Newsletter - Fall 2002
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Welcome to our fall newsletter. One of the things that has always made me wonder is why farmers spend millions of dollars to embrace the newest technology and in the end wind up barely being able to cover the costs of production. For example, in a recent article of the Hoard’s Dairyman, it was pointed out that health care costs in the United States, for prescription drugs alone, are well over 100 billion dollars per year and will triple in 10 more years. Despite the fact that there is money in working into the health care system, the income of physicians in general practice fell 16% last year. How does this compare with the way things are going in the farm community? Almost identically. It seems to me, farmers who have made millions of dollars worth of investments are now finding themselves on a horrible treadmill.

The Treadmill Theory

One of the best-known agricultural economists of the 20^th century was a gentleman by the name of Willard Cochrane who taught for many years at the University of Minnesota and was the chief agricultural economist under president Kennedy. In the 50’s, Cochrane developed the treadmill theory to explain the problem of persistently low farm income. Cochrane imagined that farmers would adopt new production technologies that in the long run would surely lead to surplus production, which would lower prices and lower farm income. How it works: when a new technology is first introduced, the first few farmers to adapt to it benefit by lowering their cost per unit of production. Since only a few farmers use the technology initially, overall production does not go up enough to lower prices. Therefore, the early bird farmers are usually the most profitable. Eventually more farmers take up the new technology, total production rises, and prices fall. When this happens, the average farmer is forced to adopt new technology just to survive, not necessarily to increase profitability.

If we fast forward another 50 years from now and look at farmers and biotechnology, what will we see? Farmers have already aggressively adopted technology by using all types of genetically modified seeds and growth hormones. Let’s just look at the results. Farmers essentially are renting seeds each year and paying royalties to do it. How bad can this get? I can’t believe that farmers with the intelligence to push buttons and do calculations could allow themselves to become slaves to the big multi national corporations. In other words, crop consultants and many of the other people in this business such as fertilizer and chemical companies. are making more money than the farmer is himself. Several studies have shown that there is no great profit advantage for any of this. A collection of decisions made by farmers acting on their own has resulted in benefiting ultimately only those who own the technology, not those who use it. The treadmill is a case where low farm income is a symptom of a greater problem. The problem involves farmers acting as individuals rather than as a strong bargaining unit.

Once we have figured this out, now what do we do? Well let’s turn our attention to the cost of land. Once the total income from product sales and government payments is used to pay production costs, then the remaining profits are divided among farmers and landowners. Supposing farmer and landowner are not the same person lets say $100 per acre is the remainder. The farmer and landlord will now bargain together to determine land rents. Suppose one farmer offered $10 per acre for the land, the farmer’s share would be $90. However, another farmer is willing to work for $80 so that is $20 for rent. Still another thinks he or she can make it $70 that’s $30 for rent. What this boils down to is that the farmer ultimately works for less. The results are predictable no matter how much money is available. Farmers make just enough to keep them farming and their bank and bio-tech companies get all the rest. Because of this, it is tempting to think that crop income is too low to cover the price of land and inputs, so we need higher prices.

One of the reasons farmers have so little bargaining power is because by acting alone they are mere specks in the global economic sea. Even the biggest ones are small compared to the big multi-nationals but if farmers band together, that would be another story, a fascinating story to say the least. Something that each and every one of us in the agricultural industry has to think about is that we are all in this together.

Organic Inspectors Criticize the System

Another item of real interest appeared in the August 29^th issue of the Western Producer a western Canadian newspaper for farmers. It was an article entitled "Organic Inspectors Slam System" that describes organic inspector’s qualms with the organic system. Inspectors who were charged with policing Canada’s organic industry, say the system is deeply flawed. Several inspectors in the article continued to say that many times a grower was declined certification from one agency for numerous violations only to be certified a few weeks later by another organization. All of which says that there are not enough random audits. These random audits are something that should be done far more frequently than what they are. All of us in the organic industry can attest that the three hour annual inspection revolves almost entirely around a paper audit, relying on documents such as signed affidavits, and field histories to prove that the farmer is organic. What it really boils down to, is trust. Unfortunately the organic industry is going to have to clean up its act, because the system is inconsistent.

In the same issue another article entitled "Feds Consider Regulating Organic Standards" discusses a senior Agriculture Canada official who says the federal government is now seriously contemplating taking on a regulatory role in Canada’s organic industry. This department will be meeting with the Canadian Food Inspection agency in the coming weeks and months to explore the idea. Can you just see it all coming? More mountains of paper work, and the three B’s of government; Bureaucracy, Bumbling, and Bullshit are again going to come into play. All of this has been brought about by the fact that we don’t want to clean up our act on our own in the organic industry. The organic industry is very similar to the conventional industry except we think that we are more ‘holy than thou’. When it comes down to it, we are going to have so much government intervention that some farmers are going to leave the system because it is not working properly.

Based on the treadmill theory, something I can see happening in the organic industry is that we are going to start seeing this whole idea of needing more research to move organics to the mainstream market. This means that we are going to begin getting the large companies such as Loblaws to buy in big volume. When this happens, these companies will basically tell you what they are going to pay you to grow an organic crop and move it to the next level of sales (lower sales), thereby reducing the farmer to the same level as the conventional chemical farmer.

Many of us in the organic industry are going to have to re-examine the types of food that we produce. Is it really nutritionally superior to conventionally grown? Or is it more organic by default rather than by design? All of these things are going to plague us down the road as the organic growing of crops continues to expand.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Elsewhere in this world of ours, as some of you may well know, the Americans have imposed a steel dumping tax on Russia. Russia in return has supposedly discovered salmonella in the American chicken being exported to Russia and has now banned all American chicken. So now the demand for chicken decreased which in turn depresses the hog price, which in turn depresses the beef price and so on. This kind of wonderful production suits only the multinational corporations and has one more time come around to haunt the farmer. Unfortunately the lower the milk price, the lower the pork price, the lower the beef price, and the lower the eggs and the broiler price. The more the prices and profits decrease, the less likely some farmers are to pay attention to the nutritional aspects of feeding their flock properly. How sad that there are some people who cannot see beyond this narrow-minded, shortsighted thinking. This attitude only perpetuates sickness in the herd. As the saying goes we will learn to understand this better one human being at a time. <

Profile of a Dealer — Bill Darlington

Bill Darlington was born and raised on a mixed farm so naturally when it became time for him to take post secondary education he decided to study in what interested him — Agriculture. Bill received his Diploma in Agriculture from the Ontario Agriculture College in 1961.

Bill spent years working as a feed representative for several different companies, which is how he met Murray Bast owner of Bio-Ag. He also co-owned a feed dealership and then later operated a gilt and boar business. Bill decided to sell Bio-Ag products because the environmental and alternative approach to agriculture appealed to him. It seemed to be the direction that agriculture would take in the future and he felt that Bio-Ag would be a leader in that change of thinking and way of doing things.

Besides distributing Bio-Ag products, Bill also carries out tests and does consulting on water out of Head Office for Bio-Ag’s clients. Bill lives in Milverton, Ontario with his wife Ann and services the surrounding area.

Meet the New Faces at Bio-Ag

What an exciting time at Bio-Ag!! We are growing rapidly to meet the increasing demand for our products and services, as a result of this we have gained three new faces. John Sweeting comes from Bailieboro and joined us as a dealer in May. John services the area between Hwy 62 and 12, he can be reached at home by phone (705) 939-6188 or by fax (705) 939-6266. Beth Barg from Wellesley joined us in September and she will be servicing the area south of Highway 7&8, including New Hamburg, Tavistock, Hickson, St. Marys and surrounding areas. She can be reached at head office or at home (519) 656-3552.

The latest addition to our head office staff is Thevika Sebastian, Ph.D. Thevika studied animal nutrition at Wye College, University of London, England. She will be working with us to formulate rations and create micro formulas. She will be in the office Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Over the course of the next three newsletters we will be running a continuing series on homeopathy. We will discuss what it is, what it does and how it works. For some people Homeopathy is the treatment of pain, for others it is herbal medicine, for others it is a form of medicine based on small or infinitesimal doses. For many people, homeopathy because of its small doses is nothing more than placebo medicine aimed at the gullible. In this issue, we will examine the general principles and methods of homeopathy. In the future we will look at the remedies and how to use them, as well as discuss scientific proof that these remedies really do work.

What is Homeopathy?

The definition of homeopathy is both simple and precise. It goes something like this; Homeopathy is a therapeutic method, which clinically applies the law of similars and uses medicinally active substances at small or infinitesimal doses. When speaking of homeopathy the following is the most important to bear in mind; the most fundamental principal in homeopathy is the law of similars. This law formulates the parallel action between the toxicological power of a given substance and its therapeutic action. The law of similars is the formulation of a physiological state that was observed by Hippocrates, and was schooled five centuries before the birth of Christ. Even at that time, a similarity between the toxic power of a substance and its therapeutic action was noted. For example White Hellebor, which toxicologically causes cholera like diarrhea, was used successfully to treat cholera. Cantharide tincture, which toxicologically causes cystitis, was administered in very small doses for the treatment of cystitis. Hippocrates made the following statement using language so typical of his time. "The cystitis which is not can cure the cystitis which is." In other words this means the same things that cause the symptoms of the disease can cure it.

In the many centuries that followed other doctors made similar observations. However they failed to draw any practical or general conclusions. By the end of the 18^th century around 1790 a German doctor, chemist, and toxicologist Samuel Christian Hahnemann pursued the question further. He noted that Cinchona (Quinine), which was then used to treat fevers resulting from malaria, toxicologically caused febrile attacks similar to those for which Quinine was used as a therapeutic remedy. Knowing the works of the school of Hippocrates as he did, Hahnemann stated, "It would appear that certain medicines are also able to cure symptoms which are similar to those which they themselves can cause." Hahnemann began taking known medically active substances at that time and testing them on himself and those around him. Those substances included Cinchona, Aconite, Belladonna, Ipecac, and Mercury etc. His goal was to discover what the parallel co-dynamic action was of these substances on healthy subjects. He observed that his hypotheses were confirmed but only when very small or infinitesimal doses were used. For example when used in large quantities Ipecac produces nausea and vomiting in the healthy individual. In small doses, it cures those symptoms in the dyspeptic patient.

Hahnemann has noted that the hypothesis he originally formulated was confirmed by one experiment after the other. From there he went on to develop his law of similars. He divided it into 3 postulates.

1. Any pharmacologically active substance can cause a set of symptoms to appear in a healthy subject and these symptoms are characteristic of the substance used. (This was the result of his experiments on healthy people.)
2. Anyone suffering from a particular disease shows a set of symptoms characteristic of the disease. These pathological symptoms can be defined as changes in the way the patient feels or behaves.
3. The cure, which is confirmed by objective disappearance of the pathological symptoms, may be obtained by prescribing the substance whose experimental symptoms in healthy subjects were similar to the patient’s own symptoms, provided that this was prescribed in infinitesimal doses.

At first glance, this technique might shock those who use the direct method of traditional method of allopathic therapeutics. Allopathic therapeutics are coercive & act through means of destruction, inhibition, or substitution. In other words we use drugs and antibiotics that kill. For example, small pox vaccination illustrates the law of similars. When the vaccine is inoculated it produces cutaneous lesions similar to those of small pox but from a different etiology. Many more examples could be quoted.

The homeopathic Materia Medica is a collection of medicines most of which have been proven by the provings. Provings are tests, which were first done by Hahnemann, under controlled conditions on healthy subjects and then repeated on ill patients to verify the remedy’s effectiveness. It is important to remember in homeopathy that it is the patient’s symptomatic clinical picture that is important. This includes the signs of the disease and the signs shown in the patient’s behaviour. It is the picture of the patient’s reaction to his illness. Using homeopathy to help that patient means that homeopathy defines the remedy that works in the same direction as the patient’s own reaction. It is this reaction that the remedy helps to stimulate. Homeopathic therapeutics involve remedies that act as a specific stimulant to the reaction of an illness, as opposed to the traditional remedies which act coercively within the system.

In the next issue we will look at homeopathic medications and how they are used. On Wednesday November 20^th we will be putting on a one-day seminar where the topic will be Homeopathy. If you are interested in attending this seminar please call Head Office to reserve a seat as space is limited to 50 people. The deadline to register is Wednesday November 13^th. For more information see the flyer on page 7.

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