Behind the Lines - February 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Back in 1997, when Bern Tobin was managing editor of Farm & Country, he wrote a cover story for that publication called "Farming the Internet." During a recent conversation about the cover story he has produced for this month's issue of Better Farming, Tobin, familiar to many of you as our Crop Scene Investigation writer, recalled his original Internet story.

"It was just as the consumer world was embracing the Internet and we were exploring how farmers and agriculture would use the information highway – you may remember that term. Thirteen years later, here we are writing a story about farming by phone. When I wrote that story 13 years ago, few would have dared predict where we would be in 2010 – and I think very few predicted the story I just wrote."

The pace of technology and change in farming is accelerating rapidly and we suspect we are just scratching the surface of this latest trend. That story starts on page 10.

There is another side to technology that we haven't touched on in this month's report. The Better Business Bureau says complaints about the cell phone industry top their list and The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a non-profit consumer protection organization, recently released a 218-page report that says Canadian consumers are getting a raw deal from the telecommunications industry. The report's author, Michael Janigan, told CBC News that, four years after deregulation, Bell, Telus and Rogers (which control over 90 per cent of the market) are making "super-normal profits . . . "

We want to be able to tell more on the story about farming with smart phones,
so if you or someone you know is willing to share first-hand experiences, good or bad, please get in touch.

In his monthly column from Ottawa, Parliamentary reporter Barry Wilson warns that the ground appears to be shifting against supply management as Mario Dumas, a former chief economist for Quebec's powerful l'Union des Producteurs Agricoles changes sides, suggesting that supply management with quotas, pricing setting powers and high border tariffs be abandoned in international trade talks that take place this year. "It is one man's opinion but from an iconic figure in the supply management wars. The ground seems to be shifting," Wilson writes. That's on page 58.

Last year was good for crop farmers and many are re-investing in agriculture, buying more assets such as land and machinery. At Better Farming we had a good year, too, and decided to reinvest in our business by hiring a new writer. You've seen some stories by Mike Mulhern before on our pages. Based in West Lorne, Mike is a former London Free Press reporter and a farmer himself.

Why are we doing this rather than following industry norms and simply taking a good year's returns as dividends to shareholders? You might call it a longer-term look. We are always aware that we grew out of a bankrupt publication funded by three blue chip organizations and that our future depends upon providing advertisers and readers with the best journalism possible. BF

ROBERT IRWIN & DON STONEMAN