Agriculture doesn’t drive the economy. At least, it doesn’t drive the economy the way so many farmers and farm leaders used to think.
It’s a good thing too. And now that we know it, we can turn it to our advantage.
Not long ago we saw charts at almost every farm meeting showing how $1 of farm income becomes $7 of gross national product. The numbers sometimes varied but the point was always the same: the only way Canada can thrive is if its farmers thrive.
Read Also
Producers aren’t panicking over tariffs and trade threats
The Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) surveyed its members this spring to get a sense of how trade uncertainty was…
Farmers don’t keep their money, the argument said. They spend it. More than that, really, they create it. All the rest of the economy consists of simply trading on the riches harvested by miners, loggers, fishers and farmers.
As theory, the words were very fine, even noble.
Except, you have to wonder where all those charts are now. There are as many opinions about recent economic cycles as there are economists — that, at least, has not changed — but you’ll find precious few writing books about how agriculture drove the economic boom of the last 20 years. Nor can agriculture explain the burgeoning Chinese and Indian economies, or the roller coaster ride of the last six months.
But why should this be bad news?
What it means at bottom is that wealth is created by human energy. Wealth is reaped by smart people, acting in their own self-interest, whether they’re working on ag commodities or the latest clothing fashions.
Which is exactly agriculture’s greatest boast. There are more smarts per acre of Canadian farmland than there are bushels of wheat or corn.
The upshot is that it has been absolutely wrong for farmers to seek separation from the rest of the world, as many ag policies have sought to do in the last 20 years.
We’ve railed against countryside severances and we’ve set up bureaucracies to protect farmers from complaints (ignoring the fact that most complaints against farm practices come from other farmers).
We’ve divorced ourselves from the rest of Canada by focusing on our differences, never our similarities, so now, at more and more meetings we get together and wonder why consumers are so ignorant about agriculture.
Many of our most astute farmers, however, are also wondering how much more exciting agriculture could be if we could connect with entrepeneurial energies in other sectors.
The energy and intelligence that agriculture can contribute is phenomenal. Why are we keeping it under a bushel?
Lets all resolve that the only time we should say “Farmers are the only ones who…” is when we say, “Farmers are the only ones who can tear down the walls we’ve built.”
Let me know what you think. I’m at [email protected],or 519 674-1449.
