TEN MILE POINT—It’s a case of “have cow, will travel” for Henk and Bettina Schuurmans of Elmira in southern Ontario as they set out on an epic cross-country pilgrimage perched atop an open cab John Deere 6430 tractor hauling a massive plastic Holstein named Mabel. The couple is making the trip to British Columbia from their southern Ontario home in order to raise awareness of Canada’s milk supply management system under threat from US trade negotiators in the ongoing North American Free Trade Agreement talks.
It’s early days yet. The couple set out on their trip last Saturday, arriving on Manitoulin by Chi-Cheemaun ferry Sunday morning, and it won’t be a quick trip either; the tractor only makes about 40 kilometers an hour and the couple prefer travelling the back roads wherever possible. But the first day was still a cracker, clocking in 230-odd kilometers.
The couple paused at the 10-Mile Point lookout on Highway 6 to chat with The Expositor about their Odyssey and why they are exposing themselves to the elements through the 30 to 40 days they figure it will take them to reach their destination. “Our schedule is a bit loose because you never know what the weather will be like or what you may decide to stop and see along the way,” said Ms. Schuurmans. “You can’t really spend eight hours riding out in the open, either. The less direct route following back country roads, wherever possible, will also impact the schedule—and then there is the weather.”
“We thought about it quite a lot before we decided to take the open tractor,” said Mr. Schuurmans. “Travelling by car, you really don’t connect with the land very well. But sitting on the tractor you can feel the wind, you can smell the earth, the trees and the water—you become part of the land around you.”
The couple’s Elmira dairy farm is home to about 75 milking cows and is currently in the capable hands of their three grown sons.
photo by David Samuels
“That’s really what it is all about,” said Mr. Schuurmans. “With all the trade talk going on right now, we felt it was important to raise people’s awareness of how important the supply management system is to keeping the family dairy farm alive.”
He explained that the Canadian system, unlike the American, focusses on balancing the supply of milk with demand. “There are no government subsidies in the Canadian system,” said Mr. Schuurmans. “The Americans encourage production with subsidies and they are drowning in milk.” Milk prices in the US are dropping below the cost of production due to the oversupply in the market, leading insurmountable barriers to small family farms in favour of large corporate entities with thousands of cows.
“There are some countries that would like to open our market to dump their oversupply. For them it’s just a drop in the bucket,” he said. “But it’s bad for the rural community. If you get these big factory farms that milk thousands of cows, that changes everything.”
Most of the Waterloo Region’s (where the Schuurmans family farm is located) dairy farms are in the 50- to 70-cow range, he noted. “Those farms will be pretty much wiped out if supply management is gone, and it’s not just the farmers, there are all the suppliers, the tractor dealers, the veterinarians and even the accountants who will be hit hard if supply management is lost.”
Although an Elmira area OK Tire store has inked a bit of a sweetheart deal for the couple (they only pay for the wear on the tractor tires mounted on their vehicle), the couple’s effort is not sponsored by anyone. “We are paying for everything ourselves,” said Mr. Schuurmans. “But there are a lot of people who have been offering us places to stay along the way.”
In one short stop in Tehkummah alone, a local Amish couple supplied the travellers with a long list of contacts stretching across the North Shore and beyond. If all else fails, there are motels and an emergency back-up tent and sleeping bags nestled with their luggage behind the large plastic cow on the back of their tractor.
Despite their open cab decision, the couple asserts that “we aren’t really camping people, so we hope it doesn’t come to that.”
As for the return trip, the couple plans to put the tractor on a flatbed. “We have our son’s wedding when we get back,” said Ms. Schuurmans. “But if things go well, we might travel east next summer.”
The Schuurmans invite people to follow their journey online, on a Facebook page and through the hashtags #CdnMilkTour and @CdnMilkTour on Twitter.
