All shoppers at supermarkets certainly must notice the sharp rise in food prices. Then too, recently The Economist had a feature article about The end of cheap food.
Clearly, everyone of us is affected by that.
There are many reasons for these price increases, many beyond human control. However, there is something that we can do: stop recklessly despoiling our precious soil. Most veteran farmers can recall that the soil here once produced more reasonably priced crops with less help. We should make every effort to return to those good old days.
Some time ago, our Senate’s agriculture committee issued a report entitled, Soil at Risk: Canada’s Eroding Future. It stated that the soil in Canada is not what it once was, and, therefore, its productive capacity has deteriorated so much that farmers even then were suffering a loss of $l-billion a year. It warned that we are "in danger of squandering the precious soil resource on which our entire agricultural industry is based."
What has happened is partly exhaustion of the soil by the sheer weight of productive demand upon it. Technological "progress" has encouraged Canadian farmers to squeeze the last source of productivity from the soil by using chemicals and injurious farming practices. Urban encroachment also entailed a tremendous loss of the acreage available for farmland.
Increased production has been the major priority, regardless of the degradation that it caused over the long term. Up to now, farmers have been unwilling or financially unable to underwrite the initial costs of conservation methods without monetary incentives or tax concessions. Now with agricultural product prices improved, that, plus government assistance should reverse those unfortunate trends that are damaging our soil.
We are aware of the causes and effects of soil degradation, and generally familiar with the effective methods of soil conservation. Some have suggested that the establishment of soil and water conservation institutes could be of further assistance. Perhaps too, the Canadian Wheat Board should change its quota system to bring more farmland into production wherever feasible.
Those and other proposals should ensure more efficient agricultural production, resulting in cheaper, domestically produced food. If, regrettably, we fail to act, our vanishing soil in Ontario, the Prairies, and even in the north will make food ever more expensive and will curtail our ability to export agricultural products.
We must make a strong appeal to our decision-makers to implement many significant changes in our agricultural industry, both to protect our disappearing soil and to help contain rising food prices.