Two days before the transport truck was to arrive, Mr. Carty was outside helping his father, tending to the herd of pigs, when he noticed one especially large sow take a few steps backwards, then collapse dead to the ground.

During the next two days, that scene would be repeated over and over again.

"It was only the sows," remembers Mr. Carty, "and it was always the same thing.

"Suddenly the pig would take a couple steps backwards, then collapse dead on the spot. We couldn't believe what we were seeing."

His father ended up shipping some of the dead pigs to the agricultural school in Kemptville, after that to the University of Guelph, but he never did find out what killed them. Not that it mattered much by then. Mr. Carty's father had already gone bankrupt.

"He had to sell the farm and move," says Mr. Carty. "We ended up in Brinston (near Iroquois), where he got a job helping to build the Seaway. He never farmed again."

So he's been there. Tough days on the farm, it's nothing new for Mr. Carty who, despite his father's misfortune, always loved the farming life and has been working on a farm since he was a young man. He is 61 now and so, no, there is nothing new about tough days.

This time, though, it's a mystery what to do about it. It's just like those pigs. It just doesn't add up.

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Mr. Carty, as well as owning a small, 100-acre farm in North Gower, also works at Carleton Farm Seed, not far away, on the Fourth Line, just outside the village.

If you want to put a human face to what people are calling "the farm crisis" in Canada, the store is a good place to spend some time. Farmers come in and out throughout the day. To make purchases. Talk about the upcoming season. Gossip.

A lot of the talk these days is about hanging on. The sort of conversation you would expect from people under siege, as though farmers in Ottawa were living in a bunker somewhere, wondering when the war will end.

"In the best-case scenario -- high yield, selling on the day the prices are at their peak -- you break even. If anything goes wrong, you lose money."   - Jim Parks, Owner of Carleton Farm Seed, who also farms 400 acres in North Gower area.

"A lot of people are hurting right now," says Jim Parks, the owner of Carleton Farm Seed.

"I know there are people who are just barely hanging on. Living month to month. My own accounts receivable, they must be this high."

And then he hold his hands about two feet off the counter he stands behind. It's a tough business right now, selling farm seed to people who are wondering if it is even worth putting in a crop this year. Or collecting money from people who lost money putting in a crop last year.

Mr. Parks, and it is a source of gallows humour around the store, actually gets it from both sides. Not only does he sell farm seed, but he grows cash crops as well, on 400 acres he rents near the store.

"Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment," he says.

"It just seems to me that's what you do if you're a farmer. You go out every spring and plant seed."

Even when it makes not a whit of sense.

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There is a handwritten ledger behind the counter of Carleton Farm Seed that explains what is happening to cash crop farmers in Ottawa these days, better than any government study, or any political speech.

The ledger records the sale of farm seed (down significantly this year), the sale of other farm products and, on the back page, there are mathematical calculations on the "break-even" point for putting in a cash crop in Ottawa.

In eastern Ontario, there are basically three cash crops -- corn, wheat and soybeans. Last year, it would have cost a farmer about $458 to plant an acre of corn. This includes the cost of seed, fertilizer, watering, fuel, harvesting and assumes a mortgage, or rental cost, of $100 an acre.

Below the handwritten expense column, there is the possible yields a farmer can expect from that acre of corn. In Ottawa, 3.5 tonnes of corn per acre is a very good yield.

Then, below that column of figures, is what a farmer could have sold the corn for last autumn. The highest price a broker was offering last year was $132 a tonne.

Now, go ahead and do the math. That's right. It works out to $462 an acre.

Don Carty thinks it's a world gone mad, losing money in a year when you are blessed with sunny skies and just enough rain. Mother Nature did her part. What the hell went wrong? That's basically the question farmers are asking these days, and the answers run the gamut, from unfair American subsidies, to the reluctance of Canadian motorists to embrace ethanol fuel, to gross bungling by the federal government and various regulatory agencies.

"Basically, what this means," says Mr. Parks, "is that people are growing cash crops in Ottawa to either break even or lose money. In the best-case scenario -- high yield, selling on the day the prices are at their peak -- you break even. If anything goes wrong, you lose money."

The calculations for wheat and soybeans are no better. And although Mr. Parks doesn't mention it right away, there is one last irony to the hand-written ledger, something that can't be framed in numerical terms.

Last summer was a great year for growing crops.

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Don Carty thinks it's a world gone mad, losing money in a year when you are blessed with sunny skies and just enough rain. Mother Nature did her part. What the hell went wrong?

That's basically the question farmers are asking these days, and the answers run the gamut, from unfair American subsidies, to the reluctance of Canadian motorists to embrace ethanol fuel, to gross bungling by the federal government and various regulatory agencies.

Mr. Carty hears the theories every day, working behind the counter of Carleton Farm Seed, agrees with most of them, although he is a farmer himself, and understands, innately, the Catch 22 for all farmers.

"If you're a farmer, you farm," he says, standing beside the barn on his farm.

"It doesn't matter how tough things are, you can't run away from it. You stay on the land and make do."

Himself, he moved to North Gower as a young man and married Nancy Stinson, the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of farmers. She remembers her family moving to North Gower from a farm on Merivale Road, where box stores now stand.

"I can't imagine another life," she says. "In many ways, it's perfect. It just isn't working right now."

Not that it was ever a picnic. She knows about tough days herself. Her father once had both legs crushed when a hay elevator fell on him. He's lucky he wasn't killed that day.

And working a farm, that's never been easy either. Long days. Days that never end during planting and harvesting season. Constant worry about something breaking down you can't afford to fix.

The irony that is farming today -- something you love, but will go broke doing -- has been part of her life as well.

Build a new home, design it so your elderly mother can live there, and then she falls and breaks a limb while walking to the mailbox. Three months later she's dead. Never even lived in the house a year.

So no, Don and Nancy Carty are not the kind of people who complain about what life throws at them. They're not even complaining now, even though their corn harvest last year was little more than a hobby, a break-even endeavour that will probably be worse this year, unless there is another spectacular summer.

"We're not complaining, and we don't want handouts," says Mr. Carty. "I just wish somebody could figure out what the heck is going on with this business."

●

In the urban parts of Ottawa, there are many people who have little sympathy for the plight of their farming neighbours. Farm protests clog downtown streets with tractors and lengthen the morning commute. Talk of possible subsidies for farmers have them glancing nervously at their wallets.

A great many wonder why they simply don't move on with their lives and, if farming no longer pays, then perhaps it's time to find something else to do.

As though we could ever survive without farmers. As though self-interest were a virtue.

And it occurred to me, that unless we find some way to help these people, we're going to be losing a lot more than farms. A lot more than a way of life. Does courage matter any more? Perhaps it's time to figure that one out too.

In the time I spent at Carleton Farm Seed, there was a steady stream of farmers coming in to the small store, built behind Mr. Parks' family home. Beef farmers who had lost millions because of fears over mad cow disease. Cash crop farmers with 4,000 acres and barely enough money to put seed into the ground this spring.

They told their stories. And not a single one whined. Not a single one sounded bitter. Hey, things just got a little tougher. That's all.

And it occurred to me, that unless we find some way to help these people, we're going to be losing a lot more than farms. A lot more than a way of life.

Does courage matter any more? Perhaps it's time to figure that one out too.

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From the latest foibles at City Hall, to an elderly man reading Anne Bronte novels next to the worst crack house in the nation's capital, award-winning journalist RON CORBETT offers a unique vision of our city every Saturday in Life in the City. If you have a story idea for Ron, contact him at rcorbett@thecitizen.canwest.com.