A New Battlefield – the Family Farm

We have always been a nation of family farms.  We need to protect that heritage.  We need to protect our farms.

Commentary

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing a third generation dairy farmer named Tyler.  His grandfather started dairy farming in 1950.  For 76 years Tyler’s family has been producing milk.

At one point, Tyler spoke with pride about how every year several school classes would come and visit the farm.  Tyler would pick a couple of gentle natured cows and let the kids learn how to milk them.  Back then, visiting a dairy farm was a fun learning experience.  Now, visiting a dairy farm is forbidden.  According to our government, school trips to farms pose too high of a pandemic risk.

Banning school trips to dairy farms is ridiculous.  It is also an alarm bell for us.  The government wants to get rid of the family farm, and to consolidate farming into big corporate entities.  In order to do this, the government needs a justification to get public support for their agenda.  That justification is fear.

Humans have been safely living with farm animals for thousands of years.  In many parts of the world humans and animals share the same space, living above the barn.  That was common when Canada was settled by Europeans.  We were not having pandemics by interacting with animals.  We were healthier physically, and spiritually, when animals and humans were free to interact.

Is the One Health Policy Creating Toxic Milk and Sick Cows?

In 2008, Canada signed onto the World Health Organization’s One Health Policy.  Part of this policy involves reducing the risk of pandemics by limiting interactions between humans and animals.  In other words, we are going to use the risk of pandemics to limit human-animal interaction, and to make farming so difficult that small farms will disappear.

To be paid for his milk, Tyler has to comply with the requirements of a program called proAction.  This requires that he enact a number of Standard Operating Procedures.  These include bringing in experts to help perform a risk analysis, identifying biohazards, and coming up with a plan to minimize them.  He is required to have signs around his farm warning of biohazards and telling people to stay off the property.  He has to have a procedure, and follow it, to minimize biohazards if his neighbour comes over for coffee.  This is literally an attack on farm hospitality.

Tyler is also now required to pump his cows full of vaccines and drugs.  A cow lives on Tyler’s farm for an average of 20 to 23 years.  Before the new requirements, a cow would be vaccinated only once in that 20-23 years, with a vaccine called 8-Way.  Tyler explained that some calves can get black leg if they do not get this vaccine the one time.  The only other drug they would use is topical Ivermectin.

Now Tyler has to give the 8-Way vaccine twice in a cow’s first year of life, and yearly thereafter.  As well, Tyler is required to give six additional vaccines yearly.  He is also required to administer some additional drugs.  Every vaccine and drug dose must be recorded in a written book and reported to the government.

I asked Tyler if there has been a change in the health of the herd since all of these new drugs have been imposed upon them.  He has noticed two changes.  The calves get scours (diarrhea) more often than before.  The cows are also taking longer to get pregnant.  In other words, the herd is less healthy with the new drugs being imposed.

I was horrified when Tyler listed all of the newly required drugs, as he read from the Standard Operating Procedure he has to keep as part of his biosecurity plan. As a consumer, I realized that my milk is now being filled with more chemicals.  Tyler now also has to wash the teats before milking with a pre-dip filled with chemicals.  Before, he would use soapy water to clean the teats.  Tyler has observed that the teats become discoloured with the chemicals and is concerned that the chemicals get into the milk.

The requirements of the proAction program are so demanding that two dairy farmers within a mile of Tyler’s farm have given up farming.  This is by design.   The playbook to get rid of small businesses in any sector is to impose ever-stricter regulations that make the business more costly financially, and more costly spiritually.

Regulatory burdens cost us spiritually.  If you are forced to spend a month of each year complying with new regulations, that is a month of servitude.  It is a month you are not enjoying farming.  It is a month you are not free to farm, or do whatever else you want.  It is a cost to your soul.  We are all being afflicted with ever increasing demands on our time that cost us spiritually.

The re-framing of human-animal interaction as a danger, rather than something to be promoted and celebrated, also comes with a spiritual cost.  Eventually we will accept the government propaganda and believe that it is dangerous to interact with animals.  We will become more divorced from our food, and from our environment.

Getting rid of small farmers to consolidate food production with large corporate farms will not protect us.  Our food will be full of chemicals.  Worse, the government will be able to dictate what we can eat.  We have always been a nation of family farms.  We need to protect that heritage.  We need to protect our farms.

Resources:

• proAction workbook – https://www.dairyfarmers.ca/proaction/resources/overview
• Safe Food for Canadians Act - https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/S-1.1/index.html
• Safe Food for Canadians Regulations - https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2018-108/index.html
• World Health Organization One Health - https://www.who.int/health-topics/one-health#tab=tab_1