Thsrsdar, Mare? 7, 1998

Walter R. Shaw: They are in the hatching egg business particularly?

Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald: That’s right. They are feeding poultry now at a very reduced rate to what they were a few years ago. Now I think over a period, they probably have their bad years, over a period, some are making pretty good mony.

Of course, we have people that are not making very much money, we have this in all phases.

Extension. The primary role of the Extension Division, Mr. Speaker, is to

prc'firlc a wide range of information to the farm public. The work of this Division 1s d1v1ded into three main areas:

1) Youth work through 4H Clubs;

2) The encouragment of young adults towards agricultural occupations; and,

3) Provision for information to farm operators.

Television was used on a fifteen minute per week basis over CFCY-TV from January to April, and from November to the end of the year. A total of twenty- two programs were produced, or 330 minutes of television time. In addition, five one-hour programs were produced on a Maritime basis as a co-operative effort by

Research Stations, the CBC and the New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island Departments of Agriculture.

Those television appearances and radio programs were information services to

our farm people. and were very well received and highly appreciated and it is our intention to continue.

Daily radio broadcasts of four minutes each were conducted over CFCY and CJRW. A weekly column in the Guardian and Journal-Pioneer has been maintained. This is information from the Department of Agriculture on the various aspects, the Dairy Division carries them, various divisions carried different weeks. I don’t know how highly they are read; I don’t hear many comments on them, but people will be asking why there is not more information printed by the Department of Agriculture, but I think this is general. I remember the previous Minister of Agriculture telling this Assembly that if the people in the province, the farmers, should make use of the information that is available in the Department of Agriculture. There is a wealth of pamphlets available; in fact, all you have to do is go to the Department and they are hung on a wall there and you can pick up whatever you desire. Also, I think I would like to make a little recommendation with regards to the Research Station Court here in Charlottetown. This is something that is not much utilized. There is information submitted in the press possibly at potato time, chiefly about blight in- fection, aphids and all such. There is a wealth of information out there on different types of crops to grow, how to grow them, how to treat them. So it is quite a job to keep people abreast of all this and I don’t know whether it is the time involved or what. Of course, it is very far away from many people, it makes it a little

awkward there, but I think there is a lot of room for people to obtain more infor- mation than they really do.

In 1967 there were 1,505 4H Members enrolled with 1,113 projects completed. Projects now available to Junior 4H Members (10 to 14 years of age) are: calf clubs, plant science, forestry, sewing, knitting. Projects now available to Senior 4H Members (15 years and older) are: dairy, beef, field crops, tractor, automotive, sheep, swine, potato, forestry, junior leadership, sewing, knitting, home decoration and etiquette. There is not very much left, is there? During the year many changes took place in the 4H program.

I would like to say that I am very highly interested in this 4H program, and an awful lot of the sons and daughters of farmers in this province make a wonderful showing here, they make a wonderful showing in their public speaking competition's. We sent a group over to Nova Scotia, to the Atlantic Winter Fair, to compete in the judging over there, and out of 20 classes the one that went from P.E.I. was in the first bracket. We were very proud of them (Applause)

A uniform club year for all projects was established from October 1 to Sep- tember 30th.

——189—-