A 10-hour standoff between federal food inspectors and a local egg farmer backed by 40 landowners ended Thursday evening when thousands of confiscated eggs and chickens – many dead or dying after going hours without ventilation or water – were released back to the owner.
Inspectors who raided the County Road 21 farm near the Grenville-Dundas County border allege Shawn Carmichael, owner of Carmichael Poultry Farm at 317 County Road 21, had been selling ungraded or improperly graded eggs and lacked proper registration for his operation.
But investigators were prevented from taking the confiscated property away and had to settle instead with dozens of bird carcasses and a carton of eggs to use as evidence.
They also made a commitment to return Carmichael’s financial records after making copies for their purposes.
“Whatever happens to me (in the courts) will happen but at least I stood up and was counted,” said Carmichael, a husband and father of six children, who sparked the standoff about 1 p.m. when he parked a tractor at the entrance of his driveway to prevent the inspectors from leaving.
“You get to the stage where you say, ‘I’ve got to stand up for myself here. I’ve got to stand up for my family,'” he said.
“Then I see people who care and will help a guy like me. That gives me a lot. It makes me feel like I’m not alone.”
Earlier, when more than 20 inspectors and enforcement workers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), accompanied by six OPP officers and agents with the Egg Marketing Board of Ontario, launched a raid on the property at 9 a.m., Carmichael and his wife Paula felt totally isolated.
[…]
He said he was stunned watching the inspectors go through his house, including the children’s bedrooms, searching for evidence while chickens and eggs were being seized and loaded on a transport trailer and other trucks.
About four hours into the raid after the first couple of supporters from the Leeds and Grenville Landowners Association arrived at the farmgate where they were met by OPP, Carmichael got in a tractor and drove it to the end of a 300-metre driveway to block the exit.
The action set up a showdown that mushroomed as the afternoon went on until dozens of supporters, including Ontario Landowners Association president Randy Hillier, arrived with their familiar “Back off Government” signs and took up position at the end of the driveway.
The OPP responded in kind and eventually had more than 20 cruisers on hand, including several that established roadblocks at the nearest intersections, and about 30 officers keeping an eye on the activities.
[…]
Harry Pelissero, general manager for the Ontario Egg Producers, said Carmichael faces charges of selling ungraded eggs, unlawful possession of laying hens and failing to pay his licensing fees.
Preempting the question “Where were the cops?” next time there’s a gangland gun battle on Yonge Street.
That’s insane.
Man oh man!
Talk about bureaucratic pissant overkill, eh?
And “unlawful possession of laying hens”???
That’s hilarious. :))
Laying hens and Chicken Little, I sense a theme here.
It�s a good thing he wasn�t also making potato chips.
Another case where the bureaucracy has gone mad… not in what they did … but in how they did it.
If I am correct, this farmer had thousands of chickens that were seized. I think the key word is ” thousands”. If he had a dozen , a few dozen or even a few hundred, I doubt it very much if CFIA would have gone in with their virtual guns a blazing. The chicken industry, as many other agricultural industries including dairy and pork, are highly regulated, in that only licenced producers can sell product and there are production quotas in place. This farmer, it appears had quit paying his money, so legally they probably did have a right to step in. The story does not say if there was any negotiations prior to the raid on the farm, but I would certainly hope that this was a last resort issue and not a raid simply because he had allowed his licence to lapse.
What really seems stange in this story, is how this all took place. These clowns actually searched his house. What did they expect to find… chickens hidden under the beds? Did they think the chickens were a money laundering front to an international drug cartel? This seems truly an outrageous act. I think a little tack and a little negotiation would have resulted in a solution with no story attached to it. Just watch… I would bet that if this guy is charged for breaching the chicken marketing regulations in Ontario, he probably will receive a fine higher than if he had defrauded the government of thousands of dollars.
Our society seems to be getting more mixed up all the time. There recently was a story on the National news about an undernourished dog found tied up in a Winnipeg bus stop with a note tied to its collar which said that the owner could no longer afford to buy feed for the dog. The story went on to say that Police were investigating and were trying to find the owner so that she could be charged with not caring for her dog properly.If she had just taken the dog to the outskirts of town and let it go, like so many other ” average ” citizens do, this would have been another non story. Instead, the owner tries to get help for the dog,( granted in an inappropriate manner)and is treated as if she is #1 on the Most Wanted list. I could not help but think that the Winnipeg police officers who were sent on this mission probably drove past several dozen undernourished, and poorly clothed children playing in the streets, and didn’t think anything about them.
I am sorry Kate, but I disagree with your statement of “Where the cops are”
Food saftey is a major concern in many countries. Canada has prety safe food and a pretty good record because of people like the CFIA doing a good job. You can blame the homeowners association if you want, but don’t blame the police for this one.
I love to see people like this put out of business because they give the rest of agriculture a bad reputation. If it take a few cops that’s fine. Throw anyone who supports him in jail too.
Eggs are a supply managed business. Wether 30 or 30,000 you require a licence and quota to sell eggs. Not to mention CFIA inspections to ensure the saftey of food coming off the farmgate. (let alone the animal welfare issues coming out of this illegal possession.)
CFIA in their capacities have the right to arrive at your farm, search and if necessary seize any property (not allowed to enter the home without a warrant), like chickens, deemed to be illegally grown, unsafely grown, or grown without the necessary documentation. Oh and one last thing. you are required to cooperate with and help out CFIA with anything they ask (if they don’t ask you aren’t required to volunteer to incriminate yourself.). I think refusing to cooperate is an inditable offence, tho I could be wrong.
As for the home Grant, I usually keep my sales records for my farm in there, as well as any government documentations, and any other records connected with my farm. It is entirely plausible to obtain a search warrant for the house.
I’m sorry sir, you require a license. I’m sorry sir, you require a license. I’m sorry sir, you require a license. Never mind the chickens, they sound like parrots. Aren’t they supposed to be human? No, of course not, they’re statists.
While it may seem draconian and heavy handed,officials often have very good reason to do what they do.When it comes to food safety they have to prevent the horror show from even starting by cracking down(pardon the pun..) I give you the example of Kensington market in the 70’s and 80’s in Toronto.Many a blind eye were turned to people slaughtering sheep and chickens in back alleys,selling unlicensed poultry products, breeding farm animals etc.The blood would literally run down the gutters towards Dundas street.I saw it many a time when i lived on Fitzroy Terrace.
All it takes is one person to sell bad products,and it happened to be the eggs in this case. The restaurants in the area all bought them and in the space of 3 days,about 125 people became ill with tomaine and botchulism.They went after these people,and you rarely see this out in the open any more.The area has also become ethnically Chinese ,with a whole host of different problems.The gov’t is always watching them however,and it gets expensive to disobey the laws now….
yep and whats the excuse for the wheat board ? bakers high ?
I have no evidence to the effect that these people were selling bad eggs or engaging in practices conducive to the production of bad eggs. Does anyone? What’s this, guilty until proven innocent?
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” –Thomas Jefferson
You have the right to not buy eggs that aren’t certified by the authority of your choice. Do you have the right to force all others to abide by the choices of your favourite authority? If you think so, would you please be so kind as to let us all know who the hell, exactly, you think you are?
And let’s face it, if you insist on going off the deep end of excessive regulation, you’re going to have the organic fruits and nuts people after your head too. Do you really want that?
Sure someone might die from a bad bit of unpastuerized cheese, but someone might also die from not stopping to savour a good bit of unpasteurized cheese, in their hurry getting hit by a bus, for example. Then what do you do?
We must thank the great Maoist Pierre
Idiot Trudeau for all this.The monster stripped property rights when he brought in his constitution in 1982.
Having personaly experienced the same with my municipal government and now my family concerning our business’s properies.
I tend to agree Barcs…if the home search was for records. I never thought about that issue. It still seems to me that this farmer must have been very unco-operative to have them act in this manner. Normally, they like to do their job with little fanfare, and as little media as possible.
I have the highest regard for CFIA, but they too, can become polluted by power hungry robots with their own agendas. As usual, the power barons occupy offices in high places. The CFIA personnel, at the local level are generally first class people.
I have personally seen them in action, and they really do whatever they wish. For example, if you tried to prevent them from accessing your farm, you will only win until they return with the RCMP and the required warrants. The owner has very few rights… well, probably none.
In my case, I made 5 trips to Ottawa in a 3 month period. I tried to stop an injustice that almost destroyed my families operation and I made it an issue to make sure it never happened to anyone else. My crusade did bring many changes, but in the process, I was lied to… and even threatened. I saw first hand how dangerous power can become when it is given to weak minded people. I did find a way to get a 15 minute meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister of the day, and my brief meeting expanded into two hours with him. It was interesting to watch the number of early retirements that occurred after that meeting.
All in all, Canadians are blessed with the best and safest food supply in the world. This is generally not appreciated and one has only to travel to many other world locations to truely see how fortunate we are. The unfortunate part is that the people who grow and supply this food are also not appreciated, and we are very close to losing far too many of them. This is one of the most tragic situations in this country. Another generation of food producers is close to being completely lost… and what do Canadians do? Nothing
Marketing boards are simply monopolies to keep the prices high so “farmers”? like Barc can fleece the public.. Same goes for the wheat board where the price for a bushel of grain to the farmer hasn’t gone up in 30 years. Yet the wheat board is unaccountabnle and spends millions on “marketing”
In 2004 there was an avian flu outbreak in the Fraser Valley. The provincial health inspector determined in a day or so what the problem was but the feds(CFIA) would’nt believe her and instead waited almost a week for tests to come back from the National testing facility in winnipeg. And guess what? In the meantime the outbreak spread like wildfire. And it was spread initially by the CFIA officials trapsing from farm to farm.
And then, in a show of bravado to the Americans they ordered million of birds murdered(they have a fancy name-depopulation). It was determined that the outbreak was caused by wild birds. And did they kill the wild birds? Not a chance-IT WAS TOO DIFFICULT. But those gestapo bastards killed people’s pet homing pidgeons, backyard chickens, expensive exotic birds of all kinds and even a pet emu.
A friend of mine who had chickens prior to this got rid of most of them. There were one or two straglers who fled to the trees. Well, the gestapo chicken police came to his place and told him he’d have to get rid of them. He laughed and said be my guest, kill them yourself. They never came back, the lazy bastards.They weren’t interested in anything that was difficult.
And the chicken producers like Barc(who inhumanely raise these chickens-they are genetically modified so much that when the mature they can’t even stand on their own two legs and -surprise-surprise-have very little resistance to desease) were spearheading the kill because the sooner they killed everything the sooner they could get back into business.
AND another surprise-the producers also wanted all the free range chickens (the ones raised in decent conditions with no drugs and allowed to go outside)killed as well despite the fact that NONE of the free range chicken flocks became infected. And why? To try and get rid of them because they are competition.
“Food saftey is a major concern in many countries”
Yea Barc, food safety is very important as well it should be. Only this has NOTHING to do with food safety and EVERYTHING to do with perpetuating a monopoly and continuing to fleece the public.
We had a saying at the time.
SAVE THE CHICKENS, GAS A BEREAUCRAT!!
Horny Toad
Horny Toad…. you pay less for food on average than almost any other country on earth. I do not necessarily agree with marketing boards, but it is about the only place in agriculture when the producer is allowed to get a reasonable return on investment. When I say ” reasonable return” it is still probably less than what you would demand in any other area of work. THERE IS NO WHERE IN THE PRIMARY PRODUCTION OF FOOD IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE THE CANADIAN PUBLIC IS BEING RIPPED OFF. If you are being ripped off it is from a fleet of middle men, most of which make more from handling a product once than the actual producer of the product is.
I am tired of hearing about the poor consumer being ripped off by the food producers. It is just not the case. Period!!
“Marketing boards are simply monopolies to keep the prices high”……”Same goes for the wheat board where the price for a bushel of grain to the farmer hasn’t gone up in 30 years”
Horny Toad has the logic of a politician……
1. I am not a chicken farmer…. I am a grains and oilseeds farmer. The biggest animal I have is a 13 year old tom cat…. he and my other cats like gophers and mice and a little cat food on the side.
2. Chicken are not genetically modified. They are bred just like you and me. They just happen to have prearranged marriages…lol…. You might be thinking of turkeys tho…. they aren’t GM either. The are the same breeding program but artificial insemination instead.
3. “be my guest, kill them yourself. They never came back, the lazy bastards.They weren’t interested in anything that was difficult.” ….. ummmmm you think the farmers killed thier own chickens at the other farms??? As smart as my fence post….
dude you gotta be part of PETA or something to think that being outside will protect birds from disease coming in from other countries. That’s like me hiding in the barn because SARS was in toronto.
I can agree with you about some certain bureaucrats Grant 🙂 Overcompensating power or something 🙂
As for the warrant to inspect your animal farm tho… they (CFIA) don’t need one. They need one to get into your house or any building or portion of your yard not associated with animal production. Forcin them to go get a warrant and the police just annoys them.
And like I said you are required to cooperate with requests… but not to volunteer stuff
When you do get a warrant read it closely and consult a laywer. They are not allowed to pressure you. If a warrant lists a barn and 2 out houses they shouldn’t be looking in the tool shed… stuff like that.
Barcs, this farmer asked for a lawyer.
What he was given was a phone call from some legal aid type, who threw his hands up in the air, basically telling him he was on his own.
A real lawyer would have been out on the farm, documenting everything during the raid, and telling him when to shush and when to speak!
This is really about going after people who have chosen to market on their own, outside the dictates of some bloated bureaucracy.
And land ownership’s limitations allow, no provide, for it. That is the thrust of this Landover group which came into being over precisely this kind of thing.
Food safety is of course on these chicken producer’s mind; it IS their livelihood!
Here we have now, strangers- police and enforcers of all types storming through chicken barns, (alone a huge threat to the life of those birds)- bringing with them all kinds of potential threats to the food chain on THAT farm!
Horny Toad–you are absolutely correct. If the wild birds were the source of contamination in BC it is the free range flocks that should have been contaminated–not the ones kept in bio-hazard barns!!!
CFIA couldn’t find their ass under a bright light with both hands. They are totally incompetent and irrelevant–have no chance of protecting the food supply any more than Health Canada protected the blood supply. They are only there tp protect the bottom line of those who play the game by paying fortheir licence–which seems to be the only crime this man committed–he didn’t pay for his licence. Having this licence and over 200 chickens makes him part of the egg marketing board. I know first hand that bureaucrats come to a licence holders property and try to buy eggs privately–which, if the licence holder sells one egg, they are charged–they may only sell to the marketing board. A monster has been created and more and more everyone is paying the price.
“We are committed to our physical and psychological well-being.”
Canadian Food Inspection Agency & other agencies hired a goon squad from Northern Ontario to invade this farm located in Eastern Ontario. The goon squad at one point became “hungry” & ordered in “pizza” which was delivered to the farm. This incensed the citizens gathered there as they realized they were paying for this through their income taxes.
Six children, mom & pop shocked & awed; laying hens killed by goon squad; fresh eggs splattered by goon squad; famhhouse invaded & ransacked, & more.
All this in Canada, within 30 miles of Parliament Hill, Ottawa.
Corporate egg/poultry producers/marketers, in their insatiable avarice/greed to monopolize their market through government-built “marketing boards” have co-opted governments and their attendant bureaucracies.
Where is the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in relation to this farm invasion/Egg Raid? Speak OFA, speak.
FASCIST tactics in Canada. Down with fascism. +
Statement of Values
Richard B. Fadden
President
Our Values
As employees of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency . . .
*
We value scientific rigour and professional and technical competence. These play a crucial role in our decision making. We do not manipulate science to achieve a desired outcome but acknowledge that other factors must be taken into account in this decision making.
*
The reputation and credibility of the Agency are vital to our ability to deliver our mandate. As such, we behave, internally and externally, in a way that trust is preserved.
*
We are proud of the contributions we make to the quality of life of Canadians. We value dedication and responsiveness from all employees day to day and, particularly, during an emergency.
*
We value competent, qualified and motivated personnel, whose efforts drive the results of the Agency.
*
To develop effective policies and strategies, we value the perspectives of the stakeholders who are affected by our decisions.
*
We maintain our regulatory independence from all external stakeholders. We have the courage to make difficult and potentially unpopular decisions and recommendations, free from personal bias.
*
We are committed to our physical and psychological well-being.
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/agen/val/vale.shtml
And who says we don’t need property right in our precious constitution??
They have a National Egg Marketing Board over in Britain, too, (back in the ’60s, their slogan was ‘Go to work on an egg’.) While driving past one of their billboards, my friend pointed to the sign and said: “Hear the one about the guy who went to sleep and dreamed he was an egg- he woke up in the morning, and the government was going to work on him!” Bwahahaha!
From: Jacqueline Fennell
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 6:20 AM
Subject: LGLA Meeting Reminder
Reminder that Tuesday March 28th will be the next meeting of the LGLA. This meeting is at the Spring Valley Hall at 7:30.
Speakers
John Williamson, Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Shawn Carmichael, Farmer
Randy Hillier, Ontario Landowners Association
All members and non members welcome.
Please tell others, this is expected to be a very exciting meeting.
Jacqueline
(Spring Valley Hall is located approximately 6 miles north of Brockville, Ontario on Highway #29.)
Press Release
Annual General Meeting
Leeds & Grenville Landowners Association
Tuesday March 28th, 2006
Spring Valley Hall, Highway 29, Brockville
Doors Open 7 o�clock, Meeting 7:30pm
The Leeds & Grenville Landowners Association would like to invite all members and non-members to our public meeting. We will discuss events and items of interest that we are going to focus our attention to in 2006. Some of those items are:
� Membership renewals � Our membership must be renewed annually. Membership is $20, can be renewed at meeting or mail cheque to Gill Cyr 4030 Lords Mills Rd Prescott ON K0E 1T0
� Property tax hikes and the needless, countless DOLLARS that we pay to MPAC. Discussion and debate over next steps on this issue
� The introduction of ETHICS and INTEGRITY to Municipal governments, who currently hide behind irrelevant by-laws, and conduct meetings in closed environments
� The Clean Water Act will also give bureaucrats the authority to inspect your septic beds, and the authority to demand you upgrade to current standards. The Source Water Protection Act, which introduces “super water cops” to enforce new bylaws protecting watersheds.
Guest Speakers:
Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation: John Williamson
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is Canada�s leading taxpayer advocacy organization. From coast to coast we work to lower taxes, eliminate government waste and hold politicians accountable to YOU the taxpayer. +
http://www.ruralrevolution.com/website/
The Food Gestapo run amok.
Where’s all the screaming moonbats bleating on about the Charter of Rights ??
The Landowners have done a good job of stirring things up here in Ontario. They’ve addressed issues in all three levels of government that deserved to be looked at . But …. as a beef farmer I don’t think I, or anyone else, has the right to dictate to egg producers and dairy farmers who play by the rules under supply management. It’s the system they want and the system they have invested in. To my mind the issue here is not so much food safety as producing eggs without buying quota – this guy is reported to have had 9,000 chickens. If he can’t support supply management nothing’s stopping him from raising hogs or beef or rabbits or goats. The Landowners are now one step closer to pitting farmer against farmer.
So is this what is known as an illegal crow-op?
25 years ago I put my name on a waiting list to get quota for laying hens. About 3 years ago I finally gave up, and no longer renewed my application.
As far as I am concerned the whole milk and feathers (eggs and broilers) marketing boards in Canada need to be thrown out. They operate as an exclusive federally enforced cartel to protect their own excess profits, by preventing lower-cost operators from coming in to provide cheaper food basics to the people in this country. If their profits were not excessive there would not be a price to �buy quota�. Quota is not a production cost. It is free market quantification of the amount of excess profit an industry is enjoying. It is the free market price that people will pay to “print money”. The winners are the old established producers, and the banks. The losers are the new producers that have to buy at unreal prices, the quota to possess more than 200 laying hens, or sell milk, and the consumers, especially the poor that have to pay extra for milk and eggs, the staples of life.
As far as the grading of eggs goes, I bet this operator would have gladly sold graded eggs had he been permitted to do so as an off-quota producer.
I can well understand people getting fed up with this system, and going out on their own to help fill market demands. We need to support them fully.
“What he was given was a phone call from some legal aid type, who threw his hands up in the air, basically telling him he was on his own.”
Not a very good laywer then huh. One of the rules is they cannot pressure you. He should have had time to contact HIS lawyer, or someone with a law background he trusts. If the guy was his choice he didn’t choose very well.
This is completely insane. Consumers demand safe food, producers wanted supply management in that sector, both asked for governement regulation…. Now people are annoyed that someone is actually policing the system.
interesting analogie for Quota.
I tend to think of is more as a building to house your production. If you don’t have a building you cannot provide production within it.
The system is set up that a limited number of buildings exist. It is not to prevent entry cheaper food. It is an oligoply system designed to prevent the entry of more and more food driving the supply way up (and the market way down)
Supply management is simply a way of limiting production to keep prices a bit higher. And ya… it is a user pay subsidy to the producer…. or you could have the government pay the subsidy out of general revenue,…. or you can lose control over your food supply and let other countries produce it.
The original article seems to indicate that the birds were over-crowded on the truck. Can that be confirmed?
If anybody else over-crowds livestock, there are extremly high penalties levied by these very same people. The CFIA people should be charged immediately with “inhumane treatment and transport of livestock”
Err, Kate, a few points you have missed
1) Glenville is no where near Toronto.
2) the OPP are not the police in Toronto.
3) there is a huge world of difference between a planned raid and responding to a “gangland gun battle” on Yonge Street.
4) hey if the guy broke the law, wasn’t paying for his liciences, selling ungraded eggs and providing unsafe living conditions for livestock, then he deserves to busted. Seriously Kate, do you treat your dogs like this, heck their just animals too.
Other than, great article and spin job.
“had been selling ungraded or improperly graded eggs”
Grading eggs is a process designed to ONLY to sort the eggs into different sizes so you can buy small, med, larde and extra lge eggs. It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with food safety.
The whole marketing board concept is designed to keep supply low and prices high.
Ever buy eggs from the states? The prices are 1/2 what they are in Canada.Why? No marketing board.
The big producers who have upwards of 50000 chickens are simply greedy.
Incidently,I don’t really care how much they charge because my neighbor has a small backyard flock and we get all the eggs we need. AND they are organis with no drugs etc.
Horny Toad
…gives new meaning “get cracking”.
Guess the OPP mistook that phrase for a grow-op or something when someone said it over the radio, only reason why there was so many cruisers on site.
Yep.
Your tax dollars hard at work.
Barcs: The chickens are not normal.
My neighbour is a plumber and was called in to fix some water issues at a local large scale poultry outfit near Calgary.
He told me after that day he’d never want to eat a chicken again…while I”m sure he does, point was made.
The chicken was force fed so fast with growth hormones (just as bad as a GM chick to me), that it’s body was bigger than the legs could hardly support, and more or less waddled around – think of that fat SouthPark kid. Their beaks and legs were white.
There were thousands of them inside those “coops”, the wrench was something else he said, plus the chicken dust.
Another friend of mine drove delivery truck (not sure if it was the same outfit). He was constantly sneezing and hacking. He quit that job about 6 years ago and his health has improved considerably.
So one has to wonder how much longer this has to go on due to mass production of chickens to meet supply demands.
Well Barcs, I�m sorry but you are wrong. There is a BIG difference between quota and buildings. People want to think of quota as capital cost, but it is not. It is simply protection money or bribe money to let you get �into the system�. It harms the poor and needy the most, by forcing them to pay rip-off prices for milk and eggs to feed their kids.
Best local Canadian prices (Saskatchewan) ;
Milk- $3.59/4litres (approx. 1US gal),
Eggs grade A Large $1.89/doz.
Cheapest cheddar cheese $23/5lb block
The milk and feathers producers don�t need protection from market forces any more than hog producers do. And, for those of you that don�t realize this, hog producers continue to operate without the help of a government enforced cartel. Yes, I know that it is tougher to raise hogs profitably in Ontario and Quebec now, but we are profitably picking up the slack in the prairies, and the consumer is the winner. Western Canada is now arguably one of the lowest cost producers of pork in the world. We could be that for chickens as well.
As to your comment to the effect that if the consumers don�t subsidize the producer the government will have to; I say forget it. The hog produces have proved you wrong. Farmers can stand on their own two feet if they have too.
Since when do you get a bribe back upon selling an item?? Is buying and selling stocks and bonds a bribe?
Eggs are not simply graded on size. They are also graded on color and quality. you might notice a “Grade A” sign printed on teh box you buy (funny how people around here aren’t willing to eat the lower quality stuff… it looks funny, but the nutrition isn’t much different…. but they are eminently willing to complain about the price of teh cream of teh crop.)
Uncleshred…. I dunno if you follow agriculture much…. Heartland pork and Community pork ventures and a couple others might disagree with you. (and my farms 30k investment into the local hog barn too) The fact that people survive in the industry does not mean the industry is healthy.
I’ll admit, I do not know the processing of the commodities you mentioned, but I would assume them to be on the order of those in my business…. 300 bottles of beer for my $3 malt barley, $3.50 of wheat makes $30 of flour. Nutters sells bulk wheat for salads in its store for only $29 a bushel… I get $3
I don’t think your price problem is with the farmers.. even if it were possible to inflate our prices 100% the price of food would go up less than 5-10%.
Chick pix
http://www.ottawaforums.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1091
Zorpheous said: “… he deserves to busted….Seriously Kate, do you treat your dogs like this, heck their just animals too.”
Canada: Federal & provincial bureaucrats: Licenced to Kill.
In this Egg Raid, licenced to kill poultry.
Puppies next?
Kulaks* next?
Pics here:
http://www.ottawaforums.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1091
*Kulaks:
Ukraine Famine, Famine in Ukraine, Ukraine Food, Stalin’s Famine
Stalin believed any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks, … GPU squads systematically attacked and killed uncooperative farmers. …
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/Ukraine_famine.htm – 38k –
The egg marketing board in Ont. allows up to 100 hens per farm without having to have quota. This farm apparently had more. As to grading – get real – how many so called free range eggs or organic eggs are graded? People buy them at the farm gate or food fairs – ungraded – candled perhaps. This about a farmer who was selling a large quantity of eggs apparently to hotels and institutions – at substantially less price per doz. than quota produced eggs because the price of quota is built into supply managed product. Today in Ont. the quota price for one cow’s annual production of milk is $29,000.00. That equals more than the cost of the cow, her land, building, and food.
So, those of us dependent on exports do not embrace supply management. And right now we’re hurtin real bad – all of us.
I don’t know about eggs, but fluid milk consumption in Canada has not increased in more than a decade. I fail to see how opening up a market to meet demand would help. There is no demand. Come April 1st Ontario milk producers can expect a 2 to 3 percent decrease in quota. Here’s a novel approach to fixing the farm crisis. Lets undercut and dismantle the marketing boards so everyone is hurtin as bad as we are. My neighbour who milks didn’t cause my problems but somehow it’s ok for me to say to hell with you I’m going to start milking cows? I think I’ll run down to his milk house right now and convince him that things would be so much better with an open market. And I’m sure he’d be receptive to that seeing as how we’re such a shining example of just how better things could be. American eggs and milk at half the price? Come one boys. How much of that is supply management and how much is direct farm subsidies that Canadian farmers don’t get. There is not easy fix.
Ottawa Citizen has further points of interest:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=04387093-814b-44b7-9568-b193320c02bf
“Hundreds of chickens were also injured and killed in the incident, after they spent hours jammed into cages while the two sides argued.”
“Mr. Carmichael said the officials stormed through his home, entering his children’s bedrooms and pulling apart drawers and filing cabinets looking for documentation, such as client lists and tax returns, in their search for evidence about his egg farm.
According to Mr. Carmichael, the more than 30 people from the two organizations then raided his chicken coop, taking thousands of the birds and jamming them into tiny cages on wheels like “sardines.”
When he asked for a lawyer, Mr. Carmichael said police put him in touch with a Legal Aid counsellor who informed him that due to the warrants the organizations had obtained, there was nothing he could do.”
“When asked if the OPP failed to do its duty and enforce the court-ordered warrants yesterday, Insp. Hill said he was satisfied with the outcome of yesterday’s events, adding that the Egg Producers got the evidence they needed to move forward.
****”We are just here to keep the peace,” he said.”****
Barc. Tell Ivan Stomp and Florian Posberg that there is no money in raising pigs. They are ordinary Saskatchewan farmers that have excelled. I am also involved with a family hog operation shipping about 4500 hogs annually. I know there have been some real hard times, but government is not the answer, the hog producers have had to fight to get the government to get out of our own business.
The pork industry would not be better off to have another artificial cost to entry, accompanied by production limits, restricting our production to only as much as we can eat in Canada.
Barc, my problem is NOT with the farmers. I am a farmer. My problem is with the concept of making it illegal to have more than a couple of hundred laying hens without having to pay a ridiculous price to buy into a cartel that is held in place by the force of the federal government and it�s police force.
There’s a funny quicktime bit on this chicken farmer here:
http://www.brockvlog.com
Next thing you know they’ll throw a man in jail for giving a bushell of wheat to a 4H club in Montana …
Oh yeah …
Farming without subsidies?
Some lessons from New Zealand
By Laura Sayre
Posted MARCH 20, 2003: What would the world look like without agricultural subsidies? What would the United States look like? If a crystal ball exists for those questions, its name is New Zealand, one of the first and still one of the few modern countries to have completely dismantled its system of agricultural price supports and other forms of economic protection for farmers.
Brace yourself: this is free-market faith to make Adam Smith proud. But the New Zealand experience is pretty persuasive. Well into its second decade of subsidy-free farming, New Zealand enjoys a worldwide reputation for its high-quality, efficient and innovative agricultural systems.
New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business. Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920. Although the transition to an unsubsidized farm economy wasn�t easy, memories of the adjustment period are fading fast and today there are few critics to be found of the country�s bold move.
A mini-history of Kiwi agriculture
So how did they do it? Where did the political will power come from, and what was the fallout like? + more:
http://www.newfarm.org/features/0303/newzealand_subsidies_print.shtml
Zorpheus – I am indeed, aware there is a Toronto police service separate from the OPP. None of that is particularly relevant to the broader issue that the OPP deemed it necessary to send 20 cruisers to secure an agri-bust – demonstrating yet again, that government regulatory policy is far more comfortable facing off with a show of force against those who are the least likely to commit violence.
All of this begs the question….which charges came first….. The Chickens or the Eggs.
Note the restriction on ***entering a dweeling*** during any search under the Farm Products Marketing Act.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/Statutes/English/90f09_e.htm#P328_46210
“…Powers of search, inspection, etc.
(6) Every person appointed under clause 3 (1) (g) or under a regulation made thereunder may, without a warrant,
(a) stop, enter and search any vehicle;
(b) enter and search any premises, *****other than a dwelling*****
(c) open and inspect any package or container”
So another question may be, were any other government ministries in the background of this search effort? And if so, was this farmer informed?
We already know he had no real legal counsel.
Free markets. End the price-fixing boards.
Buffalo Bean, VERY INTERESTING!!!