#geog4390

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Say Cheese and pick a filter

In lu of our class excursion to Millbank and St Jacobs on Friday to present on various components of rural life in two close but quite different towns, I noticed something interesting – why was cheese priced so differently? In the Millbank cheese factory a literal brick of cheese, and I mean a brick this guy was hefty, could be purchased for a few dollars - $3.48 is the price that sticks out in my mind. Comparatively in a St Jacobs, a much smaller piece, maybe a quarter of the size was priced three times as much! What’s with that?

Though cheese is my no means an indicator of a town at large, these price differences for the same product show that one town was created to promote a certain mentality of what rural areas are – or in the very least what the visitor idealized. Though lovely and walkable with cute shops St Jacobs aims to promote the message that they are a cute little rural place that people visit because it is St Jacobs and a nice little drive to the country before taking your $9 dollar cheese slices and artisan sausage home. I would be very surprised if those living in St Jacobs would ever go into the shops for shopping anything other than a single gift here or there – they most defiantly would go down the street to the actual grocery store for their cheese purchases. Alternatively in Milbank the grocery store there was certainly gentrified to a point with a cute barn like exterior and the cheese store was one of two businesses to have websites of their own. The stores in Millbank were directly firstly to the residents of the town with a consideration to the occasional tourist brought in for Anne Mae’s pies the next street over.

Cheese aside, the underlying question is how rural spaces and ‘the country’ are shaped by how we desire these spaces to look? Further, what does this do to those who call the areas home if their home is drastically changed and gentrified for the consumption of weekend tourists who zoom in for a few hours and zoom out with some cheese and a meticulously carved wooden chair or two? In our discussions we learned that St Jacobs is facing a rising exodus in the last few years of Mennonite families in particular who say that the area is getting too busy. Mennonite families are by no means an attraction, they are people first, a people who are commonly associated with the St Jacobs and Waterloo area and are facing increased pressures to move away as the area becomes busier. If ‘the country’ no longer feels like home to those who grew up there – how much rural is left in the area? And how much staging and cost goes into maintaining rural idylls?

[bcgeog4390-19-blog]

Hello

Ahoy there 😊! Welcome to my first post! I am Beacher Chen, an average Singaporean undergraduate student from the National University of Singapore (NUS).  

For the past twenty-three years of my life, I have been living on this tiny (relative to Canada) city-state cramped with people (about six million). On this little sunny island is a concrete jungle packed with tall buildings as the government has innovated and developed the city upwards to accommodate for the expanding population. 

Source

Recently, I am fortunate enough to come to Canada for an exchange program for one semester at the University of Guelph. The purpose of this blog is for me to note down my thoughts and opinions about rural Canada for this.

Disclaimer: This blog was created for GEOG4390 University of Guelph. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of the University of Guelph. The University of Guelph is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by this blog.

[kvgeog4390]

Where do we go from here?

guiding question: Having worked through rural ideas for a while now, tell us what it all means. How do you envision rural Ontario in ten years? 50 years? More? What is the future of these places? And how do we get people to care?

The future of rural Ontario, rural Canada for that matter, is deeply subjective to what you determine as rural. We know that rural is far more than the industry or the amount of wild spaces that exist within the community boundary, it is all of these things in addition to the people and the memories and the social networks and so much more that may be subjective to individuals even within the same community.

I see rural spaces of the future as being far more connected to each other and to all Canadians. This connection will come in the form of increased telecommunications for needs such as health care, education, and the sharing of regional heritage. Greater communication among people will break down the rural-urban divide and reach a place of dialogue in the value of rural spaces as more than just places to provide cities with raw materials for use and manufacturing. As we have seen in this course, rural is defined by various components: industry, community atmosphere, quietness, and so forth. Through dialogue a point in-between the rural idyll and authenticity to have the cleanest rural with the most realism. The prewar era functional farms of Babe are long gone, yet the new can still be useful and creating in sustainable ways that will ensure that generations will still have access to food sources and natural spaces.

Building off the need for sustainable actions in all spaces, especially rural as they are commonly left out of climate adaptions, as outlines by Daniel, I see increased value to climate adaptations and mitigation in communities. This can include action such as increased carbon tax credits for home creation and retrofit with climate future awareness built in. Furthermore, every building will have some zero emissions energy generation be it a form of solar panel or wind power that has minimal to zero perceived impacts on wildlife and people.

I foresee rural industries becoming cleaner. Firstly, end fossil fuel extraction and increase renewable energies, transitioning those working on tar sands and oil rigs and in pipeline production into solar panels and alternative ways of energy transportation. Also for innovation that can remove the sediments of mercury and other pollutants from water ways that will not stir up settled pollutants making them worse. Areas like Grassy Narrows in Canada that are rural yet overlooked will be heard and supported.

I hope that existing rural places, particularly those whose main employment have died off, are revitalized and find new industries to make themselves relevant and self-sustainable. I know this will not be the case for all, some will close and their citizens remaining will move to larger places. For rural places with the capacity to have a future, possibilities using existing infrastructure such as in geothermal green energies in obsolete mines that can support hydroponics for produce based green houses. GoodLeaf Farms, based on Nova Scotia and now in Guelph too, is doing this to provide locally grown produce that meets nutritional needs of people so the community may remain even if isolated as long as energy can be provided for it to produce. For rural areas who are unable to revitalize or reinvent or create new in spaces that have dropping population I see them amalgamating in many cases. I would like to say all will remain and become vibrant again, yet the urban migration trend highlights this as a far more realistic pathway. I see those people who appreciate the rural ambience and activities, bringing them into cities. Community festivals and meetings, integration of green spaces into cities, bringing in the rural aesthetics that may be lost. Periphery zones of around cities of semi urban activities and semi-rural that have agriculture and feeding industries if you will for cities may increase, John Freidman in Agropolitan Development: Towards a new strategy for regional planning in Asia called these desakota in southern Asia.

I see greater connectivity, among and between so called rural and urban. I am not from a rural place, in-spite of this I think that we can get people to care about the necessity of rural spaces be highlighting the value of ecosystem services in society to improve human health and counter act climate change. By having green spaces, a characteristic of many idyll rural spaces near urban there is a potential to improve connection with those spaces to gain a better understanding of the function. Actions like quarries can be suppressed when people see the value of biologically diverse spaces. As attendees of the Aggregate and Agriculture seminar at the 2019 Rural Symposium saw, priority needs to be for sustainable services such as food provision and air quality maintenance over industry. Also, as in Perceptions of Wind Turbines in Rural Communities, also from the 2019 Rural Symposium, having informed and communicative representatives having discussions on what and how changes will be occurring may ease some concerns – from both rural and urban camps. With greater connectivity and communication I see rural spaces dictating what they need and also communicating why this works for them. In the wake of the updated Canadian Food Guide it shows that the Canadian government sees the need for variety and place specific needs in supporting Canadians, even Ontarians are highly diverse and require different supports. With less of a mold to fit into and more of a list of objectives with government or other groups of power in the area such as NGO or private citizen with vision.

As we saw in Maddy’s presentation, priority for water skiing was given over food provision – altering values by having discussions with children from a young age into the value of local foods and how first nations have a right to food sovereignty. This will create a generation that grow up with this understanding. Further, having mediation and community forums so different parties can discuss concerns and priorities have the potential to lay ground work for future cooperation. Furthermore, we discussed how settlements are changing in The Nature of Things, how suburbia will need to be replaced by complete and connected communities as we move away from cars for human and environmental health, towards the understanding that environmental health creates human health. Discussion that lays out that this transition is not coming to take your house next year if you live in the suburbs – instead building up urban centers so that in 20 years when your children want to live in connected places they can as upcoming generations have different priorities than their parents.

Reference reading

Friedman, John., Douglass, Mike. (n.d) Agropolitan Development: Towards a new strategy for regional planning in Asia. United Nations Centre for Regional Development. Pergamon Press.

Adams, Jenn. (march 13, 2019) Perceptions of Wind Turbines in Rural Communities: a case study in Orono Ontario. Rural Symposium 2019. Hosted by the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph & Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Reichheld, Jeff., Hehl, Emily. (march 13, 2019) Aggregate and Agriculture: Understanding the impacts of aggregate production on agriculture and identifying mitigation strategies. Rural Symposium 2019. Hosted by the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph & Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

[kvgeog4390]

What issue, is treated as a nonissue for rural Canada?

An issue about rural Canada that I find troubling is the loss of urban-rural relationships. When we think of rural areas agriculture and industries such as mining, forestry and fisheries come to mind – these are simultaneously called dirty and greatly demanded by urban dwellers in Canada and around the world. As a result of displacing so called dirty industries oversight and encouragement for them to clean up processes as much as possible are lost while perpetuating these narratives of dirty farming and etc. When we do see them in the media socially we seem to forget about them within a week, gladly going back to consuming in the way that we had before – forgetting where goods came from, if we even asked.

This can be looked at from an environmental perspective, an economic perspective, a food based perspective and a human rights based perspective – among others. In urban areas/the world markets we benefit from the food and materials that rural areas provide, accepting the consequences of biodiversity loss and water contamination in the “there” because “here” we perceive ourselves to be unaffected. In Only Alberta First Nation left under long-term boil water advisory to break ground on treatment plant it is shown how rural areas can face greater consequences of rural industry yet have far few supports than urban areas. This particular first nation, the water in this community is contaminated by industry and community members are now receiving a water treatment plant they have been waiting since 2011 for. There is a disconnect between caring for those in too many rural communities despite the major contributions that they make to society and the economy.

In a previous blog we spoke about the relationship between rural and urban spaces, how they are interconnected and lean upon each other for mutual success. The rural-urban disconnect is a continuation of this, when the relationship is invisible from one perspective we forget how deep the connection is tied. When Canada strengthens the services and resources available to rural communities Canada as a whole will become stronger. In no way do I think it will be easy, Canada is both large and complex – yet supporting and communicating with rural areas needs to be a priority, whether they provide a service to Canada in large and clear ways or not.

[kvgeog4390]

Who says first impressions don’t matter?

This week while attending the 2019 Rural Symposium, an annual event co-hosted by the School of Environmental Design & Rural Development at U of G and OMAFRA, I found the presentation Understanding the Barriers to Livestock Production in the Clay Belt Region of Northern Ontario by Sara Epp very interesting. The irony of a vegetarian focusing on a presentation centered at face value on livestock production aside, the themes of; coordination with diverse groups across language differences, and the decrease of young people in rural settings are overarching themes transferable to other rural topic focuses as well.

Her research was done through coordination with the University of Hearst – a small Ontario university that is Francophone. I was surprised that an Ontario university, and the surrounding region being French speaking. It highlights the unexpected barriers that arise when researching communities far different from our own and how joint efforts are needed to complete things more effectively. This is transferable to working with First Nations or Mennonite groups who we may think we are fairly well versed in, but upon meeting realized there are factors deeply relevant to the locals of the area that we as outside researchers take for granted.

Epp highlighted the values of both perceptions and reality in those moving to the area, this matter too in regards to those studying the areas as we feel inadvertently into the perceptions in creating our visions of what rural areas should be. She specifically said “sometimes perceptions matter more as they shape our choices in ways we do not realize,” I found that really interesting in term of the rural idyll .

Epp expanded this further into the draw versus drive faced by young farmers to the area. There is a challenge of young farmers staying in the field when far more lucrative mining options are available in the region. From perspective that has been looking a lot at the rural to urban migration trends this is transferable to the larger trends of rural abandon and aging communities – why would people work harder for less when fewer options for health care, education, recreation and connectivity also exist in rural areas? The perceptions of rural areas being places of wilderness and bears and hard work may draw some in – but it will drive more away at the same time. Barriers of economic and social and ecological challenges are more overt and easily measured – but measuring perceptions is much more difficult, yet are vital in understanding and ensuring the life of rural spaces and communities.