Urban think tank clueless about food production

Dear Editor

(Editor’s note: The author indicates this piece was written several years ago, but she maintains it still has relevance)

I am a member of the farming community. For some time I have thought I belong to an endangered species. According to Larry Solomon, however, I belong to a group which is a burden upon Canada, a glut, something to be reduced or eliminated.

In the Bible, Solomon was known as a wise man. This Solomon, however, belongs to something he calls Urban Renaissance, a think tank based in Toronto. If this is an example of a Canadian “think tank” then one could easily believe that our best brains have left Canada and what’s left is in think tanks. Heaven help us.

His remarks on Dec. 9 on the CBC morning program with Michael Enwright left me open-mounted, as it did others.

He told Noreen Johns of the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network that she was profoundly confused.” May I then be permitted to turn to call Larry Solomon “profoundly ignorant?”

The following is what an independent one-woman Rural Renaissance think tank can do to his ideas.

He went on to say farmers are heavily supported by urban people, that farming is a “make-work project” and that not all farming jobs are “real jobs.”

Perhaps I can give my opinion that a “think tank” is not a real job. What does it produce? Could it be called a make-work project?

All the grains and livestock produced on farms create thousands of jobs, with byproducts benefiting people all over Canada.

I suppose he considers the making of beer, shoes, soaps, upholstery, medicines and cement, for example, to be real jobs. These are but a few of the many things made from what is produced on a Canadian farm.

Larry Solomon told us there are too many farmers to be supported by the land. He claims much of the land should never have been used for agriculture but should revert to wilderness. Now there is a point upon which we agree but I must point out that government. usually a Liberal government, urges people to break up land and drain wetlands, giving them grants to do so.

The vast land can support many farmers, yet Solomon tells us farmers in Third World countries could supply us with our food. I cannot believe anyone could be so stupid as to advocate that a country should not be as self-sufficient as possible in food.

Correction

The phone number in a letter from Keltie Paul in last week’s edition was incorrect. It should read 306-445-5195. It is the office number for the Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill.