A new day is dawning for agriculture. Farmers can be forgiven if they read those words with scepticism. Ontario agriculture has been through four hard years of closed beef markets thanks to BSE and a price drop in the oils and grains sector that sapped financial reserves and kicked the heart out of the heartland.

Many farmers don’t dare dream of prosperity for themselves or their children. Crop farmer Lloyd Crowe’s Picton operation has been beaten up so

much he can’t bring himself to be optimistic, even though he sees the signs are there.

The industry has hit bottom but the winds of prosperity have begun to blow. An ethanol boom is about to sweep over this province and could be in full bloom by 2008. There are now four proposed ethanol plants for eastern Ontario, including a Kingston-area plant that would be the largest in Canada. Some argue they’ll be buying cheap American corn but the United States Department of Agriculture warned this year that U.S. farmers won’t be able to produce enough corn for their own plants in about two years. Price must increase.

Already other crops are competing for the capable farmer’s attention and entrepreneurs are developing foreign markets. Several hundred acres of designer hay marketed through a Vankleek Hill farmer, with the latest technology, will provide a modest living. This year 20,000 tonnes of Identity Preserved (IP) soybeans tailored for the Japanese market will bring local producers a premium.

But the next few years will be more than a crop boom. The infrastructure is now being shaped to develop a vibrant cattle industry in central and eastern Ontario. Distillers grain, a by-product from ethanol production, will provide the feed. And there will be mountains of it. An $18-million federally inspected slaughterhouse and

processing plant now in the planning stages for eastern Ontario will put another stage of production into the hands of farmers. Moreover, the U.S. border will be open to all live Canadian cattle, a relief to dairy farmers who had, prior to May 2003, counted on sales of dairy replacement heifers to supplement income.

Ontario lost its beef industry two decades ago when the infrastructure sprung up in western Canada. The biggest market has always been in Ontario. Yet until now, Ontarians have never exerted the will to develop that market on a large scale.

Not everything can be predicted, however. Nobody saw the world protein shortage in 1975 or that the price of a steer per pound would break the dollar mark. Few saw the disastrous effect of a single BSE cow on the Canadian cattle industry.

Those old enough will remember we have spun into the depths of despair before. In the mid-60s a terrible drought destroyed all the crops in eastern Ontario and hay had to be brought in on flat cars. The disaster focussed everyone’s attention on developing the agriculture economy. Agronomists developed corn hybrids for our climate. Through government support, farmers’ tile-drained fields added weeks to the growing season. New short season variety soybeans gave us a new industry, and marketing boards provided four decades of unprecedented prosperity.

Of course, there were naysayers then, just as there are now. In the early 1970s, economists and intellectuals predicted the end of marketing boards after they had just been set up. I started teaching at Kemptville College back then and students from Peterborough to Vankleek Hill, overwhelmed by pessimism, described agriculture as a dead-end occupation.

Yet, those who saw the winds of change expanded and prospered. Some farmers complained they were quitting dairy because they were tied to the cow’s tail seven days a week. Others brought in the best technology and moved ahead.