WEBB MEETS THE OFA
The week after our interview, I accompany Webb to a talk she gives at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) annual convention. The OFA, is looking for urban input as it pushes for a national food policy.
Trying to find the right entrance at the hotel complex, Webb says, Let s look for the trucks, then, seeing some, parks her WordPerfect-blue Mini beside a huge Ford F150.
After congratulating OFA president Bette Jean Crews for a kick-ass press release on food policy, Webb talks about the urban-rural disconnect, about farmers with tractors protesting at the provincial legislature, a media that reported on the tractors yet not what was behind them being there. Then, to explain to the audience how she thinks urban consumers perceive farms, she broadly divides farmers into four groups, starting with large corporate farms, and finishing with small, organic farms for which she says urbanites have the most affinity.
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Talk done, the audience gives polite not thunderous applause and questions begin. With a couple of light questions to start things off, it s not clear whether Webb has caused much debate. But the last couple of questioners say up front that they re ready to rant. And they do. They don t like what Webb had to say and one accuses Webb of making a presentation that is polarizing, an accusation that generates a loud applause from some audience members. Later, Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) vice-president Laurent Pellerin is equally hostile, saying, I hate that, as he talks about the idea of looking at small farms versus large farms.
Later, when delegates take the microphone to give input towards food policy proposals, there is some echoing of points Webb made. And I overhear someone apologizing to her for the angry rants, saying, I m sorry, I know people shoot the messenger. By the time we leave, I ve seen her chatting with a few farmers who have approached her.
As we drive past the entrance, a couple of delegates who are out for a smoke look away until we ve passed, prompting her to say, Some people are so mad at me they don t want to look at me.
winning a 1999 Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, she spent time apprenticing in Los Angeles. She currently teaches magazine writing at Ryerson University, is working on a screenplay, and works as a freelance writer.
Farm writer in the city
It occurred to me that in writing about Webb for a farm magazine, I might get some dirty looks in farm circles. After all, Webb is still very much an urbanite, and she s a big proponent of local and organic food systems. But then I think about her point about preconceptions.
I wondered too, if I d meet with a haughty food writer or a standoffish contrarian. But Webb is very frank and quite personable. She s even apologetic that the caf she chose is too loud.
She s pleased that I ve taken an interest in her ideas, saying, I found it interesting because when I wrote a good-news book about farming and agriculture& it did generate a fair amount of publicity in the mainstream press, but I was really quite shocked and disappointed that the farm press didn t respond to that book. She sits up straight, adding earnestly, It s a hopeful message in my book.
Webb wonders whether the initial lack of farm media attention stems from her focus on alternative and local agriculture. Her book was about people operating outside of what she calls energy-dependent conventional agriculture, and despite being a good-news story, her subjects farm on the fringes. But along with the good news, she tells the bad, saying, Canadian farmers are suffering through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Shockingly, few of us know that crisis even exists.
I check in with her following her stint on AgVision TV, which is filmed the day after our meeting. I expected a rough ride, but I also expected objective journalism, which was probably too much to expect from a show sponsored by Syngenta, she says, obviously put off by the experience.
Webb isn t apologetic if her Crisis on the Farm series in the Toronto Star sounds alarmist. She believes there are major hurdles to overcome in the agrifood system. When I ask whether the series has generated more response from the farm media than her book, she nods, saying Oh, absolutely.
That response is no surprise. The corn and soybean article, entitled Where They Grow Our Junk Food, looks at commodity-based agriculture, its relation to processed foods, and how it affects the environment. This is the kind of stuff that might make even the most thoughtful steward of the land a little bit uneasy.
On line after line, most farmers want to object, saying the story is selective, or misleading, or biased.
Yet whether the specific facts are as black and white as Webb says, or whether they re in context or out of it, the big story behind her reporting is just how widespread her audience is, and how her insights are backed up by people with impressive credentials.
Unfortunately, there is a real disconnect between agriculture, food and health, Webb quotes the University of Toronto s David Jenkins one of the top nutritional researchers in Canada in her Toronto Star junk-agriculture piece. We ve compartmentalized too long.
If Webb isn t always completely right, maybe she isn t always completely wrong either.
In another article, Webb tells readers, If you re eating organic turkey this weekend, savour it, because by next Thanksgiving it may be easier to buy crack cocaine in Ontario than a drug-free bird. In this piece, she looks at bureaucracy that leaves organic turkey farmers in limbo: Canadian Food Inspection Agency rules mandate organic turkeys be raised outdoors while Turkey Farmers of Ontario requires quota holders to confine all turkeys indoors.
You don t understand!
The urban-rural divide is a real problem, says Webb as we discuss urban-rural relations. Part of the blame, she thinks, lies with urbanites. I think people in the city have always been concerned about food but haven t made the connection between food and farming, she explains. That doesn t necessarily mean there s a lack of interest, she adds, saying, Urban folks are having food meetings all over the city& and trying to learn about the food system and farming.
But if urban consumers are starting to think more about food, that might be part of the disconnect. Nodding, Webb says, When they find out (how food is raised), they have a lot of issues.
Having issues is a two-way street. Webb recounts meeting a group of beef farmers concerned about the possible collapse of their industry. Webb brought up the urban interest in organic, but they had
