University of Calgary Press

About the Book

Alberta farmers and ranchers know that, in the frustrating business of agriculture, years of bounty inexplicably turn into years of despair.

Looking back over the past half century, Jaques recounts the tumultuous history of the Alberta farm organization Unifarm. This book documents Alberta farmers’ quest to increase control over the forces that have had such an impact on their lives and describes how it led them to form organizations that have afforded them measures of stability and security throughout the past century.

Unifarm, one of the most enduring of these organizations, is chronicled from its development in the 1970s to its reorganization as the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers in 1995. In discussing the relationship of Unifarm to the business of agriculture, Jaques addresses issues of co-operative philosophy, marketing boards, surface rights, commodity groups, and the importance of education and training for members of the rural community.

Unifarm is an important book that sheds new light on the many facets of Alberta’s rich agricultural history.

About the Editor

Carrol Jaques earned her M.A. in the history of education from the University of Calgary after several years of teaching with the Calgary Board of Education.

Unifarm was published as a part of Legacies Shared

Praise for Unifarm

Unifarm will add significantly to the body of information about the ‘men of soil’ and their determination to improve the rural economy in Alberta. Few people … know the story, the struggles, the disappointments, the triumphs of many self-sacrificing rural individuals. It is simply a story that needs to be told.

—Bruno Friesen, Retired, Alberta Wheat Pool

This book is historically accurate and brilliantly written. It is complete in every detail.

—Murray H. Hawkins, Professor Emeritus, Rural Economy, University of Alberta

This book will serve as a legacy of the important people, events, conditions, and this particularly important organization during a significant period in the history of Alberta. It will be valued by students and scholars of social movements, agricultural/farm and rural organizations, organizational development and change, and leadership development.

—Wayne Lamble, Professor, University of Alberta

Table of Contents

 

Acknowledgements
Dedication
Introduction

Chapter 1. The Early Years

Chapter 2. Farmer’s Union of Alberta

Chapter 3. Steps to Amalgamation

Chapter 4. Time for Decision

Chapter 5. "All Those Peppermints"

Chapter 6. "Ten Miles Each Way"

Chapter 7. "Boy, You Really Have to Work to Make Democracy Function"

Chapter 8. Following a Grand Tradition

Chapter 9. Surface Rights, Land Use, and All That

Chapter 10. Women of Unifarm: Half the Sky

Chapter 11. "We Have Got to Get Organized"

Chapter 12. Under the Umbrella

Chapter 13. "A Great Degree of Misunderstanding"

Chapter 14. Showdown

Chapter 15. Changing Times

Chapter 16. What To Do?

Epilogue—Wild Rose Agricultural Producers
Sources
Bibliography