A Cow Farm and the Globalization Rant

Every day on the way to work we drive past a farm on 16th Avenue and Kennedy Road. I have no idea how big the farm is, being no judge of the size of an area by sight, but for us city-people squeezed on the towel-sized properties, it seems huge. It has a fenced off area with a barn, where in good weather a couple of dozens of black-and-white cows graze lazily, or linger in the shade of the few scrawny trees. Next to the cow-land is a corn field, covering the whole gentle slope of the hill, in my estimate some 500 by 500 yards, or so. For some unexplainable reason, seeing the cows during the commute always have a calming effect on both, Meg and me. Usually we greet them with "hi girls," to which they always respond by staring at the general direction of the traffic and not acknowledging the greeting they couldn't have heard anyway.

A couple of weeks ago we read in the community newspaper that the farm had been sold to a house-building company for $100 million. Not a laughable amount, and who can blame the farmer for selling? Looking at the broader picture, I wonder where does the greed stop and the reason start? I must confess, our own house, and the whole community around it, is built on the former farmland. I know it sounds hypocritical ranting against the same process that benefited us, but losing that farm almost seems like something personal is being taken away. Our city is growing and becoming more crowded by the day, slowly defying the purpose of moving away from the traffic and bustle of the downtown Toronto. The few remaining farmlands are the last open spaces, giving us room for breathing and preventing the claustrophobia of what's to become. But slowly, one by one, they succumb to the brutal advance of—not progress, but profit! Almighty dollar is the only fact featuring in any argument around here—and where is it taking us? Take, for example, globalization.

In the news last night was a report that China is artificially maintaining its currency 40% lower of its real value, to retain their export supremacy over the West. The companies interested in exporting to China are discouraged by the unfavorable price their goods can fetch there. In turn, the Chinese are littering the world with cheap products. Ah, one must love globalization!

So, up here in the frozen west, what have we got from globalization? First, we got new global markets for our firms to export to, neglecting local ones and in process making some very rich people much richer. We watched as not only the whole companies moved to the cheaper lands, but also as the jobs for those companies remaining here are being outsourced wherever the cheaper labor can be found. Now we have our local phone lines being connected in India, our bank statement and transactions being explained to us from Asia or Middle East, our jobs migrating away, while desperate immigrants in search for better life still flock to Canada and compete for the few remaining jobs.

Home grown businesses, on the other hand, seem to have only one goal: to be sold to a huge international corporation for a lot of money. No one is even starting a business with intention to grow and develop it, to keep it in the family and prosper from and with it.

The way I see it, the only way for our economy to move forward is to stop the drive for globalization and outsourcing, and to build the lasting business models at home. Though, I'm afraid, it could be too late to save what's left.