There is a tendency to look for the one big move that will lift our fortunes that we sometimes forget that incremental steps can succeed if we just take enough of them.
[audio wav="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AUG-27.wav"][/audio]
When we look for economic growth the tendency is to look for a saviour from afar. If only a big car company would locate here, if only a major food processor would come to town.
Those are nice of course, but they also very rare. For most areas once in a generation opportunities.
However that does not mean there is no economic opportunity or growth.
Consider the news that a relatively small company is entering the seed corn business.
C&L Seeds isn't apparently going to develop its own label but is going to be growing small batch, introductory, and specialty production for companies throughout Ontario and parts of the United States.
To that end it is completing a drying facility, apparently the first to be completed in Ontario in a long time.
This means new acreage for farmers, detasseling crews harvesters , and the people who work in the processing facility itself will see economic growth.
That economic growth of course spreads to the community as a whole as those new dollars are spent.
That is one example. Another is the growth in companies that build grain handling equipment for farmers.
Many of those too have expanded over the past few years.
Many have added employees, purchased equipment and upgraded their operations.
All of that adds to local economic activity, provides jobs, and again spreads the growth through the greater economy.
The big driver of both of those areas of growth, and other we could name, is of course agriculture, but it is also the business savvy of people who see the opportunities and are willing to do the work, make the investments and shoulder the risks.
We like to talk about how agriculture is an economic driver and indeed it is. Without it those businesses that serve agriculture wouldn't exist.
Some of those businesses grow to a good size and hire a lot of people, some stay relatively small. But added together it is a lot of jobs. It is a significant economic growth factor.
So with some crops in the 2015 growing year already harvested, some harvests underway and some rapidly approaching it is time to remind everyone that agriculture is one of the key economic drivers.
Perhaps we shouldn't talk about the agricultural economy because in reality there is really only one big economy, and agriculture is a major contributor to it.
