Shades of Grain

Report from beyond our sprawling fringe:

A few weeks ago, myself and two other City Seed aggies took the weekend to tour farms in the area of Clinton in Huron County (2.5 hours north of here). Until this point, we had mostly been interacting with small- and medium- scale farm operations. Not so, in Clinton. It’s all about BIG GRAIN up here. We’re talking 100s and 100s of acres per farm.

I enjoy checking out the rural scene. We, as urbanites, are so disconnected from the issues that plague the farmers that surround us. And they from us. It’s nice to find out what’s up out there beyond our sprawling fringe.

Interesting things:

On the U.S. When it comes to big grain, the U.S. is top dog, and we are but a flea upon its back. Yet the Canadian government, when it comes to big grain, acts as if the U.S. doesn’t exist. “Our government supports us nil, and we are 50 kilometres straight east of Michigan. In grain, Ontarians are absolutely worse off than our American counterparts. In the senate, California has 28 million people with 2 senators, North Dakota has under 1 million with 2 senators. Nebraska has 2 senators. Iowa has 2 senators. So what Iowa wants, Iowa gets. Go figure.”

On biofuels. “My pet peeve of the day is biofuels. Try to explain to a starving child that her interests have been well-served by having 4 billion bushels of corn go into ethanol. You can’t.”

On conflict between eastern and western Canada. “We don’t know what we’re doing. Never have, never will. We had the three western premiers saying recently “We need more export-oriented stuff.” Eastern Canadian premiers said, “No, we don’t need exports, we need to protect our dairy and poultry. We’ve got a classic case of… put it this way, Canadian agricultural policy is the policy equivalent of constipation. Nothing goes anywhere.”

On income stability. We sat down with a guy that does the taxes for about 90 farmers up there. Only 2 of the 90 farm full-time, while everybody else earns the majority of their income from other sources – like carpentry, brick-laying, plumbing, etc. That’s the reality of farming in Canada.

So that is what is up in Clinton!