Class of OAC 58
Midterm Reunion, September 1, 2011-09-05 Norfolk G&CC, Simcoe, ON
Present: Amos, Argue, Bolton, Freure, Gloin, Haagsma, Leuty , Stevens, Wilcox
Absent: Gracey [calendar challenged]
Regrets: Miller, Christie, Crawford
Activity: Golf, took three hours to play 9 holes, oldest course in Ontario, in the middle of Simcoe, excellent course conditions, mountainous, didn’t keep score [mulligans, provisionals, liars], Leuty won golf prize for longest absence from game.
Agenda 1. Discussion, impression that the UofG has lost its vision for agriculture, preferring to cater to urban farmers, organics, etc. rather than mission to develop technologies to produce food to feed worldwide populations. This impression is causing classmates to hesitate to donate to Alma Mater. Acknowledged that government funding of universities based on student head-count.
Motion: Expression of displeasure with direction of UofG. [Bolton/Freure] Stevens will discuss with Rob Gordon, Dean OAC.
Agenda 2. As the UofG seeks nominations for a new Chancellor, should the Class consider nominating an agriculturalist? Potential candidates included Lyle VanClief and Peter Hannom. Subsequently Lyle was consulted, complimented and declined. Stevens will discuss with Rob Gordon, Dean OAC.
Agenda 3. Class finances. Balance is $493.02 + $40.75 surplus from lunch assessment. Add Argue and Crawford as signing authority.
Agenda 4. 55th Reunion, 2013. No action
Adjourned: 3:00 pm.
To Feed the World
By C.A. Gracey
12/09/2011Note- This is my contribution to the discussion that OAC 58 has initiated concerning the apparent decline in the Commitment of the U of G to its core objectives in the Agricultural faculty. I regret not having been part of the initial discussion but think that those who did discuss this matter at the recent Golf Tournament have identified a serious, timely and urgent issue. So here is my first contribution to the discussion.
To Feed the World
The faculty of Agriculture of the U of G and its Dean will likely take umbrage at any suggestion that it has abandoned its core mission. In fact they will claim and proclaim that they are moving with the times and that their new focus demonstrates that. The claim that “the future is organic” is essentially an anti science approach that will undo decades of scientific progress in agriculture. The pictures of hand, back bending labour in fields and a harnessed team of horses evoke memories of an unproductive highly labour intensive agriculture that I experienced 60 years ago and that happily has been supplanted by modern industrialized and highly productive agriculture.
Evidence that organic agriculture can displace modern productive agriculture that utilizes the scientific advancements achieved through modern fertilizers, crop sprays, therapeutic treatments of livestock, growth promotants, genomics and the like is totally lacking. Also lacking is any evidence whatsoever that the use of approved production aids that place those products outside the orbit or “organic” poses any threat to human health or the environment.
But somehow the faculty of Agriculture has stepped down from the shoulders of giants, discredited by implication all of the amazing progress that has been achieved through the application of science to agriculture and declared that the productive models so familiar to the 1940’s, albeit modestly advanced, is the emerging shape of future modern agriculture.
Up until now modern productive agricultural producers have taken the view that in a free country producers who wish to produce food “naturally” or “organically” should certainly be free to do so and should be free as well to profit from their successes and to learn from their mistakes. This is as it should be. But for a once hallowed institution like the OAC to turn its back on intensive high productive agriculture and to implicitly denigrate the scientific advances of the last half century is a complete abdication of its once proud history and, more to the point, an abdication of its responsibilities in a world human population that has just passed 7 billion people and will with luck stabilize at 9 billion by mid century.
Let me be clear about my perception and that is that the ONLY route forward for agriculture in the developed world is to embrace intensive, highly productive agriculture using all of the technology that we can bring to bear while at the same time preserving and improving our soil and water resources for uncounted future generations. And before we abandon this approach we require and should demand sound evidence that organic agriculture can match or exceed the productivity of modern productive agriculture.
It has been suggested that U of G is catering to the mindset of prospective students who have been misled to believe that “the future is organic” and have not been challenged to understand that this may not be the case.
In selling the philosophy of the Organic Program, OAC President Summerlees actually destroys his own argument when he declares that, “… 19% of the US energy budget is consumed by the agri food system, but only 7% actually occurs on the farm.” That’s a pretty persuasive yardstick to measure the efficiency and productivity of modern agriculture. How, for example, will organic farming help us reduce the 7% further?
I wonder in all of this where the faculty members who are outside this movement stand. Some, hopefully continue to do research on improving productivity and must feel threatened and compromised by this retrograde movement metastasizing in their midst. Do they not see it as a threat to productivity and as threat to future research funding? Why do we need crop sprays, therapeutics, feed additives etc if the future is organic and if we can produce as much food as efficiently without these aids?
OAC runs the certain risk of irrelevance if it remains on this tangent from reality. It may attract students but they will find only limited employment opportunities.
This brings me to the following suggestions
1. First we need to understand more about the actual program course outline and what is really meant or encompassed by the term Organic Agriculture.
2. Second we need to challenge the claim that production can be just as abundant and efficient as is the case in modern Agriculture
3. Third we need to understand the potential impact that this new approach may have on regulations governing normal production, on access to research dollars and on the posturing response of retailers like Loblaws. We should make no mistake in understanding that consumers aided abetted and misinformed by the organic movement will begin to proscribe the use of many of our modern safe production aids.
4. Fourth I think we need to open discussions with our many colleagues to see if our concerns are shared and begin the process of a counter attack
The ultimate solution may be to simply ignore this folly but I fear that the real risk lies not in their pursuit of organic agriculture but in the impact this movement will almost certainly have on regulation and research funding.
These are just some early thoughts on the matter. People our age, Year 58, have near perfect recall of organic subsistence agriculture That’s how our fathers farmed when they had no better options. Been there done that.
Chas – who proudly holds a degree once called Bachelor of Science in Agriculture.
ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
September 30, 2011
Mr. Bill Stevens
OAC Class of 1958
Dear Bill:
Thank you for your recent email and the letter that you attached from Charlie Gracey. I want to highlight that the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) continues to be fully-committed to hands-on experiential learning, state-of-the-art education, and fully preparing students to enter the agricultural and food sectors which are so vital to our provincial and national economy. As ever, we prepare students to engage in diverse aspects of the world we share. The great majority of students enrolled in our Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (BSc – Agr) programs focus on animal science, crop science and horticulture. The organic agriculture major represents only a small fraction (less than 5%) of enrolment in the BSc - Agr. It is offered, as are all our programs, for students who seek to have the scientific preparation to respond to market demands. In the context of all of OAC’s programs the organic major represents well below 0.5% of our total student enrolment. All of OAC’s education programs (including the 6 undergraduate programs beyond the BSc - Agr, the 8 diploma programs and the broad range of graduate programs) continue to support the significant and diverse needs of the agriculture and food industries in Ontario and beyond. Scientific rigor is and always has been at the core of what we do.
I look forward to hearing from you again and would like to formally extend an invitation to the OAC Class of ’58 to join us on campus to see what OAC is doing – the advances and initiatives that contribute to our ongoing success and the students who are here because they are impassioned by the career possibilities OAC uniquely provides.
Yours truly,
Rob Gordon, PhD
Dean
Ontario Agricultural College
GUELPH • ALFRED • KEMPTVILLE • RIDGETOWN
Guelph • Ontario • Canada • N1G 2W1 • (519) 824-4120, Ext. 52285 • Fax (519) 766-1423
www.oac.uoguelph.ca
Labels: Exec Meetings, Gracey, Mini Reunions, Reunions, Stevens
Three Tables in the middle ares OAC 58 , with Bouman & Kramer Upper Right
Hans Hueckle
