Estevan and area’s salute to farmers has again fixed the spotlight on Saskatchewan’s major industry. Please note, we did not state it was one of Saskatchewan’s major industries, but rather, THE major industry.
No matter how we cut it, agriculture is the heart of what we do here. There is a reason why it was labelled the wheat province over 100 years ago.
Naturally it’s much more than wheat now.
Saskatchewan’s Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart, hit the right button last Thursday evening in Estevan during the Farmer Appreciation event, as he reiterated a few facts.
Saskatchewan brought canola to the farming community a few decades ago. That is just one of those facts that seems to have been forgotten at times.
Saskatchewan producers aren’t afraid to try new crops, new ideas or new equipment. In fact, they invent half of them in barns, tool sheds and quonsets across the province. Farms and ranches are located pretty well everywhere except for the far north and even those communities resort to the land and water for harvests of a different kind.
In other words, we rely on our biggest renewable resource, our fertile land, to back up all our other economic ventures whether it be, mining for coal, potash, gold, diamonds or uranium, or, drilling for oil and natural gas. It’s all backed by our farmers who have moved from straight-ahead production of wheat, oats, barley and canola on to peas, pulses, lentils, soybeans, corn, mustards, flax, canary seed and experimental varieties of all the above. Cotton anyone?
Saskatchewan is blessed to have a diversity in resources at its disposal, but when the others take a downturn, agricultural production is always there to bolster the economy. Granted, there are years when harvests are not too bountiful so the malaise is transferred to other sectors, but there is always something, always products of some type and quality to get to buyers, whether it be drought resistant produce, cattle or milk, our farmers keep the provincial economy steady at the worst of times, and moving forward during the best of times.
As Stewart pointed out, there is a growing need to continue diversifying into value-added businesses on the agricultural side. The days of pasta plants getting the heave-ho thanks to Canadian Wheat Board restrictions, are gone. New problems have emerged due to the disappearance of the CWB, but that was one negative element that was removed.
Building economic and manufacturing models around this agricultural richness should come naturally to our forward-thinking farmers and businesses.
If Saskatchewan is going to continue to be a leader in global food security, it needs to take ownership of the entire spectrum and maintain the momentum as Stewart suggested.
The other point raised by the minister, is the fact that our growing communities needed to be reminded that agriculture is still the main economic driver. We have a tendency to forget that when oil hits $120 per barrel and potash exceeds $500 per tonne. But when those commodities inevitably slump, who do we call on?
Yep, good old reliable farmers. It will ever be thus, and it should ever be thus, because that’s how Saskatchewan rolls. Farming may not be sexy, but it is a reliable, renewable resource. Steady is sometimes much better than sexy.
