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.
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.
Read Also
Editor’s Note: No pressure
What is your playbook going into this year’s crop? Not an easy question to answer right now, given the global…
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.
