Growth of Ag in Canada in 1 Slide

1
Growth of Ag in Canada in 1 Slide

• Emergence of autonomous economic sphere (free of
  political and religious control) and a merchant
  class
• Innovation
• by extension of trade and discovery of new
  resources
• by lowering costs of production
• by introducing new products
• by organizational diversification
• Development of sources of innovative ideas
• Uncertainty and experiment
• Overcoming resistance to innovation

2
Preview

• An exciting story of
• Human ingenuity and creativity in the face of
  scarcity, uncertainty and omnipresent government
  meddling.
• Tremendous successes and failures

3
Pre-1492

• Agriculturalist native tribes
• Hurons, Tobacco and Neutrals
• (located in what is today Southern Ontario)
• Maize, beans and squash tobacco and sunflowers.
• Dogs and bear cubs
• Other tribes in present day Canada were typically
  more nomadic or lived by the sea.

4
European Background

• Early Canadian agricultural history is an
  extension of European economic and political
  influence
• First important contacts between Europe and the
  New World
• Portugal and Spain
• Holland
• France
• England
• Of these, individuals from France and England
  played the most important roles.

5
European Background

• The virtues of trade.
• The benefits of international trade created the
  conditions for profitable expansion of
  agricultural activities.
• With the West Indies providing a growing market,
  fisheries, shipbuilding and agriculture took off
  in what geographically is Canada today.

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VERY humble beginnings

• The origins of agriculture are linked with the
  discovery of the North Atlantic fisheries
• John Cabot 1497
• Compared to gold and silver, dried fish was
  unexciting.
• Characteristics
• Large number of small units
• Relatively low investment costs
• Freedom of entry and exit, intense competition

7
Demand and Supply

• International conflict
• Intense rivalries between English, French,
  Spanish and Portuguese fisherman for cod.
• Large European Catholic populations with a large
  domestic demand for fish.
• Technology alternatives
• Salting versus dry curing
• Implications temporary or permanent settlements

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The Role of Salt

• English fishermen did not have much salt, so fish
  had to be dry-cured
• This created the need for semi-permanent basis in
  regions suitable for drying where salt could be
  obtained from the Portuguese.
• By 1600, the English had established a permanent
  foothold in Newfoundland.
• The others, relying on their cheaper supplies of
  salt, did not.

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The Role of Salt

• French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen relied
  on salting down fish
• Focus was on internal markets
• Emphasis was on self sufficiency
• Upshot They neglected foreign markets and the
  possibility of cod as a tradable commodity.

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The Role of Salt

• English fishermen, in contrast
• Emphasized cod as an article of trade
• Virtuous (and profitable) trade triangle
• England -gt Newfoundland -gt Spain -gt England.
• Exchange dried cod in Spain for gold, wine, salt.

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More Contrasts

• France
• Decentralized domestic marketing channels
• Many ports in France and in the St. Lawrence Gulf
• England
• Centralized marketing channels
• West Country ports lt-gt specific areas in NFLD.
• Chartered companies
• Suppressed foreign competition

12
English Set Back

• Between 1600-1625
• 6 attempts to establish a resident fishery.
• All failed
• NFLD too inhospitable, there was a lack of
  resources, considerable internal bickering and
  insufficient agriculture.

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RISE OF NEW ENGLAND

• First permanent settlement 1620
• Founded by the New England Council
• Granted a monopoly to charge fees for fishing and
  drying.
• Goal establish a permanent settlement.

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DIFFICULT START

• 1620-1622 Communist approach
• The Pilgrims' unhappiness and difficulties were
  caused by their system of common property.
• not adopted from their religious convictions, but
  required against their will by the colony's
  sponsors.
• Result The fruits of each person's efforts went
  to the community, and each received a share from
  the common wealth.

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Inevitable Interpersonal Strains

• This caused severe strains among the members, as
  Colony Governor William Bradford recorded
• " . . . the young men . . . did repine that they
  should spend their time and strength to work for
  other men's wives and children without any
  recompense. The strong . . . had not more in
  division . . . than he that was weak and not able
  to do a quarter the other could this was thought
  injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked
  and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes,
  etc . . . thought it some indignity and
  disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be
  commanded to do service for other men, as
  dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc.,
  they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could
  many husbands well brook it."

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Effect of Common Property

• Bradford summarized the effects of their common
  property system
• "For this community of property (so far as it
  went) was found to breed much confusion and
  discontentment and retard much employment that
  would have been to their benefit and comfort . .
  . all being to have alike, and all to do alike .
  . . if it did not cut off those relations that
  God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least
  much diminish and take off the mutual respects
  that should be preserved amongst them."

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Communist Ideal Dumped

• In the spring of 1623, the Colonys sponsors
  decided to let people produce for their own
  benefit
• "All their victuals were spent . . . no supply
  was heard of, neither knew they when they might
  expect any. So they began to think how they might
  raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a
  better crop than they had done, that they might
  not still thus languish in misery. At length . .
  . the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest
  among them) gave way that they should set corn
  every man for his own particular, and in that
  regard trust to themselves. . . . And so assigned
  to every family a parcel of land . . . "

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Dramatic Results

• Colony Governor William Bradford on the outcome
• "This had very good success, for it made all
  hands very industrious, so as much more corn was
  planted than otherwise would have been by any
  means the Governor or any other could use, and
  saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far
  better content. The women now went willingly into
  the field, and took their little ones with them
  to set corn, which before would allege weakness
  and inability, whom to have compelled would have
  been thought great tyranny and oppression."

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Origins of Thanksgiving

• Despite the Pilgrims' increased efforts in 1623,
  a summer drought threatened their crops.
• Following their beliefs, they offered contrition
  for their misdoings.
• Then the drought broke which led to the
  Thanksgiving we still try to emulate today.
• And as historian Russell Kirk reported, "never
  again were the Pilgrims short of food."

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Origins of Thanksgiving

• Though we have incomparably more than they did,
  we can learn much from the Pilgrims thanksgiving.
• Our current material possession are the fruits of
  a system of private property rights, from which
  stem peaceful and productive cooperation the
  Pilgrims began to prove by experiment almost four
  centuries ago.

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New England Success !

• Longer fishing season than NFLD
• Puritans 20,000 arrived by 1640
• Settlement was sufficiently advanced for
  colonists to develop their own resources
• By 1650, New England fisheries were very
  competitive with the North Atlantic.

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Final Contrast

• Between NFLD and New England
• NFLD
• fisheries were the principle factor promoting
  settlement.
• New England
• settlement, trade and a resident fishery were
  mutually supporting.
• More entrepreneurial elements
• Further reinforced with West Indies trade.
• (very important market for New England fish,
  lumber, surplus ag produce source of rum,
  tobacco and sugar cane.)