The Rural Voice, 2000-01, Page 6Rural communities
threatened by huge
barns
When Ontario's pork producers
failed a year ago to support the sale
of all hogs through a single agent.
they created a serious error with
catastrophic effects. Smaller
independent producers in the pool
were disadvantaged when private
contracts were allowed. Family farm
agriculture gave way to corporate
contract production and a giant
victory for corporate investment
farming. Our rural communities and
natural resource base are threatened
even more now.
I personally live with 8.600 hogs,
with 1.500 to be soon added. all in a
one mile circle of my home and farm.
Quality of life, odour, devaluation
and water concerns are natural with
such concentration already. Enough
is enough. No one knows the
cumulative effect so prudence would
suggest let us err on the side of
caution. Meanwhile three levels of
government claim paralysis. Who is
in charge? The next megabarn.(five
rumoured corporations to build 20
each) may be on the farm next to you
— get ready!
Now 60 per cent of our pork is
contracted w ith processors and by-
passes the pool. McCain's Maple
Leaf just reported record profit but re-
drafted many contracts and dropped
others to be so "efficient". Some
producers were hurt badly by weak
prices over two years and left the
industry while others signed on with
other processors, several American.
An aggressive scramble to set up
dozens of giant new hog barns by
outside investors operating through
local agents is underway in
2 THE RURAL VOICE
Feedback
southwestern Ontario. These hogs are
for largely American markets and
most processing jobs will be
American. We supply the land base,
water and air plus a few barn jobs
and, of course, manage the waste.
The pork producers' lack of unity
is setting us up for two ensuing
crises. First we're losing skilled
knowledgeable family farmers and
their sons' generation from hurting
rural areas. Second, we're following
Holland and Quebec plus seven
American States who over -developed
hog facilities and faced environ-
mental collapse and a breach of trust
with our urban consumers and
taxpayers. Our farm incomes equal
the automobile trade here, in order of
magnitude. so our environmental
stewardship is mandatory to save our
farm futures. So far, voluntary
compliance to existing laws shows a
tattered history leading me to
conclude nothing short of strictly
enforced laws is adequate to deal
with mismanagement on all farms.
Who owns water and air?
Giant barns are sprouting up so
quickly local municipalities are
caught unprepared to deal with them,
especially since senior governments
want exchange dollars from more
exports and even weaker
environmental enforcement because
it's "too great a regulatory cost" for
competitive business. Bill 146 or the
"Right to Farm Bill" must now be
either repealed or amended because
giant farms are using it abusively to
hide behind. Normal farm practice
can't be defined today as it was just
five years ago.
Premier Harris claims his job
under the Common Sense Revolution
is to unlegislate, to unregulate and to
upgovern. He is really showing
disdain for hard-won environmental
and social laws by telling us clean
water and fair wages are too great a
burden of regulation to be affordable
in a market economy based on
efficiency. Ontario's satellite TV ads
broadcast in Ohio claim "We're open
for business" –1 say! Ontario
continues to underfund Ministries of
Science, unenforce existing laws and
even dismantle effective programs
like CURB. It can be argued our
Tories are more loyal to corporatism
than the voters themselves who put
them there. Ottawa and Toronto must
be accountable to the agenda of the
voting public and promote the
common good. To free civil society
from the state and simultaneously
make us victims of globalism and
transnational corporations is a giant
step backwards. Our sovereignty as
the most abundantly blessed nation
on earth is not negotiable with any
corporation. Nor should our precious
land, air and water be considered
mere externalities, unpriced in
corporate decision-making when our
very existence depends on their
healthy existence. Is a short term
export of pork for supposed profit
from giant barns on inadequate land
bases justifiable considering the
environmental impacts? Such
business raises more questions than
answers.
In John McMurtry's "Unequal
Freedoms" he concludes modern
businesses' goal of making money to
make more money is ignoring
workers, environment and sustainable
development, all disconnected from
reality. Are we the first generation to
ignore truth and deny its very
existence? Are we a pagan society,
desecrating God's own creation and
totally unprepared for our personal
and national judgements?
When 20 ratepayers from my farm
block attended a recent Usborne
Township Council meeting to stall
the building permit for a proposed
1500 sow barn, democracy was
suppressed when council
acknowledged they were powerless to
act on our behalf.
Indeed councils must be kept
responsible for local zoning and
updated by-laws. These megabarns
are rapidly changing the rural
neighbourhoods in which we live,
often with negative and unanticipated
effects. Should they fail for whatever
reason, who is left to clean up their
after-effects?
It's time to recognize megabarns
as giant industry with corporate
accountability just like all factories
elsewhere. They must not be