A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
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Fields of time
I'd been sitting in an airport lounge, an airport restaurant, a passenger waiting area, at the gate and finally onboard the airplane. The airline ticket agents and onboard aircrew said the company's new computer system had caused all the delays. Finally, five hours late, we flew from Edmonton to Saskatoon via Calgary. In the middle of the night, the jet landed in Saskatoon. My sister-in-law was there to meet me. After a hug and greetings, we shared the most important topic on the prairies.
“It's been pretty cold all week 'til now,” she said. “Everything's behind.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, thinking she meant my flight.
I discovered what she really meant more clearly, the next morning, when I spoke with a farm friend from my days when I was a broadcaster here in Saskatchewan. Again, the farm wife and I exchanged warm greetings on the phone, got caught up on family goings on and gossip. But my question about how things were going once again focused on things agrarian.
“We're behind,” she said. “Most of our crop is waiting to be harvested. Last week's snow and cold stopped everything.”
Now you have to understand what she meant by “everything.” She and her husband run a farm that employs his entire family of brothers, for example. It used to raise thousands of head of cattle in a feedlot (although I think he closed that down when beef prices fell through the floor a while ago). More important, however, the actual growing area of their farm encompasses somewhere near 20 sections of prime grain-growing land - in the heart of what's always been known as “the bread basket of Canada.” That's almost 15,000 acres or a land area large enough to occupy much of Uxbridge Township. I remember her husband once commenting about the importance of a good growing season on his land.
“If we get good weather, it makes a big difference,” he said. “One good rain's worth a million dollars.”
Conversely, an early frost and/or light blanket of snow and/or cold snap literally puts a damper on the harvest. I checked the newspapers and growing reports for Saskatchewan this week. They said that farmers here still have anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent of their grain crops waiting to be swathed and combined. In other words, their million-dollar harvest is sitting out there and farm families - who hoped this would be the best year in a decade or more - can't get out on the land to bring it home. The consequence, of course, is obvious: the longer the harvest gets beaten down by wet and cold, the lower the quality and the lower the financial return.
All this points out a number of interesting realities. No matter how much folks here on the prairies might think their world has changed in the early 2000s - what with a 21st century housing boom, as well as skyrocketing potash (fertilizer) prices and a never-before-enjoyed population explosion - it hasn't. It still comes down to the earth, the sky and the squeeze those two elements put on agriculture in the Canadian mid-West. The prairies remain at the heart of our “hewers of wood and drawers of water” reputation in the world.
The irony, I've discovered, is that the implement dealerships, the truck dealerships, and even the banks that service Saskatchewan agribusiness are still thriving, despite the downturn. Through this devastating recession, farm commodity prices have held their own. And perhaps most surprising of all, the agriculture courses at the University of Saskatchewan (where farmers' sons and daughters learn their parents' trade) are still brimming with under-graduate students. In other words, young people here still want to farm. And they want to do it on their own terms and on their own farmland. Despite all the doom and gloom of threatening industrial farms, the nucleus of the farm community remains human, not corporate.
That kind of realization makes one respect and relish - all the more - the wonder of the farmers’ markets we enjoyed this past season. Our trips each Sunday to the arena parking lot to choose fresh produce for the week have proven a point. Not only were we stocking our shelves and fridges with the best food money can buy, but we were also confirming that farm productivity really is an equal partner in a modern, functioning Canadian community. We were also affirming that farm families provide as much vitality to our town as any contributing business or service.
If we could only legislate fewer delays and better weather onto their farms and into their lives. It's the least we could do for the benefits we reap.
