries and restaurants within walking distance of their homes. But here they can have fine wine, great meals and great entertainment, and drive five minutes and be surrounded by cornfields and wheatfields.”

Farmers and farmland are essential to our survival. I know that, and I’m not alone. Now farmland is a commodity. Cropland that can be turned into housing developments. This is not good. It may be profitable to Council, developers and even the landowners themselves, but this is not good.

I have friends in Newmarket. I visit every couple of years. I get lost every time. Everything changes every year; the roads wind around, but don’t connect; every house looks the same as every house on the street. My friend had a problem with his neighbour, so built a 10-ft. fence around his teeny-tiny backyard.

The point of that story is: Everyone (and that means Council, too) should stop dead in their tracks and look around at what really attracts people to the County. Building ticky-tack houses with the same floor plan over a couple of acres is not the answer. Sure, you’ve got problems to solve, but you don’t see what we see.

What you see: Build houses to accommodate the people who want to live here. What we see: We want to be what we are, and were. Adding a thousand new bodies, who have no roots or reason to be here— other than they can afford it—does not necessarily solve any problems.

If we ignore our farmers and the agricultural roots that built the County we want, we will lose everything.

countymag@bellnet.ca