A local person describes the same process at work in Canada as George Monbiot describes in Corporate Carve-Up of Africa. (land and resources in Africa / land and resources in Canada)
Canadians should wake up. And we should share information with friends in Africa.
REQUEST: if anyone knows, or will research to find, the date and how the rules on foreign ownership of land in Saskatchewan were gutted, please let me know. Thanks.
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THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIALIZED AGRICULTURE ON “PLACE”.
A VIEW FROM THE GROUND.
This south central part of the province is in what is called the brown zone. In and around this area you’ll find the highest concentration of farmland in the province.
The farms are huge and getting bigger every day.
We still have a few smaller farmers in the 50 – 65 age group but they are dropping quickly because of investors from Alberta and beyond, speculating on land. These investors are making offers you can’t refuse.
Saskatchewan has traditionally had cheap farm land compared to Alberta so this is the new frontier. (I call them speculators because they don’t have any connection with the community or the land. It’s all about mining the soil until the price is right to sell again.)
Once an investor gobbles up several sections of land they then contract the farming part to a company from outside the area. (Investors vary from Chinese, Mennonite from Mexico, Alberta, etc.)
The old farm sites are cleared and all the trees pulled out. Where at one time you at least saw the remnants of an old farm yard, today you have open field — a strange feeling. Big equipment doesn’t like to run around shelterbelts either, so they are pulled up and destroyed to allow for GPS-run farm equipment. Of course the continuous cropping means you don’t really need the shelterbelts anymore since blowing soil is no longer an issue.
Nonetheless it turns the land into a rather stack place. Equipment is amazing. All it takes to seed Saskatchewan is about three weeks of good weather. When my father was seeding his farm (1950s – 60s) it took much longer using small equipment. Corporate farmers will seed more in one day than 10 farmers could in a season 40 years ago. Technology is impressive.
Young farmers are now told that in order to survive you have to get big.
So naturally they will do what is necessary to gobble up the neighbour.
If you don’t, then the other guy will and you’ll be squeezed out. The pressure is intense. Equpment now is running into the millions of dollars. Equipment dealers don’t sell small equipment anymore. You have to farm a lot of land to pay for equipment and survive… it’s a vicious circle.
I interviewed a credit union manager several months ago.
Off camera he told me that the large land investors are problematic. He said they don’t use any services in the community (financial or otherwise) and even haul out the grain they harvest (talk about inefficient efficiency). Several more of these acquisitions and he said they’ll be in trouble. Small towns are still losing population unless you happen to be next to a potash mine or an oil field.
These big farmers and local corporate entities love their chemicals. You simply can’t farm that much land without the heavy use of chemicals. I think in this south central area you would be hard pressed to find any farmer interested in banning Monsanto. Monsanto is their key to successfully mining the soil. We do have organic growers but they simply aren’t a factor right now and they aren’t winning the battle. The conventional big and corporate farmer doesn’t care about what happens to their crops or what they do to produce it. It’s all about cash flow and volume. Farmers use a credit card to buy their chemicals and they accumulate enough points to spend a month in a resort down south every winter. Try taking that from them as they drive around in $100,000 trucks and cars.
As you see the system is not in our favour to march against Monsanto.
Just some of my musings… o
PS – I hope this doesn’t sound too pessimistic. That isn’t my intent.
Like others I hold out hope that eventually common sense will prevail.
Unfortunately it will take a crash before this is corrected and many will be affected by that. It will probably not happen in my lifetime.