Ontario's stressed-out farmers could use something like a UFO these days.
Not the spaceship kind of UFO, but the kind of powerful vehicle that gave them political clout many years ago when they felt governments paid little heed to farmers and their concerns.
The United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) was formed in 1914 as an educational and social organization to advance the cause of agriculture in the province. Its members were concerned about rural depopulation and the increased urban orientation of the Liberals and governing Conservatives.
In 1919, its first foray into politics, the UFO elected 45 members to the Ontario legislature and became the government after forming a coalition with 11 Labour members.
The UFO, however, was ill-prepared to govern. Its members were all rookies and the party was initially leaderless.
After saying his government understands the importance of agriculture . . . McGuinty whisked off to Oshawa to bestow millions on the auto sector.
Barrie-area farmer E. C. Drury was eventually selected, but he didn't win a seat until 1920. In his maiden speech at Queen's Park, Drury said people were "tired of the old game of politics." His UFO hoped to turn things around and improve the lot of farmers.
The UFO gave farmers political power, but the party's tenure was short. By 1923, the Conservatives had reorganized around a new leader and returned to power.
The uneasy coalition of the rural UFO and urban Labour party had developed strains by then. Its core supporters felt the UFO had increased provincial spending too much and urban interests were upset at Drury's commitment to free trade and an almost fanatical enforcement of prohibition laws.
The UFO government improved rural education, transportation and electrical services, but that wasn't enough to save it.
The UFO declined steadily and its remnants joined other farm groups to become the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in 1944.
Today, Ontario's farmers face a farm income crisis they say is killing their sector. Commodity prices, the lowest in 25 years, are too low to produce a return.
The mad cow crisis and subsequent U.S. border closing has hit Canadian beef producers hard. Tobacco farmers need help to switch to other crops. At the same time, an urban-focused Liberal government is imposing new environmental regulations that will further push up the cost of farming.
In protest, farmers have blocked Highway 401 with their tractors, held up border crossings in Eastern Ontario and, this past week, 7,500 of them protested at Queen's Park.
Farmers are angry. They say governments aren't willing to help agriculture, the province's second biggest industry after the auto sector, in its hour of need. Farm leaders say aside from long-term help, some $300 million is needed immediately or grain and oilseed producers won't be able to plant their fields this spring.
Paul Mistele, a Rodney-area farmer who is a vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, warns if help doesn't arrive son, Ontarians will see weed-infested and barren fields across the province this year.
As farmers mobilize to get the attention of government, they complain the attention of the Liberals of Dalton McGuinty is elsewhere.
This view was brought home in powerful terms Wednesday, the same day tractors and busloads of farmers demonstrated at the steps of Queen's Park.
After saying his government understands the importance of agriculture and is doing its best, McGuinty whisked off to Oshawa to bestow millions on the auto sector. His government is sinking up to $235 million into a $2.5 billion plan by General Motors to upgrade its operations in Oshawa, St. Catharines and at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll. The federal government is contributing another $200 million.
"We are investing in our future prosperity by investing in our people," enthused London West Liberal Chris Bentley at the CAMI plant.
In St. Catharines, local MPP Jim Bradley put it this way: "We are investing in our future prosperity by investing in our people." In Hamilton, the local MPP had the same message but at least shuffled the words a bit.
Farm folk looking for investment in their industry, could only fume. They were already uspet at the $400 million the McGuinty government found to expand the Windsor casino.
As they protested in Wednesday's cold, farmers suffered another whammy. They learned the U.S. border that was supposed to reopen for beef shipments on Monday will stay closed because of a judge's ruling in Montana.
The news only fanned the flames of farm discontent.
Will this fury in the furrow amount to anything? Will this mobilization lead to greater politicization of the farm sector?
Could all this anger lead to a return of a UFO?
The numbers game is against farmers. Back at the turn of the 20th century, half of Ontario's population farmed. By the time the UFO took over at Queen's Park, that had slipped to one-third.
Today, about eight per cent of Ontario's 12 million residents live in rural areas, but less than two per cent actually farm. Urbanites who fled the cities are a growing feature of rural life and their interests don't necessarily coincide with those of farmers. Sometimes they conflict.
Mistele, the OFA vice-president, recalls the days in rural Ontario when "everybody had the same values." Now farm kids in rural schools have classmates whose parents have the time and money to take them to places like Disney World. For farm families, often tied to their operations and without much spare cash, this reminds them their world has changed, Mistele says.
The bottom line remains a numbers problem.
Earl McEachren, president of the Middlesex Federation of Agriculture, is glum about the numbers.
"You couldn't get an MPP elected on a farm platform," he acknowledges. "Every rural riding has so many people no longer connected to agriculture."
McEachren says farmers believe none of the existing political parties really care about agriculture but he doubts farmers can establish their own party, a modern-day UFO.
Paul Nesbitt-Larking, a political scientist at Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, puts it this way: "they don't have the votes, the critical mass" to become a political force. He says farmers have to resort to stunts such as tractor convoys and public rallies, which betray "an indication of their weakness" politically.
And yet, he says, the current farm income crisis is "catastrophic" for agriculture and farmers need to speak out.
"I can't see a major political movement emerging out of what they have been able to achieve, unless they are able to make a political deal or coalition with another force, maybe something around rural Ontario, maybe something around environmental politics," he says. "Those are always possibilities, but at the moment I don't see any overtures like that for farmers."
It's a gloomy picture for farmers who contribute so much to the economy yet reap so little respect from government in return.
Ontario's farmers, whose labour puts food on our tables, face a future landscape that seems dreadfully bleak, both literally and politically.
So it's unlikely any of us will see a UFO anytime soon.
And that's rather sad.