Only one way to support Valley farmers

To the Editor:

The farming sector has played a major role for many years in the Valley. For example, in the early days of 1900s the apple industry didn’t look like it does today.

Many apples were produced on small family farms and placed into barrels to be shipped; apples weren’t placed in bins as they are today. Most farmers in that time period didn’t sell apples directly in large amounts.

The farmers of that era would comission their apples with a dealer. The dealer would send the barrels of apples to the nearest Valley railway station and be sent to the City of Halifax. The English would request large apples and the Scottish would like smaller apples.

Why? Well, I feel the Scottish would like the smaller apples for the sweetness for homemade pies and I remember as a child eating my great-grandmother's (Emma Fredericks) pies; they were excellent.

The English received most of all Nova Scotia's apples until 1939 and that date, as we all know, is when WWII broke out. Thus, WWII put the Valley farming industry into a crisis period because the export market was disappearing. The naval forces where being hit hard contrary to the forecast of high command; the submarine continued to demonstrate it's remarkable deadly qualities; and the U-Boat wars in the Atlantic ocean were deadly for both sides.

Also, many Valley men went off to war. My grandfather, Ronald Langille, was a part of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals who lived on Brooklyn Street. After WWII, many farmers decided to unite into groups and form organizations and my grandfather returned and went to Sackville to live and work in the construction industry. My great-grandfather Joseph Fredericks and grandfather Grant Fredericks continued to run a small family farm located in Chipman Brook.

Why am I recapping memory lane? In my opinion, the farming inustry as a whole today hasn’t faced a crisis marketplace challenge like today's for many years, maybe since the WWII era. But the crisis today is not so unlike that of the past and sometimes by looking to the past you can overcome challenges you face today.

Farmers need our support; that's the bottom line, and politics is always solved locally in the end. The province needs to support farmers on a major fiscal level to regain control of a failing marketplace.

I’m not talking about major hand-outs; what I am suggesting is major supportive programing. The Valley farming sector is losing out because major retail giants aren’t buying fresh fruits, veggies, pork and beef products to support local Valley farmers.

On the other hand, Valley farmers can’t support all the population's diet needs. Why? Volume! Why are retailers avoiding local farmers’ products? Volume and price!

If a retailer can receive a shipment of beef from Chicago or New York cheaper and with more volume of product they will continue, but if the N.S. government puts in legislation to force the retail giants to put local products into their stores then a new and better Valley farming market will appear. All the best.

Jason Langille

Black Rock