There was a time, and not so long ago, that I looked at David Suzuki as a sage voice of reason in terms of protecting our environment.
But my respect for his vision took a major blow this week.
I was at a hockey game watching our local Terrier hockey team bury Estevan in a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League game.
I spend Terrier games at the glass to get photos for Yorkton This Week, and for most games I am joined by a local custom combine operator. Between hockey rushes we debate many things, often relating to agriculture.
This Saturday night my bud told me how he was reading about David Suzuki making comments regarding Canadian farmers which frankly shocked me.
The friend said Suzuki had come out and suggested Canadian farmers should feel little obligation to feed people outside Canada.
My first thought was how 'western-thinking' that was, a view I would have expected more of some right wing American politician.
From the earliest times of cultivation farmers have sold their produce, and centuries ago that trade began to cross national borders.
The Canadian west would not be what it is today without the impact agricultural exports have had on the economy.
So when I got home from the game I hit the Internet to see exactly what Suzuki had said, thinking somewhat my bud had embellished things.
I quickly found a story at the Western Producer site and found out my bud had it pretty close in terms of relating the story.
The story at www.producer.com has Suzuki quoted as having publicly stated "You mean to tell me that western farmers have a responsibility to feed people in India, China and Europe? Bullshit."
Suzuki went on to say people in places like Africa can't afford to buy the food produced here, so we need not focus on producing that food.
That is an incredibly crass view of things in my opinion. We should care about stemming starvation, not adding to the problem.
But let's for a second agree with Suzuki, what would farmers do with all the excess grain, after all the vast majority of wheat, oats, canola and other grains, pulses and oilseeds grown in this country are sold to export.
Suzuki said he wants to turn back the clock a half century to a time where farmers basically grew grain organically in the sense commercial fertilizers and agricultural crop protection products did not exist.
That would certainly trim back production over time, although I suspect production would still exceed Canadian consumption.
While the excess could always be sold to export, the question is how Canadian farmers would realize the net returns they require.
Organic, or not, there is limited appetite from Canadian consumers to place a huge amount of extra money into their monthly food budget.
Farmers have a huge amount of debt based on export-driven production, not to mention farm size and equipment.
In Suzuki's rose-coloured vision, he might see a five-decade turn back in time as easy, but the expectation farmers would be using Massey Super 90 combines again is a lot of fantasy in my mind.
Canadian farmers are good at producing food and a growing world population needs to eat, and to turn away from that would be simply wring-minded to me.
And for such a suggestion my respect for Suzuki will forever be tarnished.
