Thoughts Along the Path . . .

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A few days ago a new friend asked me about where I lived as a child. I explained that my family moved several times, usually to mid-sized towns. I’ve always considered myself a “city girl.” – and then I remembered the last of those locations, which was next to a corn field connected to farmlands very close to our property line.

Later that day I wondered what it looks like now. I haven’t been there since 1967, but I figured that Google Earth would help me find my family home. I couldn’t remember the address, but I knew it was at the end of a street a few blocks from my middle school, and I might even find the corn field.

After noticing some familiar landmarks, I recognized the street. I knew there would be changes, though I could not predict what they would be. As it turned out, the most obvious change was that instead of a corn field extending into large agricultural lands, I saw countless blocks of houses and other signs of urbanization.

What happened to the farmland? Is that what people here in North Dumfries and nearby Townships will wonder 10 or 20 years from now? Vanishing farmland is not likely to be recovered.

Doing some research into the pace of urbanization, I found links to more articles than I can possibly ever read. Going through a few from a variety of sources, I found consensus that Ontario is losing an average of 319 acres per day. With a growing population that needs to be fed, increasing concerns about industrial-scale agriculture, climate change being caused in part through loss of natural areas and open spaces, and so many cultural factors - how can we let that happen?

It is indeed complicated and beyond me to sort through it all. Yet I know that maintaining farmland as well as the well-being of those who work it is one of the most important tasks for any society or geographic region.

With this being the annual Farm Edition of the Ayr News, I thought I would share some reflections about agriculture, land preservation, and considerations for some of the tough decisions ahead. I will do this through some quotations from others, each with a perspective we can think about.

Well-known naturalist-scientist Aldo Leopold offered this statement: “Land is not merely soil. It is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.” Another quotation about land comes from Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Geneticist and humanitarian M. S. Swaminathan in India puts farming and agriculture at the top of our priorities: “If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right.”

I also found a pamphlet published here in Canada that explores similar ideas. Called “The Farmer Comes First,” it summarizes the high regard in which farmers are held within the worldwide Baha’i community – including this statement: “Canada's cultural roots and many of its most cherished values lie deeply imbedded in its rural, agricultural way of life, and no one should ever forget it. Because if we should cut ourselves off from our roots, we would become like any other growing thing which is parted from its roots: slowly to wither or topple in the first storm.”

In a simple and direct statement, Abdul-Baha (son of the founder of the Baha’i faith) wrote: “The fundamental basis of the community is agriculture, tillage of the soil.” Elsewhere he discussed the role of farming in world economics, naming farmers as “the first active agent in human society.”

I will resist the temptation to add more quotations to bring this to a close. Even in our keenly technological and industrial times, the importance of farming and the preservation of land is surely beyond dispute.

We know that everything changes – including farming practices - and new decisions must be made according to current reality. At the same time, we must never forget farmers, our land, our community, and ultimately our mutual well-being.

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