Spilt Milk or Wider Problems? The State of Canadian Agriculture

Originally published in The Walsingham Papers

by The Walsingham Institute.

The changing landscape of Canadian agriculture seldom captures the media spotlight. That is, not unless a catastrophe befalls a rural community, farmers block traffic in a city center or a family farmer under siege has friends in high places.

Unfortunately, unless the news story directly touches our lives we are quick to turn our attentions elsewhere when the headlines move on to something else. Seldom asking further questions about what lay behind the issue.In the Michael Schmidt case what is perhaps most interesting is exactly what the media outlets aren’t telling us – if Schmidt’s operation is intolerable what is an acceptable farming operation in Canada?

There have been many changes to agriculture in Canada over the last couple decades – much of it has happened far away from urban eyes and as a result has failed to muster much ire beyond those who have lost livelihoods or live next to these “changes”.The biggest change is the continued move away from small, family run farming operations to large, industrial ones widely referred to as factory farms. Industrial farming poses serious risks to our environment and health – yet it enjoys wide support from government and big business. But just what sorts of risks are we dealing with?

Hundreds and hundreds of animals are raised and confined to large barns – ingesting antibiotics daily. The manure intentionally liquefied can contain among other things ammonia and antibiotic resistant materials. Run off from these barns easily contaminates our watersheds. It only takes the natural waste of a couple of animals to contaminate water sources and food supplies - never mind hundreds of head of livestock.

Consuming the meat produced by factory farms is essentially like taking tiny doses of antibiotics as well as other chemicals with every meal. In an age with super-bugs and viruses - further jeopardizing the effects of antibiotics through over exposure could be disastrous. Many consumers are completely unaware that this is the case – unlike the awareness Schmidt’s customers enjoy.

The continued centralization of food production poses unique problems too. In fact, centralization – whereby foodstuffs are gathered at central plants for processing, packaging and distribution - can actually increase the number of people at risk of eating contaminated foods, spreading distribution of tainted products even farther.

Thinking in terms of emergency preparedness – the direction Canadian agriculture is heading is concerning. It isn’t a matter of if – but when, factory farms contaminate a major watershed in at least one Canadian province – what would be the impact of this on the population? Certainly, far more catastrophic than the tragedy of Walkerton. Is this sort of farming really sustainable? What if a crisis prevents wide distribution of produce – how will cities be fed given that all nearby farmland has long been absorbed into suburbia?

Unfortunately, as long as the food continues to arrive in supermarkets and corner stores – few ask about the long and short term effects such changes to our agricultural system have on the environment, on us and our state of security.

Clearly, we have more serious issues than raw milk.

This entry was posted on November 29 2006 at 20:05 and is filed under Food Security, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.