1. Psychological, Medical and Practical Reasons to Support Homestead #2
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, (between 460 and 380 B.C.) said, “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” We have been trying for several years to convince the government that they should be serving certified organic food in Saskatchewan hospitals, nursing homes, school lunch programs, food bank recipients, pregnant women and new mothers, colleges of agriculture, medicine, mental patients, prisoners and the 12.8% of Canadians who are chemically sensitive.

2. Work with Nature
Mother Nature is a powerful old girl, and we need her on our side. We need both scientific laboratories and eyeball science to help understand her policies and programs.

3. Develop our Space
Saskatchewan has 43% of the cultivated land in Canada and less than a million people. We need to develop our space so people, livestock, poultry and wildlife have the healthiest, environmentally friendly and comfortable lifestyle it is possible to have.

4. Family Farm
The family farm must be recognized as the basic unit of food production in Canada. The management and work will be done by the farm family. It should be a mixed grain and livestock enterprise for nutritional support of soil and livestock. Until about 15 years ago, all political parties in federal and provincial elections supported the family farm as the basic unit of food production in Canada. I haven’t heard any political support in recent elections. There doesn’t seem to be any concern where our food comes from.The main objectives of the family farm are:
1. We must produce the most nutritious, unpolluted food possible for humans, livestock and poultry and wildlife. This means certified organic or better.
2. We must maintain maximum nutrition in the food from the farmer’s field to the consumer’s table.

Other Objectives
1. Develop mandatory organic certification standards that will meet all international requirements that will permit all certified organic food produced by Saskatchewan organic producers to be marketed anywhere in the world.
2. Establish a testing laboratory for testing organic fertilizers for impurities.

Canadians from Coast to Coast to Coast Have Toxic Chemicals in Their Tissues
A recent report by Environmental Defense, an Ottawa based environmental watchdog group, told CTV News last winter that “Canadians are walking around with a cocktail of harmful toxic chemicals in their bodies.” The report entitled Toxic Nation: A Report on Pollution in Canadians finds that no matter where Canadians live, how old they are or what they do for a living, they are contaminated with measurable levels of chemicals that cause cancer, disrupt hormones, affect reproduction, cause respiratory problems or impair neurological development. Unfortunately, children born today are exposed to toxic pollution from the time they are conceived and will be for as long as they live. The Toxic Nation report says that in the last 50 years, the global production of manmade chemicals has increased substantially with more than 80,000 new chemicals created. We must reduce toxic pollution of people, domestic animals and wildlife as much as we can.

End of World War 2 – Hopefully
Pesticides were developed for biological controls in World Wars I and II. They were never developed for agriculture. However, Vance Packard in his book Hidden Persuaders states that if you spend enough on advertising, you can sell anything. That is what happened after World War II. We grew enough organic food during World War II to win the war and after the challenge was over, we fell for the pesticide propaganda.

Today weeds have developed a high resistance to herbicides so transnational pesticide and drug corporations have had to start using GMOs to strengthen the plant farmers want to produce. With the strengthened plant the herbicides can be made stronger and that will kill the weeds in the field.

Before and during World War II farmers were using horse power and some very primitive machinery but still produced a bountiful amount of food even in the dry years of what is known as “the dirty thirties.” If they had had the high technological equipment that we have today, they would have never gone for pesticides.

If we continue to use GMOs to increase the resistance of plants to pesticides, there is little doubt that it won’t be long before we destroy the productivity of the soil. If we eliminate pesticides and clean up our environment, World War II will be over. Also, we will have increased the health of our citizens and saved our national Medicare program as well as thousands of lives.