Suggested reading
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink. The Wal-mart Effect by Charles Fishman.
The future is manageable. That’s the key message that Ken Knox wants to deliver. It’s only manageable, however, if you can read the road signs.
Knox is busy painting those signs for everyone to read. A former Ontario deputy minister of agriculture who still farms with his daughter and son-in-law on the family farm where he was raised, here’s what he sees.
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On the rate of change
Whenever you doubt the rate of change, look backward, Knox says. “It’s only been 60 years since we electrified rural Ontario,” he points out. Agriculture has embraced such a dizzying amount of change, you’d have said it was impossible if you didn’t know we’ve actually done it. Yet now, change will come at us from every conceivable direction, not just technology. Demographics will change, perhaps the climate too. Sums up Knox: “The rate of change is exponential.”
People are politics
“In 2006 alone, 89,000 people immigrated to the Greater Toronto Area, but there were only 57,000 farmers in all of Ontario. There are more immigrants to the GTA in a single year than there are farmers.”
The shrinking farm population means farmers have less political clout, Knox adds. That’s been true for a long time, but the trend will intensify. “Subsidies will diminish.”
A new culture of food
“It will become politically incorrect to buy a bag of potato chips… like what happened with smoking,” Knox predicts.
With an aging population, more people will pay more attention to what they eat. They will want to eat healthy to stay healthy. There will be opportunity for farmers to grow “the healthy choice for this aging population who have money.”
And new foods too
Almost half the people living in Toronto today were born in another country, with the majority coming from India and China. This creates huge markets for ethnic foods not previously grown in Canada, especially because this trend toward diversity will be coupled with the local food trend.
“I think local food has legs,” says Knox, who envisions video display terminals in grocery stores so consumers can scan a bar code to learn the origin of their produce. This could include where it was grown, the farm name, what kind of practices were used to grow it, even pictures of the farmer.
A consumer would be able to see all of the attributes of that farm before they make a decision whether to buy.
“What image do you want your farm to have?” asks Knox. “You have the potential to build your own brand.”
Brazil, Brazil, Brazil
“We can’t compete as low-cost providers,” says Knox. “We can’t compete with a Brazil that is also moving into livestock production.” We’re going to have to move into more specialized agriculture.
There isn’t room for everyone who’s farming now. Farm size is growing and there are fewer farmers. Knox advises farmers to look for value-added opportunities. “We have huge advantages if we’re willing to exploit them. But so many farm families are still trying to be low-cost providers.”
The value of older farmers
Retiring farmers have expertise they can provide to younger farmers. As the number of farms shrinks, the expertise locked in the heads of these older farmers will become crucial, and our success as a country will depend in part on how good we are at finding ways to unlock that resource. Older farmers will be willing, Knox says. They will be able to continue to contribute to society and keep mentally active.
Education
What kind of education would farmers most benefit from… technology? business? None of the above, says Knox. “My thinking on this changes every decade,” he says. “In the early 1900s it was understood that we needed a good agricultural school so we created the Ontario Agricultural College and the colleges at Kemptville and Ridgetown. Then we said farming’s a business so you need an MBA.
“Today I would want my kids to take the arts, and I define the arts pretty broadly. The future of our family farm will be my granddaughter’s ability to be creative, to be nimble of mind. She will need to change every five years, as will most farmers.”
Building on optimism
Our job is to build on knowledge, and to become managers of the future. Knox concludes our interview with a quote from Abraham Lincoln that he considers a capsule of solid advice for today’s farmers. “The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.” CG
