Dear Editor
As I read the letter (News-Optimist July 18) from the president of the Battlefords Agricultural Society regarding the likely demise of that old and honourable institution, I muttered, "I saw that coming."
Casinos? Foreign owned big box stores? These are rated above agriculture?
A society that allows the food producing sector to be downgraded to the lowest level of importance has not studied history.
Weeds now grow among the ruins in Rome where the emperors held circuses to entertain the populace, including displaced peasants, to keep them constantly entertained in order to keep their minds off what was really happening in their country.
One might say the Ag. Society provided entertainment, but it was mostly from rural roots and was run by the people, not government. Government, local or otherwise, usually has the final say on most matters, often wrongly.
During the Second World War the people of Britain knew what it was to be hungry, the people of Holland knew what it was to starve.
These days the people of Canada do not know hunger. They seem comfortable with obesity, in fact. An exception is the growing number at food banks and soup kitchens.
Study history.
Christine Pike
Waseca
