The Rural Voice, 2003-11, Page 3About this issue
Feeding the hungrg critters
One of the delights of living in the country is being
close to nature, including the majesty of wildlife. It's often
hard to appreciate that beauty, however, if coyotes are
killing your calves or sheep, deer are stripping the bugs off
your apple trees or Canada geese are rooting out your
winter wheat seedlings.
Farmers aren't helped by an increasingly urbanized
public, both in geographic and psychological terms, that
sees animals as rightful tenants of all areas except cities
and peoples' feelings it's farmers who are trespassing.
This month we look at various sides of the issue.
Also reflecting the growing divide between town and
farm is the increasing gap between the people who grow
food and the people who eat it. Once upon a time farmers
delivered milk directly to the kitchen door of householders
in their neighbouring town or sold butter and chickens to
the local grocer. Today a vast industry has grown up
between the farmer and the person cooking Sunday supper
(if indeed they even cook the meal themselves).
So how do you bridge this gap? Two different
approaches have been proposed to rebuild bridges between
farmer and consumer. On one hand are programs like
Ontario Pork's "Farm to Fork" program which seeks to put
a face on pork producers through things like its incredibly
popular "Faces of Farming" calendars which has turned
ordinary pork producers into calendar pinups. On the other
side is the "buy local" movement which tries to close the
gap between the producers and consumers of food by re-
engineering the food chain with things like farmers'
markets, community share gardens and food basket
programs. We take a look at both approaches.
Few people have been caught between urban and rural
realities like David and Carolyn Biesenthal, the Walkerton -
area farmers who found themselves at the centre of the
controversy over the Walkerton water tragedy, including a
$350 million lawsuit for supposedly being the source of E.
coli that infected the town's water. Dr. Biesenthal shared
his experience and offered advice about what farmers can
do to reduce the chances of finding themselves in the same
situation when he spoke at the annual meetings of the Grey
and Perth County Federations of Agriculture.0
Update
West Nile in horses down sharply
Like one of those storms everybody talks about that
whimpers when a roar was expected, West Nile Virus in
horses has so far been much less serious this year than last.
Back in our April issue we carried warnings from Dr.
Leslie Woodcock that horse owners should vaccinate their
horses against the mosquito -borne disease that last year
took Ontario by surprise with 101 confirmed cares and six
more that were probable. Whether as a result of owners
taking Dr. Woodcock seriously, or by the same turn of
events that saw the number of human cases plunge in
Ontario, for whatever reasons the number of equine
infections was down 90 per cent as reported on
OMAFRA's website in mid-October with just eight
confirmed and two probable cases.
As of that date there had only been one case reported in
midwestern Ontario, a horse confirmed infected in the
Listowel area on September 5. Perth County also had a
single case the previous year.
But the real surprise was that the hot spots for infection a
year ago had little problem this year. Niagara, with 12
cases a year ago had just one. Essex went from 38
confirmed cases in 2002 to one confirmed and one probable.
Still, cases were reported until November last year so it
may be too early to relax.0
m`Rural Voice
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Editor & Publisher: Keith Roulston
Editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron Cty;
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.;
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
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Pearce, Bob Reid, Mervyn Erb, Sandra
Orr, Janice Becker, Larry Drew
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