Pine Lake History - 1956-1975

              AWI told farmers must accept reality
By STAFF WRITER
Delegates to last week's Alberta
Women's Institute convention
were bluntly, if regretfully, told
that Canada could produce just as
much small grain food with half
its present number of fanners.
" The food producing industry
wouldn't even miss you," said
agricultural economist Dr. W. B.
Rogers of the University of
Alberta, " but I admit the rural
communities would."
In building up to his " bomb,"
Dr. Rogers had said that nobody
wants to give up something that is
very dear to them, even more
something that they and their
ancestors before them had worked
hard for.
— Western Producer photo
A sudden thunder storm interrupted this photography session but It
would take more than a prairie wind to disturb anvthing but the hair
of this group of 1969- 71 AWI officers. Left to right, front row, Mrs.
Chester Oxtoby, Olds, re- elected secretary; Mrs. C. L . Alexander, Cayley,
starting her first term as president; Mrs. J . T. Morrisroe, Red Deer,
vice- president; Mrs. G. A. McMillan, Edmonton, re- elected treasurer.
Back row, district directors Mrs. H. Tattrie, BrownvaJe, No. 1; Mrs
Harold Hillaby, Camrose, No. 3; Mrs. Harold Lefsrud, Viking, No. 2;
Mrs. J. Holland, Lethbridge, No. 4. Mrs. Dave Silver, Huxley, No. 5, had
to leave early for her son's wedding.
The main Immediate project of the Alberta Women's Institute for the
nest two- year term is to raise money for a provincial office fund.
This picture shows some of the detail of a quilt made by members of
Taber WI and donated to the fund for raffling. The appliques are an
unusual variety of off- shades of yellow, orange and green on white
and the quilt brought In over $ 1000.
As they drive along the country
roads, he asked the delegates,
" don't you sometimes wonder what
has happened to all the people
you used to know, the people who
used to live in the empty farm
homes of Alberta?"
Economists have been telling
farmers and farm leaders for years
that any business that depends on
international trade must keep its
products at competitive prices or
lose its markets. There are mil­lions
of people in the poorer coun­tries
of the world starving for the
wheat that is stored on prairie
farms— but " not at $ 3 a bushel."
After fielding a number of indig­nant
questions, Dr. Rogers said,
" I can live with your animosity to­ward
me. What I cannot live with
is animosity toward reality."
This flat statement brought a
change in atmosphere and dele­gates
started asking what indivi­dual
farmers and their families
could do.
Dr. Rogers recommended the
irrigated sections of Alberta as
those where smaller family farms
would probably last the longest.
He suggested that good use could
be made of trained middle- aged
farmers— considered too old by
Man Power to retrain— by sending
them with their wives to develop­ing
countries to show by practice
their skill in farming. " This is
what they know," he said, " and
this could be both a contribution
to the new countries and to the
problem of finding worthwhile
work for hundreds of prairie
farmers."
Dr. Rogers was speaking as one
of a symposium of four experts
on " Meeting the challenge of
change." Moderator Wayne Lamble
of the University of Alberta exten­sion
department set the tone of
the speakers by saying that until
recently changes used to be said
to disturb the norm but that now
" the norm is change."
There is no longer " a" woman's
role, the problem now is to choose
P r i z e - w i n n i n g h a t
between so many, said Prof. Amy
Elliott, also of the U of A exten­sion
service. Employment outside
the home is also no longer a mat­ter
of " Shall I?" but " How shall
I?"
Home economist Mrs. Edna
Clarke of the department of
agriculture, Calgary, said the
women of today and tomorrow
have a real challenge to meet be­cause
in " this world of confusion"
people are going to need the
security of home life more than
ever. She went on to say that she
is tired of young people criticising
everything about today's world and
" moaning that they have to clean
it up." If they knew anything
about economics and sociology,
Mrs. Clarke - said, they would
realize that this adult generation
have accomplished a great deal for
the good of their fellow men. She
also warned delegates against too
much criticism of misuse of wel­fare.
Just remember, she said, that
the affluent in our country are
subsidized too. " It costs a lot more
in taxes to put your son through
university than to buy groceries
for a poor family."
Leslie Graff of Alberta's cultural
development branch said the " furi­ously
laboring ants" of today's
labor and possessions - oriented
world are " in deep trouble" try­ing
to adjust to a world in which
most of what we know today as
work will be a thing of the past
for humans as automation and
cybernetics take over. " But I won­der
if it ever will for women?" he
asked in an aside.
TV was waiting for today's chil­dren
when they arrived home from
the maternity hospital, he said. The
young are the only real natives in
the present technological civiliza­tion.
But this civilization will have
to re- assess its values in order to
bring back the human touch. For
this it needs to change to a society
in which aesthetics are a part of
everyday life, the one creative
power machinery cannot take over.
In a very close competition for
first place St. Albert WI won the
Alberta WI handicraft shield by a
fraction of a point, partly because
of participation by all members of
the institute. Here Mrs. Melvin
Ballhorn of Wetaskiwin, AWI con­vener,
models a first prize hat
created by a St. Albert member.