The Rural Voice, 2003-07, Page 32CLIFFORD
ROTARY CLLR
Clifford 2003
Antique Car & Tractor Show
& Tractor Pull
SAT■&SUN■JULY 5&6
Saturday, July 5
1:00 pm ATV & Garden
Tractor pulls
2:00 pm Jamboree
Both Days
8:00 am Gates open
8:00 am Breakfast
9:00 am Show & Shine
registration
1:00 pm Show & Shine
All Day Craft & Quilt show,
flea market, small engines
beer garden, miniature horse
rides, barnyard ducks & face
painting
Sunday, July 6
11:00 am Church service
12:30 pm Antique & Open
tractor pulls
1:00 pm Kiddie pedal pull
4:
This
year
featuring
Allis-Chalmers Tractors
& E . ui . ment
New Car display by
6 local dealers up
to 40 vehicles
expected
Contacts
Show Chairman • Jim Harkness
Tractor Pull - Bruce Kaufman
Car Show & Shine - Leonard or Greg
or
Car Show, Craft &
Flea Mkt. - Randy Ruetz (evenings)
d
HELP FOR ONTARIO FARMERS IN CRISIS
Queen's Bush Rural Ministries
Provides — a free confidential service
to listen and offer a network
of helpful contacts.
Call Collect 1-519-369-6774
Phone # Fax #
519-338-2942 519-338-2756
harquip@wightman.ca
519-327-8961 519-327-8963
519-327-8850 519-3274040
519-327-8842
519-327-8025 519-327-8035
519-327-8358 rruetz@broker.on.ca
28 THE RURAL VOICE
had to find management systems to
deal with this different kind of
livestock. Many of the early
producers were already experienced
with other forms of livestock. They
picked up advice from New Zealand
farmers, who are the top keepers of
deer and elk in the world with 1.4
million head of red deer, elk and
fallow deer in 1997. (They produced
eight times as much antler velvet as
Canada in that year.)
The first commercial operations in
the 1980s obtained their livestock
from the wild when permits could be
obtained by the wildlife agencies, or
purchased them from zoos or game
farms.
Once the demand for antler velvet
was developed, primarily with Asian
markets, the industry boomed with
breeding stock at a premium. That
led to the first taste of trouble for the
industry, according to the Alberta
commission. With stock being
shipped here and there all over the
continent, there wasn't much control
and testing being exerted.
"Techniques used for detection of
various diseases and parasites in
other species were directly
transferred to elk and other deer
without assessment of their efficacy
or accuracy," the Commission's
website states.
By the late 1980s the first black
cloud arrived on the horizon
of the industry with the
discovery of tuberculosis in fanned
elk. That discovery also opened up
elk farming for heavy criticism from
opponents who worried farmed elk
would lead to such issues as disease,
parasites and genetic pollution of
wild populations.
CWD only added to the
opposition to farming of wildlife
species.
Despite its troubles, the elk
industry is beginning to recover.
Prices have begun to recover and
some critics have been soothed by
better management and production
techniques. A code of practice for
care and handling of farmed deer has
been adopted in most areas in North
America when deer are fanned.
Like other forms of farming, elk
farming has had its ups and downs.
For the time being the down cycle
seems to have stopped, according to
Renecker.0