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POT LUCK
Not all gloom and doom
People around here are
ready to kiss Premier Rodney MacDonald's feet for having announced
"an indefinite moratorium" on expansion of a fin fish
farm in Port Mouton Bay. The same government participated in
turning down the prospect of a controversial granite quarry on
Digby Neck and has added to protected lands in the province.
Darned near green as green can be.
It is good news the fish farm won't be expanded, although "indefinite"
tacks a vague frame around the announcement.
Some might want to challenge how politics trumped process. Valid
scientific evidence supporting the argument against the fish
farm's location may never get the airing and credit deserved.
As for the decision, all well and good for those happy about
the direction the Premier's monkey wrench was flung. Is there
conviction behind it, other than political expediency? If not,
next time the wrench might well take another direction.
It would be better to have policy permanently putting fin fish
farms on shore, with effluent treated including the removal
or neutralization of pharmaceuticals.
Won't be viable? Fine. Ban fin fish farming altogether, and
dragger fishing too, so we can get back to a viable inshore wild
fishery.
Ah spring! Ah springs, and shackles,
and shocks in our cars and trucks taking a beating on our under-built
and over-burdened roads. Driving a stretch of hundred-series
highway between home and the office is like flying a small plane
through a thunder storm.
Despite the rough economy, we
took part in a couple of trade shows this past month where the
mood was far from bleak. The Farm Mechanization Show in Moncton,
N.B., drew a full house of exhibitors, respectable crowds, and
not just tire kickers from reports filtering back to Rural Delivery.
The other up-beat show was at the Holiday Inn in Truro, N.S.,
where hundreds of organic growers from the four Atlantic provinces
gathered for ACORN's annual meeting and conference. The energy
and enthusiasm there was infectious.
The two successful events, the Farm Mech Show and ACORN's conference
and annual meeting, have a special ingredient in common
committed, active volunteer boards of directors.
A couple of guesses why things
are not worse, what with Wall Street and Bay Street and every
other financial centre on the ropes (excepting execs pulling
in fancy bonuses). Some point out that rural Atlantic Canadians
never did roll in the dough like their urban humpty-dumpty cousins
in the modern world of excess. They did not have so far to fall
and haven't been shattered by the experience.
Another reason could be that financial disaster is really nothing
new to many in forestry and farming. BSE clobbered beef producers
five years ago and while prices have recovered some to the west,
they remain sickly here. Likewise woodlot values dropped dramatically
about two years ago (with the bust in home building in the U.S.,
the troubles in the newspaper business) and remain in the tank.
(The problems facing daily newspapers came home the other week
when the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado went under.
When I worked there as a general assignment reporter we had the
curious distinction of being the largest circulation daily in
Wyoming.)
There is an obvious common denominator in these two economic
calamities, beef and forest products: both were reliant on U.S.
markets. Add to that consolidation within the system and we've
got a collective failure to perform in our best interest.
In an attempt to compete in the North American commodity pork
market, Nova Scotia hog farmers got big and now, with the exception
of maybe eight growers, they are out.
Atlantic Canada as an agricultural region hardly rates in national
and international markets. The more we attempt to chase after
them with produce just like everyone else's produce the more
those markets slip beyond grasp. Sobey's and Loblaws (Superstores)
began buying local produce a couple of seasons back. Growers
worked through regional offices of the two. Now Sobey's has backed
off, telling growers it's up to individual store managers to
decide if they will deal locally.
Think global, act local. Terrible English but it gets the message
across. Since BSE we have gathered and published the names of
farms selling beef locally. We're expanding on that with a new
directory of local food and fiber producers.
"BuyLocalAtlantic.com" will be an Internet directory
until it's grown to a size and substance deserving a print version
that we'll distribute widely to promote primary producers selling
direct to consumers.
There are many "buy local" websites and that's a good
thing. "BuyLocalAtlantic.com" fills another niche by
serving the region and by including all primary commodities be
they food (for human or livestock consumption), or fiber
from lumber to fuel stock, to the hair of the dog. Not the one
that bit you; the Samoyed whose coat would make a fine addition
to a knitted scarf.
Sadly enough, agriculture in this region does not count for
much in many urban minds. A prime example would be the Halifax
Metro Centre's decision to kick cattle, dairy, and sheep breeders
out of the Maritime Fall Fair.
Beef breeders have organized a meeting with Metro Centre executives
for the week we go to press. Maybe they will reconsider, although
this seems unlikely. We've been told they've gone so far as to
unilaterally dissolve the Maritime Fall Fair without consulting
the MFF Advisory Board, which includes farmers.
Metro Centre CEO Scott Ferguson is on holiday or we'd confirm
this information with him.
My own thought is leave the wonder dog and pony show to the
Metro Centre. Redirect the $125,000 annual contribution from
the Department of Agriculture that's been going to the Fall Fair
into a true farm-oriented regional harvest festival in a central
location. DvL
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