The guest opinion column in The Guardian of August 6 by Lloyd Kerry titled, "Cut the farmer some slack in debate over pesticides," started with the sentence, "Hardly a day goes by without seeing a cry in the media on how the farming industry on P.E.I. is poisoning Islanders with tons of pesticides." As much as I dislike pesticides, I agree that farmers need be given some slack as they weren't the ones that made agricultural policy or designed the curriculum in ag colleges and universities.
That first paragraph continued, "In her letter ("Pathway of poisons is expensive') Sandra Boswell warns of the poisons governments allow people to put on their lawns and fields. She mentions side effects: ‘anorexia, vomiting, muscle weakness, slowed heart rate, etc.' This is true, and more debate needs to take place on the use and misuse of pesticides." Yes, there needs be honest dialogue.
Kerry concluded his commentary, "So maybe we should cut the farmer a little slack. Take that pointing finger out of the farmer's face and use it to shake his hand. If you worked day and night all year long and made just enough money to get the banker off your back until next cropping season, you'd probably walk away after a year or two. Do our farmers? No. Why not? I have no idea, but thank God they don't walk away. You worry about food being grown here? What happens if all farmers walked away and suddenly all your food comes from ‘offshore'? Then you'll really have something to worry about."
At one point Kerry wrote, "Who do you suppose forced the farmer into using all those chemicals? We did." I disagree. If there be need of blame and apportioning I would say most of the blame for the proliferation and dependence on unecological inputs belongs to the Departments of Agriculture along with ag colleges and universities, and the cost/price squeeze imposed on farmers by the bigger "players" in the agri-food business.
The majority of consumers are to blame only in so far as most consumers formerly never took any thought as to how food was produced and where it was produced, and why. On the flip side, some non-farming consumers took more interest in the politics of food than many a farmer, as most farmers had their nose to the grindstone and that isn't a great position for seeing the bigger picture and the longer term consequences of mis-education.
Just last week the fortieth anniversary issue of Acres U.S.A. arrived and it contained a reprint of what was in effect the mission statement from the first issue. Forty years ago Charles Walters Jr. stated, "At least partially, the farm industry has had the misfortune of having been led badly . . . The time has come for thinkers in the industry to make their voices heard. Those who produce food for market and those who produce it for their own survival must be alerted to the dangers and possibilities that lie ahead . . . Too long, the thinking and ides that affect the topsoil of our nation have come from pedants and industrial practitioners who keep looking for a fast buck at the expense of posterity. So far this mediocrity and lack of vision have led nowhere, even when accompanied by good intentions and honest ignorance. Our exploitative type of agriculture is a disgrace and must be corrected quickly."
Evidently it hasn't been corrected quickly but Lloyd Kerry's suggestion that more debate is needed is useful only if it leads to the needed changes.
In his 2007 book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations David R. Montgomery quoted historian Avery Craven pointing out that, "Men may because of ignorance or habit ruin their soils, but more often economic or social conditions entirely outside their control lead or force them to a treatment of their lands that can only end in ruin."
A few years back the National Farmers' Union magazine had in it an article on the globalization of hope. Although not found in that article, some relatively few quoted words of the late Martin Luther King Jr. speak of the globalization of hope. Those few quoted words speak of even a larger hope than his famous "I have a dream" speech as clearly that famous speech speaks of the United States only, whereas his words: "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits," speak of food for the body, mind and spirit of all people everywhere.
We as a province and a country can continue on the present road with fewer and fewer farmers who are locked into a very exploitive agriculture until there are none left, except possibly corporate farms – or we as citizens of a democratic country can try to discern the best pathways to what would be in the best interests of both consumers and farmers, as well as the environment, of course. Prescott Burgh declared that, "We are a culture that is successful by any measure but not every measure. Our children and grandchildren shall judge us not only by what we build, but also by what we destroy, and what kind of environment and culture we preserve for their creative use."
The triple whammy of a globally exploitive agriculture in which farmers receive too small a share of the consumers' food dollar – forcing them into using unecological practices – combined with consumers who don't really understand what farmers are up against, and the over-regulation of farmers by out-of-touch lawmakers and regulators could well force many farmers out of business.
And I don't think I need elaborate as to the consequences of the loss of too many farmers at a time when global food reserves are already too low and climate change makes it tougher and tougher to produce food.