Ron Britton wrote:

I am a professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba. Prior to my shift into academic administration I was an active part of the Agricultural Engineering (now Biosystems Engineering) department.

Clearly this has been a bad year for agriculture and there is a need to support the basis for our provincial and national economy (others may disagree with my opinion). I concur that there is a continuing need for science based support, but I’m concerned that science alone only provides answers, not solutions. Professionals like Engineers and Agrologists should be included in the mix of inputs.

Over the past 10 years I have written a column for the Keystone Professional, the APEGM newsletter. As I read the commentary above, I was reminded of a column I wrote for their September 2002 issue relating to professional responsibility. If Engineers are a part of the group who can work to a solution, then our responsibility for what we do is an important element. I have copied that column below for your consideration. Hopefully you will see the links that drove me to forward this material.

Ron Britton – W 474 6059 H – 736 2252

Thoughts on Design . . . and just who is responsible?

M.G.(Ron) Britton, P.Eng.

As I contemplated the passing of an old family friend, I recalled a conversation we had about 20 years ago. I was visiting my home town and Frank and I were discussing the “local” baseball team. He commented that only three or four of the players lived in the district – the rest came from surrounding towns that no longer had teams. The conversation drifted from baseball to the local rink and the difficulty they were having keeping it open. We agreed that it was a situation that was all too common in the rural areas of western Canada.

And then he shocked me by saying, “you realize this is all your fault”.

My shock must have been obvious because he quickly followed up by noting that the “you” he was referring to was my profession – not me, personally. We left it there, but the comment kept haunting me.

Two or three years later, on another visit home, we were sitting in the shade, enjoying some of the end product of the previous year’s barley crop, when I reminded him of his comment, and asked him to explain what he meant. He thought a moment and then provided me with his observation of the link between engineering design and fewer prairie baseball teams.

At that time Frank and his son were farming the land he and my dad had farmed, plus the land that had supported four other families when I was growing up. They were able to do this because of the improvements in farm equipment that were the direct result of engineering design. Wider, bigger, faster, more efficient equipment let the two of them farm more land with less effort. So, the up side was that they farmed more land but didn’t work as hard. The down side was that there were four fewer families associated with that particular land base. And the same story could be repeated for every farmer who was still functioning in the district.

Simply put, my home town was now about 33% of what it had been. 67% fewer ball players. 67% fewer students. 67% fewer grocery stores. It explained much of what I saw when I looked around me.

He acknowledged that engineers had simply responded to a demand for better equipment, and had responded very well. He agreed that the creation of this equipment allowed him to survive in spite of the fact that grain prices were about the same as when I had last helped him harvest. He assigned no fault to the profession, but he saw a clear linkage between our “success” and rural de-population.

In the intervening years, we revisited the issue as we watched the “local” ball team continue to play where I once played. I was never able to advance a plausible argument that de-linked engineering design from rural depopulation. My discussions with Frank clarified my thinking on the responsibilities our profession bears for the designs we create. His insight provided me with the understanding necessary to explore Billy Koen’s concept of “best change”. “Best” depends on the perspective we bring to a question. The new machinery was “best” for Frank and his son. It was not “best” for population retention.

We engineers have the skills required to bring new and better “things” into existence. The world we live in today is the direct result of the successful application of those skills. Electricity, cars, computers, air planes, artificial hips, sky scrapers, cities and farm machinery all exist because of engineering design. Our profession has caused profound change and each change has had both positive and negative impacts. On balance, in my view, the changes have been positive – others may disagree.

Because the application of our capabilities allows the changes to occur, we must accept both the credit and the blame. Next time you find yourself pushed toward an “expedient” solution, think about the disappearance of the small towns of western Canada. We do have a responsibility.

Not all engineering educators go to university and have numerous degrees.

These comments originally appeared in relation to a post entitled “Agriculture Ministers Drive Growth through Innovation, Trade and Effective Programming”. Click here to access that post.  

You may also wish to check out Mary Agnes Welch’s excellent piece in the Winnipeg Free Press entitled, “Too small by half: Manitoba municipalities lack the population to qualify” here.

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