Local author tackles The War in the Country

Posted By Aimee Pianosi

Posted 24 days ago

Tom Pawlick was pissed off, and instead of counting to 10 and getting over it, he decided to write a book.

The War in the County was released Sept. 8 in Canada, and Pawlick begins a book tour in a couple of weeks.
The book follows several stories in our corner of rural Ontario, and how the decisions that were made in the cases have eroded food quality, food sovereignty, the environment, and the rural landscape.
For instance, he details the story of Mark Slack and his desire to build an intensive livestock operation (ILO), or a factory farm, first in Stone Mills Township, and then in Tweed, and how his quest divided the communities, and led to demonstrations, and even someone taking a shot at his tractor. Both Slack and his opponents are interviewed in the book.
"I've been following this kind of thing for years. I've been writing about agriculture for it must be 15 years at least, so I've been following what's happening. And it's like over the years there's just been a growing sense of outrage. And finally I said, 'aw the hell with it, nobody is writing about this. You don't see much about it in the newspaper, I'm going to write a book and try to get as many people aware of it as I can, because somebody's got to stop it."
The overlying theme of the book is that fighting for rural rights can work and has to work in order to ensure a safe, steady supply of food, and the preservation of the soil, air, and water.
"My book is intended to try to get people to start protecting and encouraging small family farms, and small rural business, small butcher shops, farmers' markets especially…when I go into Napanee I make it a point to do most of my shopping on Dundas [Street] downtown."
Pawlick says that small businesses are suffering as much as small farms.
"It's all of those people, native people, retirees, small farmers, back-to-the-landers, and small rural businesses they are all suffering, and suffering badly. If they go under, the whole complex of rural life goes under. The result is going to be the cities are going to really suffer. Because first of all their food will be the pits, and secondly their environment will be affected seriously, their water supply, air and the soil. Eventually city people will pay the price. So the book was written to sound a warning – 'look people, the rural world is dying around you, and if it dies, you'll die too, so don't let it die, get out there and defend it.'"
Pawlick has written several books, but an earlier one, The Invisible Farm, is a criticism of the media and a look at the rapid decline of agricultural journalism, in which he found the number of farm writers and editors in mainstream media had radically declined. He blames this loss of press or airtime for the lack of knowledge among non-rural people about their food supply, and what's really happening along the production chain.
"They just don't have the bodies to cover it.…but of course, what they are failing to realize is what is going on in the rural areas is going to affect people in the urban area, and has already affected them radically, so by not covering it, they're not giving their readers a story they need to know."

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Pawlick is referring to what is sometimes called the urban-rural disconnect.

"The only way you would know in the old days would be because you would have a cousin or an uncle who was farming, and when you got together for family dinners, they would tell you and now nobody has a cousin or an uncle farming anymore."
Pawlick, despite his dreary subject matter, is an optimist. He says there is hope brewing among groups organizing, and movements moving to reverse the damage that has been done.
"There's been a really active movement for what they call CSA (community supported agriculture), and the popularity of the hundred mile diet has been gradually spreading. The Kingston region is a hotbed of this. There's a lot of CSA, and there's a lot of interest in this area in Frontenac County and Lennox & Addington County, "Pawlick said.
"They may have growing pains, but they are sure enthusiastic. I'm hoping at some point if public pressure begins to mount, that municipal councils will be as pleased to grant a zoning – and maybe even provide help with getting electrical hookup – to a farmer's market as they would be to provide it to a Wal-Mart."
Pawlick points out the only way this is going to happen is if people organize and begin at the municipal level, working all the way up to federal government, lobbying to change the way things are.
"If these elected officials, at the municipal level, who are close to the people, begin to realize this is what people really want, they're going to start making a whole lot of things easier for small outfits and local outfits to get started."
At the end of the book, Pawlick offers a 'to do' list of 16 items readers can take on to help solve the problem.
But they are not simple tasks. It's going to take time, money, and a huge will to get things changed.
For instance, Step #1 is to curb political influence of corporate farm system. Step #2 is to end secrecy around farm and environmental abuses. Step #3 is to restore power to municipalities. Another step he advocates is to renegotiate NAFTA. This is a weighty list, and Pawlick says right now there are only two groups working hard for rural life and the food chain – The Ontario Landowner's Association, and the National Farmer's Union.
"That's why I spent so much time talking about the landowners association [in the book], because, boy oh boy, do they get people's attention! Sometimes in a bad way. They're a mixed bag. I agree with an awful lot of what they say and do, but I also disagree with a lot of what they say and do. The point that I would make is 'well, who else is out there doing it?' – I'll support both of them until there's somebody better out there."
Pawlick said he was pleased when Randy Hillier was elected as MPP despite that fact he himself usually votes for the NDP or Green Party.
"He really cares about small business and small farm, and he's the only person for a long time who's gone out, and he's actually been arrested and booked at a police station. You know he's risking his reputation and his livelihood to do something about this. Even though on some issues the landowners are right wing, and I would disagree with them on those issues.
Pawlick says that what has to happen is "ordinary voters, are going to become more and more concerned, and more and aware of [the problem]."
The book title was chosen because, although the war must take place all over, it is for the possession of the country, for control of it.
Pawlick holds a masters degree in farm journalism and is the author of 10 books, including the best-selling The End of Food. He served six years as chief editor of Ceres magazine, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's flagship publication. He currently lives on a 150-acre farm in near Marlbank.
For a complete (uneited) transcript of the interview with Tom Pawlick, visit www.napaneeguide.com. His book is available online at www.chapters.ca, and at bookstores.
What kept you going?
I was pissed off by what I saw. I've been following this kind of thing for years, i've been writing about ag for it must be 15 years at least, so i've been following what's happening. and its like over the years theres' jsut been a growing sense of outrage. and finally i said, aw the hell with it, nobody is wriring about this you don't see much about it in the newspaper, i'm going to write a book and try to get as many people aware of it as i can, because somebody's got to stop it
why don't you read about it in the newspaper
i wrote another book on that subject called the invis farm,m an dit was direted at journalists, actu i did as a grad thesis for my grad degree and i wnet and did some reserach through old copies of editor and publisher yearbook, and a couple of catalogs for television and radio as well
i found the number of farm writers and editors in mainstream media had declined just unbelievably
at one time almost every daily paper had one, and now you're lucky if you find one in a province or a state that has an ag person and usually they only do i par time becausethey got two or three otehr beats
basically what it is is manpower shortages, newspapers have been cutting back, tvs have been cutting back, they just don' thave the bodies to cover it they also figure that there are so few peole in the rural ares, and we have so few people in teh rural areas and we have so little circulation out there, they think, why should we bother, our advertisers don't need that circulatoin, and what we're after is the urban audience, so they just figure why write about rural when our audience is urban. but of course, what they are failing to realize is what is going on in the rural areas is going to affect people in the urban area, and has already affected them radically, so by not covereing it, they're not giving their readers a story they need to know
that book came out and was publishede in the states and sold maybe 12 copies, so it didn't do much good, escept I got it off my chest
most newspaper and magazine people now are people without a farm background, they're urban people, and it just never enters their mind that there might be a story out there
here i am working at a rural newspaper, with a fairly direct connection to agriculture, and i can barely get to these stories, how are they ever going to make it to mainstream media?
yes, that's one of the problems, is that there is no manpower available either at the small or the large papers any more. a couple papers that did have
i can barely get to these story
rural people don't express or publicize themselves very much, there seems to be a natural reticence, and unless you're in regular contact with groups like the national farmers u nion for ex, you wouldn't be aware of it
used to edit un food and ag magazine, i covered ag all over the world
had correspondants all over the world including Terry Pugh
The overlying theme of the book is that fighting for rural rights and the right to farm can work?
Small farms and family farms, we already have the
When you use the term the right to farm, it means
my book is intended to try to get people to start protecting and encourging small family farms, and small rural business
small butcher shops, farmers markets especially, things like that which are needed to support the small family farm, without local famrs, the small f
people should not be only supporting family farms, but small businesses locally
like when i go into napanee ia make it a pont to do most of my shopping on dundas downtown, i don't go to the mall that often, the only time i go to the mall when i've looked everywhere else and there's no where else to got, my very last stop is wal-mart
it is happening more frequents because more and more downtown businesses are closing
it's the small town businesses that are suffering as much as the family farm, and also the native people, you know that whole uranium mine controversy up near sharbot lake, they're suffering, for that matter, anybody who lives in the country and is small potatos, it might be a retiree who went and bought a small farm or a woodlot and they're vulnerable
also subsistence farmers, the tax structure has been set up now so thta it's almost impossible to be a subsistence farmer, there's a lot of people who would like to be a sub farmer and maybe have a little prat time job on the sid ethat gives them a little income, they think oh its good for our kids and gives thema healthly life, but the tax man comes along and all the other regulators come along and say we're going to make it alsmost impossible for you to do that, and if yo're going to that you need to be almost a millionaire
so it's all of those people, native peole, retiress, small farmers, back tothe landers, and small rural businesses they are all suffereing, and suffering badly, and if they go under, the whole complex of rural life goes under, the result is going to be the cities are going to really suffer, because first of all their food will be the pits, and secondlyl their environment will be affected seriously, their water supply, air and th soil, eventually city people will pay the price, so the book was written to sound a warning of a toxin, look people the rural world is dying around you, and if it dies, you'll die too, so don't let it die, get out there and defend it
Where's the hope?
In all the groups that have sprung up in i would say the past five years, at least around here. They've been going a little longer aroudn here. they've been going a little bit longer in other places. usually what they say is it happens first in claifornia and then in the rest of the us. in canada it happens first in bc, and then the rest of canada. in bc and in californica there've been movements alive for at last the last 15 years to actively bring back the farmrers markets and start new onws. THere's been a really acivtive movement for what they call csa (community supported agriauclture), and the popularity of the hundred mile diet has been gradually spreading
kingston region is a hotbed of this, there's a lot of csa, and there's a lot of interest in this area in frontenac cty and len and ad county, in this sort of thing
the groups, some of them are quite new, they might be only a year or two old and thye may have growing pains, but they are sure enthusiastic, i'm hoping at some point if public pressure begins to mount, that municipal councils will be as pleased to grant a zoning and maybe even provide help with getting electrical hookup to a farmer's market as they would be to provide it to to wal-mart. in other words i'd like to see as many farmers markets as there are wal-marts
but the only way for that to happen is if ordinary people really push for it and indicate they want it, and go to planning board meetings, and council meetins and say 'well what have you done to help?' and if these if elected officials, at the municipal level, who are close to the people, begin to realize ths is what people realy wnat, they're going to start making a whole lot of things easier for small outfits and local outfits to get started
and not in terms of zoning or preoprty tax, but als in tersm of income tax, i think we should be going after the province and revunue canada to get these tax laws rewritten to make it easier for the small outfits to live. but before that happens you've got to get their attention, that's why I spent so much time talking about the landowners assn, because boy oh boy do they get people's attention
someteims in a bad way, they're a mixed bag, i agree with an awful lot of what they say and do, but I also disagree with a lot of what they say and do, the point that i would make is well, who else is out there doing it?
right now tehre are only two groups that i know of that are doing it on a large scale, and that's the landowners and the NFU, and I'll support both of them until there's somebody better out there
i was very pleased that hillier was elected as an mpp, becuase i know him farily well now, i've interviewed him seveal times, i've gone to his house and had dinner and so on, and i'm not a tory, i genrally vote NDP or green, and he's a tory, but he's a smart man, and he really cares about small business and small farm, and he's the only person for a long time who's gone out, and he's actually been arrested and booked at a police station. you know he's risking his reputation and his livelihood to do something about this. even though on some issues the landowners are right wing, and i would disagree with them on those issues, they remind me of the vietnam war people back during the vietnam war era. the only reason that war stopped was because of that kind of agitation. it would probably still be going ontoday if people hadn't gotten out there.
It's not just about food, it's also about mining, factories, and more. What is the biggest threat to rural life? First front we should be attacking on?
Government reg which have been written in response to multinational corporate pressure. that list that i gave in the last chapter
monopoly - control most of the sales in a given sector, can set prices, and even fix prices
monopsony - that is where they also control production, where large multinationals not only control sales to the consumer, but they also control their suppliers, or are their own suppliers.
eg. grocery also owns huges swaths of factory farmlands, provide own goods they later sell in their own stores, they control things at both ends
this is increasingly becoming the case all over the place
what's going to happen next?
i thinks what's going to happen is people, ordinary voters, are going to become more and more concerned, and more and aware of it, if the media
they
in illinois, the state govt just pased som eleg to make it easier for farmers to sell their food locally, they had done some studies and found that of all the farmers in illinois
The war for posession of the country, for control of it. it's taking place in the countyr, from the standpoint, like that one chapter on factory farm, the hog farm AND THEN the next door farmer had to go to court to try and stop them so there was a big legal battle going on there
ended up building just two of three
and then you had mark slack up in tweed, and thing actually resulted in a shooting, osmeone came and shot at his tractor, put bullet holes in it
Besides seed banks, and collectors, is there a plan in place to preserve diversified breeds of livestock, particularly poultry and hogs, which you detail in the book?
In interviewing for the book, were people generally cautious, or happy to tell their stories? Does that hold true for people who both lost and won their battle?
the opponents were very talkative and easy to get to, they were eager to tell their story, slack himself was not as eger as them, but he didn't hesitate to speak to me, he answered every question i asked, he was frank and truthful about it, and i waslked away from my interviews with him, i interviewed him a couple of times - thinking that the guy was not really any villian at all, he's actually a nice guy in some ways, it's just that he's really concentrating on survival, and i dn't htink he's really thought through the implications of the methods he's using for farming.
he's not a stupid man, he's a graduate of guelph, he gew up on a farm, he's a good farmer, what happens with a lot of smaller farmers, their backs are to the wall, and they don't want to go out of business, and they don't want to leave the country, so they'll tyr anything to survie, and on'ce you've embarked on that course, and you've invested money, and you've gone into debt, it's really hard to stop. actually i feel sorry for a lot of small farmers who have gone the industrial agricultural route as an effort to survi ve, because in the end they're going to lose their shirts, the hog market right now is the pits, and i don't know, a lot of these hog farms, how they are staying inbusiness. eventually it's going to move offshore.
marketing boards?
i'm for them, but i think they need some fairly radical reforms
for instance
, i always look at the marketing boards as farm farmers's unions, and they are bargaining to get higher wages for their members, but as evey knows from teh history of the labour movement, a lot of unions become crooked and corrupt or if not corrupt at least they lose track of their members real problem and i think the maketing boards have gone down that route, what's happened is, it all started when quota began to be bought and sold when marketing boards first started out quotat was not bought and sole, y ou were just assigned based on capacity to produce, someone would come out and look at your farm anmd if you could handle 40 head of dairy cattle, then you would get quota for 40 head of dairy cattle, and you didn't pay for it, it was just assigned
but later on quota became a commodity, and people began to buy and sell it, and at that point, the whole system went off the rails, and i think something has to be done to change that.
i don't advocate doing anything precipitously, becuase there are people out there who every penny in tehir whole life invested in quota...so obviously you would have to phase in any changes gradually, but the quota system needs to be reformed, it needs badly to be reformed, and there has to be some really strong provisions made to make it less diff for young people to enter farming in quota industries, it just costs too darn much
i was a bit worried when i said in the book that the mkting system needs to be reformed because i know that to the large corporations to reform a thing means to eliminate it and i'm afraid if you get the big multinationsals saying 'yes, yes, we have to reform the marketin boards' it will be interpreted as we have to get rid of it, and i'd like to see the mkting bd system continue, but i'd like to see some way to grad phase out the sale of quota, and some way to find mechanisms that will allow young people to get into farming without going so far into debt that the are serfs
what we do need to keep is the bargaiining power of the mktgi boards in the
international markets, because they group so many farmrer and so many producers, they have a large quantity of stuff they are dealing with and they have lverage, market leverage, and they can push up the prices that farmers get and keep the farmers from going broke, and that part of the mketg board system i'm really in favour of
today many of us couldn't afford to get into the industy, and if we could, we woudln't make enough money to make the work worth it, it would just be too much greif for too little return, and htat's not a healthy situation anywhere
Missing of minds
that was someething i wnated to put in there because i'm a hunter, i've also raised livestock and killed livestock for food, and i've know many peole working in urban areas in montral and detroit for a while, and i know that when i would tell the average urban resident that i hunt deer, or at one time i used to raise chickens and eat them for meet, they would look at me like i'm some kind of monster from another planet
and they get all huffy and say we're vegetarians and how can you be such an animal?
when rural people want to be heard politically, automat a lot of city people are prejudiced agaginst them and prej against their views because they think of them as backward rednecks
i wrote that chapter partly to dispell the image of the backward redneck farmer and show that they're not, and show people surprsingingly that thare are a lot of orural people who are vegetarians and do not hunt
the question is not simple and i didn't want city peo0pel to have this skewed version of country people
the groups that do more damage than good are what are is commonly called deep ecologists, their approach tends to be that humans are an aberration and don't belong in the natural world, people like that are totally unrealistic
how is that urban people are mn't more alarmed by this, everybody eats. why aren't people driving out from tronoto and saying 'hey, what's going on out here?'
becuase they just don't know. nobody has told them, if it's not in the papers and not on tv, how are you going to know? the only way you would know in the old days would be because you would have a cousin or an uncle who was farming, and when you got together for ffamily dinners they would tell you and now nobody has a cousin or an uncle farming anymore
why aren't they asking then?
they don't think about it, they just assume the food they get in the grocery store is ok, but it's not, it's the oppostie of OK, if they knew how bad that food really is, and if they knew the danger to the environment in terms of water, air and soil, then they would care, and they would start to make noise. i wrote a whole book trying to get journalists to get this message out, but nobody read the book, and then i wrote the end of food, which did seem to get some people's attendtion, and they began to realize what's in the supermarket isn't really that good after all, this book is intended to say, the other book told you your food was crappy, this one is telling you why and how you can really fight to turn things around
i don't thinkg there's any bones about it, the vested interests are so strong in favour of corporate control of the countryside, that in order to counter it people are going to have to get out there and make lots of noise, i mean they're going to have to go out there and have demonstaionts, and do what they did in the anti-war years, you've got to get people's attendtion if you want things to change
when released?
Sept. 23, already in stock in some bookstores
book tour?
First week of Oct. in Toronto, second week, Ottawa, then other cities depending on reaction to the book
it's special to people in Napanee, becuase it's about themselves? why did you choose to focus on one specific geographic area?
first of all because I live here, it was a lot easeir to travel, secondly, the univ. used to work for cut off salary and research budget, so I couldn't afford, even if i could have afforded it, it would have made such an unweildy book to try and cover several countries or all of the countries, it would have gone to 5,000 pages, theres's just too much tehre
things are the same everywhere, they're the same all over the united staes, all over canada, mexico, europe, japan, india, he same kinds of things are happening, basically what's happening is the corporate world is trying to consoliddates it's hold on the rural part of our planet, and that hold is not going to be benign, if the only resaons for excistance of an organizaiton is to make money, and to make the maximum amount of money, then it's impossible that they won't end up destroyng the evnironment and cheapening their product, so it's just not going to be healthy. of course, governments are run by polititicians who have to campaign for office, and tis very expensive to buy tv time, it's very expensive to print posters, if a a mulitnational comes to you and coughs up a few thousand dollars for your campaign fund, well, once bought, you're sold
reading?
Life of Samuel Johnson, by Boswell
a book about Francis of Assisi
to brother son and sister earch
he's someone i think is very close to farming, and i'm enjoying reading about his life
what's next?
i've got two other books on agriculture going, one almost completed, it's a collection of essays on rural life as its actually lived
the other is one that's going to take a lot more time, an acutal sequel to The War in the Country, if i can get it done, it w concentrate on people in groups who are trying to construct a new kind of agriculture, farmers makerts, csa, family farmers who are new farmrs, who are determined to sruvive and use organic methods, also consumers who are becoming aware of the problems and what they can do to solve it, so the book will be concentrating on those folks
who would you pick to read your book?
someone willing to carry a picket sign, willing to yell as part of a group in the street
someone willing not only to write a letter tot rhie MPP, but to go down to the guy's constituency office, or the woman's and actually talk to the them
people who aren't afraid to spend time and maybe even take a risk or two, maybe even go to jail for distubing the peace, not that i'm advocating to break the law
demondstartions the landowners have been doing in ontario, they're all non-violent, they don't hit anybody, or hurt anybody, they don't destroy anything, but boy they raise hell, and because they raise hell, the politicians are going to have to pay attention
if you can find five people that are willng to do that, that's the peopel i want to read the book
the media, our news media, we are very lucky in canada that our news media is not completely dominated as it is in the states by a certain agenda, we have several papers and we have several television networks that are stilll, comapred to the rest of the world, pretty darn free, and i know tv ontairo is a real strong advocate of some things, and the cbc still gets out there and does the odd good documentary and real report., and you've got individual reporters at teh G&M and Toronto Star whose mandate, in its founders will, is to foster social justice, so we've still got a pretty good media out there compared to the states, in the states we've got what you'd call the non-media
someone who isn't afraid to run for office, for municipal office first, i look at randy hillier, he ran for office and he won, i wish elizabeth may would win, it doesn't matter to me what party it is, but i want people to run for office and get elected because they care about the rural world and realize it's importance to the cities, and the more of those get elected, the greater chance we have of turning things around, it's just like climate change, and its connected with the climate change issues, and it's something thats come to a head now, and its an emergency situation, if we don't do something right quickly, we're going to have such a messed up world, i pity our kids

Jan