Canadian Food Fight
Jenny MacLeod
February 13, 2006
Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada
How many of you like to eat organic foods? How many of you treasure the idea of a fresh, free-range egg for breakfast?
You would think that because we live in a rural area with many smallhold farms on our very own island, that this is not a difficult urge to fulfill. Not now it isn’t, but after September 2006 it may be not only difficult but also nearly impossible to get free-range meat or eggs.
There is a two-pronged dilemma that faces our smallhold farmers. The first is the new regulations for abattoirs, the place where a farmer takes the stock to be safely and humanely slaughtered for food. Small farms on Gabriola and other Gulf Islands have been able to slaughter their stock themselves and sell it themselves in “Farmgate” operations.
The new regulations about to be imposed in September will affect this process.
The new regulations say that unless very costly upgrading takes place, farmers will be able to consume their own product (lamb, pork, chicken, turkey and duck as well as specialty meats like emu and bison etc.) but will not be able to sell it to the public. Not only will they not be able to sell you their carefully raised meat, but also they cannot slaughter other farmers’ animals and present that for public sale either.
All upgrades call for an inspector on site before, after, and during the slaughter. This means bathrooms (male and female) being installed to accommodate the inspector on the slaughterhouse premises. The Provincial government has stated that they will bear the cost of inspection services, but this is not settled, and could change to the farmer having to pay for the inspectors.
Excerpt from Island Heritage Livestock AGM minutes January, 2006
Abattoir Situation: New regulations come in to effect Sept 2006. Personal exemption (own use) continues. Few licensed plants will remain on VI. Upgrading being considered by several. Plants currently licensed, Hertel (pigs) in Port Alberni, Westholme Meat Packers (cattle, sheep, but no custom) Crofton. Gomerich (all but poultry and pigs) South of Nanaimo. Nickels (sheep, ostrich) in Mechosin. Possible future licensing for Guenther in Courtney, and a Mobile red meat plant; Albert Kleinschnitz in Errington. The only licensed poultry abattoir is Farm House Poultry (Lyle Young) in Cowichan Bay. Farm House Poultry is now doing spent hens.
Before going further I would like to point out that there have been NO official complaints or incidents involving Farmgate sales of meat in BC. Neither have there been any incidents regarding the owner/operated abattoirs on Vancouver Island that cater to the specialty order (small farms, small orders) rather than only the agri-food barns which raise hundreds, sometimes thousands of poultry at one time.
The second part of the problem for smallhold farmers is that regulations for raising poultry are being changed according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The CFIA proposes that all poultry be raised under cover. In the Province of Quebec as of November 2005 the new regulations were announced. Quebec farmers were given 6 weeks to comply. As of Jan. 1st, 2006 all free-range poultry are banned from public sale. This is a fact. This also affects free-range egg producers.
Since free range and organic meats and eggs are the fastest growing market in Canada and around the world, and the Federal Government website is aptly named the Ministry of Agri-food and Agri-business, I find these new proposed regulations suspect.
They are supposedly safety measures to ensure against Avian Influenza. They point to wild migratory birds as the source of infection, hence the indoor rule.
To be perfectly clear, what I am now describing is Avian Influenza, the Low pathogenic type of virus, not the High Pathogenic type responsible for human deaths around the world. The Low Path virus was the one found in the Fraser Valley in BC in 2004, and resulted in the slaughter of millions of BC birds.
The new regulations suggested require all poultry to be confined in an indoor situation.
According to Earl Brown, a Canadian genetic virologist, you cannot filter viruses out of a closed air system without very expensive installations because the virus is smaller than an air molecule.
Poultry in an enclosed agri-food environment (my description of hundreds, sometimes thousands of birds in small enclosures in one barn) are highly susceptible to sickness for the many reasons that follow and the viruses become dangerous to the birds mainly because of the weakening of their immune systems:
1 birds are kept on broad-spectrum antibiotics all their lives, drugs which are useless against viruses and stress their immune systems, making them more susceptible to viruses;
2 birds are grown to a formula of: two and a half pounds of feed produces two pounds of meat. Hormones are part of their nutrition and the meat thus produced contains hormones and is not recommended for people recovering from cancer, pregnant women, peri-menopausal or menopausal women, or anyone with an immune deficiency disease or condition; 3 space is at a premium for heating/cooling costs so crowding becomes a stress factor; 4 the barns are cleaned when the chickens are “harvested” so that high levels of ammonia and effluent build up during their weeks of life and also becomes a stressor for the birds as well as a health issue; 5 birds kept in this closed environment become a disease vector, a place where a virus can mutate easily from a low-pathogenic form to a high-pathogenic form;
6 the chicks used for this form of agri-farming are all hybrids produced by hatching facilities and are genetically uniform. This means that the birds are designed for fast growth, more meat to bone ratio and weaker immune systems so that the AI virus can and usually does kill up to 98% of the birds in 24 to 36 hours in a single agri-food barn.
The actual test for AI is also suspect. This test is mainly used for exported stocks and really does not indicate the presence of disease, just the presence of antibodies. The CFIA visit to BC in 2004 involved commercial agri-barns infected with low-path AI antibodies. The chickens in these facilities had been killed by AI very swiftly in each case of infected agri-barn.
Because of this backyard flocks were destroyed, and of the thousands of flocks destroyed only two backyard flocks were found to be infected. Clean, well birds were destroyed simply because they were within five kilometers of an infected barn. Many smallhold farmers lost breeding stock which in some cases could not be replaced.
Two years ago the spokesperson for the CFIA stated that since antibodies for low path AI were so common in ducks and geese (domestic and wild) that they were not going to test for these antibodies. Just the same they arrived in the Fraser Valley again in late 2005 and slaughtered two barns of ducks, a commercial operation of thirty-five thousand plus. These ducks carried antibodies for low path AI. No real cause for alarm, according to the CFIA in 2004.
Slaughtering populations of birds with antibodies is the standard action of the CFIA during an outbreak of AI. There is no provision for inoculation of well birds, and the agri-farms do not want to participate in immunization because that prevents them from exporting their product. (The test for export only detects antibodies for AI)
Our local meat and egg producers, the free range and organic smallhold farmers, should not be burdened with new regulations that are a requirement for food exporters.
When you take this information and look at the CFIA recommendations, it does not make a lot of sense to force smallhold farms to conform to agri-farming protocols.
There have been no incidents or complaints in the smallhold farms area. The new abattoir regulations do not make a lot of sense for our smallhold farmers who do farmgate sales, or for our abattoirs on Vancouver Island that cater to the smallhold farmer and have not had any problems with their product or services to date.
I think its time we all woke up to the facts of life. Unless we do something about this now, we may be very unhappy about the choices left to us as consumers in the future.
It is not impossible that we will find that there are no free-range meat or eggs available to the us Canadian consumers in the coming year.
Let’s get behind our local farmers and ensure that they can continue to produce the fine meat and eggs for our community that we all enjoy!
I also suggest that everyone write to:
Hon. Pat Bell
Hon. George Abbott Minister of Agriculture and Lands
Minister of HealthPO Box 043
PO Box 9050
Station Prov. Govt.
Station Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC
Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2 V8W 9E2
AND LET A LITTLE SANITY INTO THE SITUATION!
How many of you like to eat organic foods? How many of you treasure the idea of a fresh, free-range egg for breakfast?
You would think that because we live in a rural area with many smallhold farms on our very own island, that this is not a difficult urge to fulfill. Not now it isn’t, but after September 2006 it may be not only difficult but also nearly impossible to get free-range meat or eggs.
There is a two-pronged dilemma that faces our smallhold farmers. The first is the new regulations for abattoirs, the place where a farmer takes the stock to be safely and humanely slaughtered for food. Small farms on Gabriola and other Gulf Islands have been able to slaughter their stock themselves and sell it themselves in “Farmgate” operations.
The new regulations about to be imposed in September will affect this process.
The new regulations say that unless very costly upgrading takes place, farmers will be able to consume their own product (lamb, pork, chicken, turkey and duck as well as specialty meats like emu and bison etc.) but will not be able to sell it to the public. Not only will they not be able to sell you their carefully raised meat, but also they cannot slaughter other farmers’ animals and present that for public sale either.
All upgrades call for an inspector on site before, after, and during the slaughter. This means bathrooms (male and female) being installed to accommodate the inspector on the slaughterhouse premises. The Provincial government has stated that they will bear the cost of inspection services, but this is not settled, and could change to the farmer having to pay for the inspectors.
Excerpt from Island Heritage Livestock AGM minutes January, 2006
Abattoir Situation: New regulations come in to effect Sept 2006. Personal exemption (own use) continues. Few licensed plants will remain on VI. Upgrading being considered by several. Plants currently licensed, Hertel (pigs) in Port Alberni, Westholme Meat Packers (cattle, sheep, but no custom) Crofton. Gomerich (all but poultry and pigs) South of Nanaimo. Nickels (sheep, ostrich) in Mechosin. Possible future licensing for Guenther in Courtney, and a Mobile red meat plant; Albert Kleinschnitz in Errington. The only licensed poultry abattoir is Farm House Poultry (Lyle Young) in Cowichan Bay. Farm House Poultry is now doing spent hens.
Before going further I would like to point out that there have been NO official complaints or incidents involving Farmgate sales of meat in BC. Neither have there been any incidents regarding the owner/operated abattoirs on Vancouver Island that cater to the specialty order (small farms, small orders) rather than only the agri-food barns which raise hundreds, sometimes thousands of poultry at one time.
The second part of the problem for smallhold farmers is that regulations for raising poultry are being changed according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The CFIA proposes that all poultry be raised under cover. In the Province of Quebec as of November 2005 the new regulations were announced. Quebec farmers were given 6 weeks to comply. As of Jan. 1st, 2006 all free-range poultry are banned from public sale. This is a fact. This also affects free-range egg producers.
Since free range and organic meats and eggs are the fastest growing market in Canada and around the world, and the Federal Government website is aptly named the Ministry of Agri-food and Agri-business, I find these new proposed regulations suspect.
They are supposedly safety measures to ensure against Avian Influenza. They point to wild migratory birds as the source of infection, hence the indoor rule.
To be perfectly clear, what I am now describing is Avian Influenza, the Low pathogenic type of virus, not the High Pathogenic type responsible for human deaths around the world. The Low Path virus was the one found in the Fraser Valley in BC in 2004, and resulted in the slaughter of millions of BC birds.
The new regulations suggested require all poultry to be confined in an indoor situation.
According to Earl Brown, a Canadian genetic virologist, you cannot filter viruses out of a closed air system without very expensive installations because the virus is smaller than an air molecule.
Poultry in an enclosed agri-food environment (my description of hundreds, sometimes thousands of birds in small enclosures in one barn) are highly susceptible to sickness for the many reasons that follow and the viruses become dangerous to the birds mainly because of the weakening of their immune systems:
1 birds are kept on broad-spectrum antibiotics all their lives, drugs which are useless against viruses and stress their immune systems, making them more susceptible to viruses;
2 birds are grown to a formula of: two and a half pounds of feed produces two pounds of meat. Hormones are part of their nutrition and the meat thus produced contains hormones and is not recommended for people recovering from cancer, pregnant women, peri-menopausal or menopausal women, or anyone with an immune deficiency disease or condition; 3 space is at a premium for heating/cooling costs so crowding becomes a stress factor; 4 the barns are cleaned when the chickens are “harvested” so that high levels of ammonia and effluent build up during their weeks of life and also becomes a stressor for the birds as well as a health issue; 5 birds kept in this closed environment become a disease vector, a place where a virus can mutate easily from a low-pathogenic form to a high-pathogenic form;
6 the chicks used for this form of agri-farming are all hybrids produced by hatching facilities and are genetically uniform. This means that the birds are designed for fast growth, more meat to bone ratio and weaker immune systems so that the AI virus can and usually does kill up to 98% of the birds in 24 to 36 hours in a single agri-food barn.
The actual test for AI is also suspect. This test is mainly used for exported stocks and really does not indicate the presence of disease, just the presence of antibodies. The CFIA visit to BC in 2004 involved commercial agri-barns infected with low-path AI antibodies. The chickens in these facilities had been killed by AI very swiftly in each case of infected agri-barn.
Because of this backyard flocks were destroyed, and of the thousands of flocks destroyed only two backyard flocks were found to be infected. Clean, well birds were destroyed simply because they were within five kilometers of an infected barn. Many smallhold farmers lost breeding stock which in some cases could not be replaced.
Two years ago the spokesperson for the CFIA stated that since antibodies for low path AI were so common in ducks and geese (domestic and wild) that they were not going to test for these antibodies. Just the same they arrived in the Fraser Valley again in late 2005 and slaughtered two barns of ducks, a commercial operation of thirty-five thousand plus. These ducks carried antibodies for low path AI. No real cause for alarm, according to the CFIA in 2004.
Slaughtering populations of birds with antibodies is the standard action of the CFIA during an outbreak of AI. There is no provision for inoculation of well birds, and the agri-farms do not want to participate in immunization because that prevents them from exporting their product. (The test for export only detects antibodies for AI)
Our local meat and egg producers, the free range and organic smallhold farmers, should not be burdened with new regulations that are a requirement for food exporters.
When you take this information and look at the CFIA recommendations, it does not make a lot of sense to force smallhold farms to conform to agri-farming protocols.
There have been no incidents or complaints in the smallhold farms area. The new abattoir regulations do not make a lot of sense for our smallhold farmers who do farmgate sales, or for our abattoirs on Vancouver Island that cater to the smallhold farmer and have not had any problems with their product or services to date.
I think its time we all woke up to the facts of life. Unless we do something about this now, we may be very unhappy about the choices left to us as consumers in the future.
It is not impossible that we will find that there are no free-range meat or eggs available to the us Canadian consumers in the coming year.
Let’s get behind our local farmers and ensure that they can continue to produce the fine meat and eggs for our community that we all enjoy!
I also suggest that everyone write to:
Hon. Pat Bell
Hon. George Abbott Minister of Agriculture and Lands
Minister of HealthPO Box 043
PO Box 9050
Station Prov. Govt.
Station Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC
Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2 V8W 9E2
AND LET A LITTLE SANITY INTO THE SITUATION!
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