Points from letters >>>The following are excerpts from some of the e-mail you sent in response to our special June/July GuidePost issue with our tour to meet farmers across Canada. Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated. I’m at [email protected],or you can reach me at 519-674-1449.
Beside supply management
If Oxford County is an agricultural “powerhouse” because of supply management, it should be noted that powerhouses are never well-liked, and are rarely, if ever, missed — especially when, as in supply management, the “power” is restricted, by legislated entitlement, to only a select few.
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Your article (June/July 2009) should have included an interview with at least one Oxford County farmer who has spent the last 40 years being out-gunned, out-muscled and outbid, at every turn, by supply management — assuming he or she hasn’t long since given up in disgust, and moved elsewhere.
Stephen Thompson Clinton Ont.
Same story, thank heavens
I read the article about Matthieu Barbeau (June/July 2009) and I found it brought back a lot of memories of how my wife and I got started farming.
I too did not grow up on a farm. The negatives were all the same from all who were involved in agricuture, be it other farmers or lending agents. We started the same way 35 years ago by finding a farmer who wanted to slow down before retiring but was willing to sell a quarter section and carry the first morgage.
The house on the property was very small with four rooms and most of the windows and doors removed because it had been used as a place to extract honey. The company I worked for had finally given permission to live within a two mile radius of the place of work as long as I provided a private telephone. We lived in the house for five years before building, with no central heat or sewer and we started with two children under three years and a third born while living in this house.
Times were tough, but we were determined. After about a year we bought two milk cows. Then we bought 10 gilts and fed them the skim milk then a boar, then two more cows and so on, including some chicks which later provided eggs which my wife delivered for sale. This we did for almost six years while trying to get a loan to build a dairy barn, and I remember saying I could make out five-year projections in my sleep.
Today we own about 1,000 acres and milk about 150 cows with our youngest daughter and her husband and six grandchildren on the farm.
I know times have changed but I still believe that if one is determined, and above all has a partner who shares this, you can succeed.
Jim Towle, Innisfail, Alta.
