Small farms are getting more praise than they deserve,
according to the second in a four-part series about myths about farming by Al
Mussel of the George Morris Centre.
The advertising and marketing people are pitching small
farms to promote their products and many social activists are critical of “factory
farms”, writes Mussel.
Yet the smaller half of the farm population in Canada
produces only 10 per cent of the sales and the largest five per cent account
for 30 per cent of sales.
“Small farms have come to be viewed as a core element of an
agrarian cultural ideal,” writes Mussel, even promoting urban and rooftop
gardening.
But there would be a “significant social cost” if Canadian
politicians and society promoted small farms, he says.
Since 1941, when the number of Canadian farmers peaked at
700,000 farming 160 million acres, thousands have migrated from farm families
to city jobs where Mussel says they have become the backbone of the middle
class.
These people did not migrate to ghettos, but built the urban
society that makes Canada much wealthier than nations that have a majority of
their population engaged in farming.
He says it’s simply wrong to argue that small farms are more
sustainable and that Third World development ought to concentrate on small
farms as the way out of poverty.
