the broken typewriter

In communities across the country on November 22, Canadians joined together to show their support for small farmers in Canada.

In Fort St. John, a convoy nearly two kilometers long wound its way from the Charlie Lake Boat Launch, through the city and around the By-Pass Roads a few times before gathering at Centennial Park for a rally and speeches in support of Canadian farmers.

As Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy said in a Facebook video following the event:

“Agriculture is the foundation to our country. Without agriculture, we don’t have food.”

“It’s absolutely important to me to see the farmers be supported and sustained in our country.”

Skylar Cobbett

One of the organizers, Skylar Cobbett, spoke to the broken typewriter at Saturday’s event, and said she got involved in organizing the event because she doesn’t want to see farms and the communities that go with it disappear, and she wanted to do something she feels passionate about: “which is change and change for the better in our country.”

“I don’t want to see that industry die,” she said. “I don’t want to see it turned into an industry that’s run by government. Instead of Big Pharma, it’ll be Big Farm – I don’t want to see that happen.”

As a mother of four young children, Cobbett said that “this is their legacy, and if they have nothing to look forward to, like owning a home or owning property that’s actually theirs, what am I doing this for? If I can’t set them up to have a future to look forward to, I feel like my legacy is a sad one.”

Cobbett grew up in a rural setting, her parents had a herd of 20-plus horses, and when she married, Cobbett and her husband became what she describes as self-sustaining farmers.

“We had horses, cows, chickens, pigs, ducks, goats, the whole thing. I milked my own cows, ate my pigs, ate my chickens, ate my own eggs.”

After a decade, it wasn’t possible to continue the farm without a second income, so they sold up.

“Even five years ago, it was not affordable to just be a self-sustaining farmer. You were living paycheque to paycheque. You couldn’t have two jobs because someone has to be there to take care of the farm,” Cobbett said.

A lot of people can’t continue farming without additional incomes, and it’s too costly to hire a hand to help out, like you could do 20 years ago, Cobbett added.

“That to me, is unfortunate and sad, because I see a lot of that legacy disappearing. That farmers’ community that is so deeply rooted here in the North Peace.”

Small local farmers provide food to residents, food that you know where it comes from and what goes into it, Cobbett said, unlike big, far away operations which might not care what goes into the products that they produce.

“Local farmers who have grown up here for generations do care, because it’s their family members, extended family members and friends who are eating what they produce.”

“It’s absolutely important to me to see the farmers be supported and sustained in our country.”

Although the nation-wide protest’s genesis was the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) recent controversial cull of over 300 ostriches at the Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewater, BC, it’s about more than the ostriches, according to Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy.

Kealy says it’s about giving a voice to and supporting small farmers.

“Most farmers work their asses off so you can have food on your table,” Kealy said in a Facebook video following the event.

That’s the reason he went to the Universal Ostrich Farm to try to advocate for them, he said. Because small farmers don’t have a voice. He’s not against commercial farms but says they have lobbyists and stakeholders through the government, as well as supports to protect the large commercial enterprises. Protections that aren’t available to small family-run enterprises.

“The government isn’t doing anything to protect small farms,” Kealy said.

“Instead, we saw Universal Ostrich Farm, where their birds weren’t for human consumption. There were alternate protocols that could’ve been used. Instead, we saw those birds get riddled with bullets – technically we couldn’t see that because it was under cover of darkness, but we could hear it.”

The CFIA didn’t need to kill the ostriches, Kealy maintains. “They could’ve been tested.”

He says he’s heard of multiple cases where the CFIA has come in “with an iron fist and done this to other farms.”

“You can’t just kill animals all across North America.”

MLA Jordan Kealy

Avian flu is endemic, and wild birds are carrying it throughout North America. “You can’t just kill animals all across North America,” he said.

With over 11 million birds exterminated by the CFIA, Kealy says we no longer have enough chickens to export, there’s not even enough to feed British Columbians.

“We have to import for our own market. We have to pay a higher price for our own chicken every time they do this,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

This, combined with the increasing unaffordability of farming that Cobbett mentioned, Kealy says small farms are disappearing bit by bit; with a 12 percent reduction in the number of small farms each time the government does a census.

At the same time, the government is talking about cloned meat and engineered meat being the next great thing.

“If you want to know where your food comes from and what goes it in, the small farmer actually knows where that comes from,” Kealy said.