Believe it or not, many people have taken on the attitude that, well, it is never going to happen here so don’t worry about it.
Where did we lose the will to protect our futures? When did we decide to sit back and just let the rest of the population dominate what we are doing?
Protecting the environment, reducing our carbon footprint, we hear it all, and we have been actively changing our ways for years. Yes, once again the government is having discussions about regulating how we prepare for our crop inputs. There is a science behind what we do, we do not just go out and say ‘oh, today I will put this much down,’ there has to be a common-sense approach to this whole global warming, protecting the environment.
As I explained to my cohort, there is a big difference between other types of production and farming. Trying to explain the largest difficulty that farmers face on a yearly basis is not always easy.
Here was my attempt; if you are a manufacturer, you purchase your inventory, this may include materials, and or labour, then you know if you purchase a certain amount of product, you will be able to transform that product into so many items for resale. In farming, we purchase the seed, plant it at the optimal seeding rate, spread the fertilizer, at the optimal rate, spray at the optimal time, and for the weeds that are seen or expected in the field. Everything is done to optimize the production – one difference is – we are not in a controlled environment. Mother Nature plays a very large part in what we do. If there was a way to get her to cooperate every single year, well, farming would be for the faint of heart.
We as the farm community are going to have to start looking past the end of our farm gate; these are rumours, just discussions, but if you watch the recent trends, this will soon be our reality.
Yes, it appears to be true that our farm organizations are aware of these talks, and it is true that we need to be part of these talks but at what point is the production of food and the livelihood of farmers going to be acknowledged?
We get rules for tree cutting, manure application, and the list goes on and on. We all agree that we are in this game of life together and we all need to play a part, but at what point will the leaders and nonfarm members realize that this is not a level playing field, and that we are doing what we can for the betterment of the country.
How is it that we are restricted on clearing land to produce food, yet it is okay to pour gravel and concrete onto our farmland to provide more housing or for a store? Our ancestors must be rolling over in their graves everytime another subdivision is built on land, they worked so hard to put it into production.
We live off the land. We know the impacts of not implementing programs to help with the environment, but we also know that we are not the only contributors to this issue, nor should it be our burden to bear for all of society.
I fear for the future of our next generation of farmers.
