I always enjoy writing for the Humboldt Journal’s agriculture specials.
As someone who grew up on a farm but is becoming more and more disconnected from farm life, it gives me a unique look at all the new things going on in the world of agriculture.
I go to conference after conference, and there is always something new that producers are talking about and new issues they are facing from government policy or the environment.
Yet, besides the ideas portrayed by media regarding farm life, what does the average person see when they go to the grocery store and see the food grown by farmers?
Do they look at carrots and see the hours of work farmers put in away from their family?
Do they pick up a loaf of bread and ask themselves whether farmers are getting a good price for the grain they grew to make that bread?
Larry Durand, owner and agronomist with Field Good Agronomics Ltd., was happy to speak about Agriculture Day on Feb. 13, which was formed to allow people to connect with the agriculture world.
According to Statistics Canada in the 2016 Census on Agriculture, “Saskatchewan accounted for more than two-fifths of Canada’s total field crop acreage with 36.7 million acres, more than Alberta and Manitoba combined.”
We do not have this farmer to consumer disconnect as much in rural Saskatchewan, since many farmers provide opportunities to connect with urban neighbours while providing educational opportunities at local schools.
This is not the story in other areas of the country.
People not knowing where their food comes from can be dangerous for policy making.
“There’s quite a bit of misinformation out there and for that reason..it’s important that we talk about how food is grown and what responsible production is and what agriculture is doing to meet all the food needs of the world” says Durand in our recent story regarding Agriculture Safety Day.
If consumers are misinformed about where their food comes from, there is a danger in not knowing the work and knowledge that goes into food production.
This does not help the country bumpkin, dumb farmer stereotype.
As Ed White wrote for the Western Producer in 2017, the dumb farmer stereotype was rampant in the 1970s and 1980s. receding a bit in the 1990s, and not heard much in the 2000s.
Farming is too complex for farmers to succeed without a wealth of farm knowledge, White says.
“Farming is too demanding, too risky, too multi-faceted to allow a true dummy to survive. At one time, millions of people farmed Western Canada, but now most farming is done by a few thousand families who have survived the brutal hammer strokes of agricultural economics.”
Durand says that stereotype may still exist in urban areas because, “it does seem that the greater society sometimes feels they know better how farmers should farm than farmers do.”
This comes back to the dumb farmer stereotype which, while completely unfounded, is still playing a role in attitudes toward farming. But when it comes to growing crops, very few people know more than a successful farmer.
Whether it is the public or policy makers, the best thing they can do is ask questions at the source.
If anyone has questions about their food, asking a farmer should be part of their research.
