The experience of a beef-packing plant in Brooks offers another example of problems that can arise. When IBP, an American-based company, purchased the local packing plant in 1994, it expanded the operation. Hundreds of jobs were created. A small town, Brooks could not provide enough labour, so IBP hired new immigrants and transients from other parts of Canada. Almost immediately, problems arose. Predictably, there was a housing shortage which now has been "solved" with mobile home parks and a company bunkhouse. At the plant, there is a weekly turnover of 10 per cent. The crime rate
in Brooks has jumped 70 per cent, and alcohol abuse is rampant and has led to the establishment of a womens' shelter and a food bank.
The biggest problems may lie in the future. According to William Weida, an economist at Colorado College, the life expectancy
of mega hog barns is about 12 years, after which they become so contaminated that the animals, sensitive to disease, can no longer be raised there. At that point, the corporation
relocates, leaving the community to deal with the pollution clean-up and the spin-off health problems, costs which cash-strapped municipalities can ill afford.
Just as agri-producers feel impotent against the globalized market forces, so too do rural communities. Most often they have little say in the
decisions which affect them. Governments, which at one time provided community infrastructure and services, are now "open for business." Not only have they actively lured corporations to rural communities, but, to sidestep local objections, they have removed all decision-making powers from the communities and turned them over to conservation boards. It is now the boards, not the communities affected, that decide the location of feed lots, hog barns, and other mega projects.
So, as our governments withdraw their support from their traditional power base, where does this leave rural societies? Do we as Canadians and Albertans value the traditional rural community life? Or, as urbanites, do we not care, agreeing with Thomas Friedman, author of
The Lexus and the Olive Tree, who states bluntly that every aspect of our society, including rural communities and agri-producers, must
get on the globalization bandwagon or be left behind. Certainly at this juncture, it is hard to see what might effectively reverse the globalization process. Dave Whitson, professor of political science and Canadian studies at the University of Alberta and co-editor of
Writing Off the Rural West: Globalization, Governments, and the Transformation of Rural
Communities, feels that it becomes a question of what rural societies can do to stem the outflow of people and social capital that will help keep people on the land.
Heritage Community Foundation Presents
