An analysis of how neoliberal policies have radically restructured farming in Western Canada.
The establishment of a Western Canadian economy dominated by family farming was part of the government’s post-Confederation nation building and industrial development strategy. During this era, Western family farms were established and promoted to serve as a market for Canadian industrial goods and a source of export cash crops, which both played essential roles in the national economy.
In Eroding a Way of Life, Murray Knuttila shows how decades of neoliberal policies, state austerity, deregulation, and privatization have fragmented agrarian communities across Western Canada, a process hastened by the advent of the capitalization of machinery and high-input industrial farming. As a result, earning a living on the family farm has become increasingly impossible. As farmers sell off their land to larger producers, rural communities are watching their railroads, schools, churches, post offices, and hospitals close, and many villages and small towns are being reduced to plaques on the highway.
Analyzing the history of prairie agriculture through the lenses of class, federal policies, and global capitalism, Knuttila describes the physical, social, and political reordering of the countryside and the resulting human costs paid by farmers, labourers, and families.
The establishment of a Western Canadian economy dominated by family farming was part of the government’s post-Confederation nation building and industrial development strategy. During this era, Western family farms were established and promoted to serve as a market for Canadian industrial goods and a source of export cash crops, which both played essential roles in the national economy.
In Eroding a Way of Life, Murray Knuttila shows how decades of neoliberal policies, state austerity, deregulation, and privatization have fragmented agrarian communities across Western Canada, a process hastened by the advent of the capitalization of machinery and high-input industrial farming. As a result, earning a living on the family farm has become increasingly impossible. As farmers sell off their land to larger producers, rural communities are watching their railroads, schools, churches, post offices, and hospitals close, and many villages and small towns are being reduced to plaques on the highway.
Analyzing the history of prairie agriculture through the lenses of class, federal policies, and global capitalism, Knuttila describes the physical, social, and political reordering of the countryside and the resulting human costs paid by farmers, labourers, and families.
Authors
- Pages
- 400
- Published in
- Canada
Table of Contents
- CONTENTS 7
- CONTENTS 7
- LIST OF MAPS FIGURES AND TABLES 9
- LIST OF MAPS FIGURES AND TABLES 9
- PREFACE 11
- PREFACE 11
- INTRODUCTION 15
- INTRODUCTION 15
- CONFEDERATION to DEPRESSION 33
- CONFEDERATION to DEPRESSION 33
- PHASE 1 ACTIVIST GOVERNMENT 59
- PHASE 1 ACTIVIST GOVERNMENT 59
- PHASE 2CRISIS and STABILITY 103
- PHASE 2CRISIS and STABILITY 103
- PHASE 3 UNLEASHING the MARKET 157
- PHASE 3 UNLEASHING the MARKET 157
- A in the 227
- TENUOUS LOCATION FOOD CHAIN 227
- A TENUOUS LOCATION in the FOOD CHAIN 227
- MEANWHILE BACK on the FARM 263
- MEANWHILE BACK on the FARM 263
- UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 285
- UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 285
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 291
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 291
- NOTES 293
- NOTES 293
- INDEX 351
- INDEX 351