Too Late to Save Family Farm

The family farm is going the way of the dodo, according to the University of Manitoba's economist Henry Rempel.

He made the comment last year during a World Food Day panel discussion at the university organized by the faculty of agriculture and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Manitoba farms have been getting bigger in acres and fewer in numbers since 1941. Many people are disturbed by the trend, but efforts to intervene haven't succeeded.

"Merely depending on government policy isn't going to do it [save]," says Rempel. He added that there has to be a coalition between the consumers of food and the producers of food. This coalition must be prepared to insist that a rural way of life is worth fighting for.

Grain farms in Western Canada are getting bigger as farmers try to compensate for lower returns by farming more acres. Between 1978 and 1999, Manitoba net farm income was cut in half, dropping from $1 billion to $500,000 when adjusted for inflation, according to University of Manitoba's agricultural economist John Cranfield. --The Manitoba Co-operator, October 2000