This time it’s Australia;
Death of a Feedlot Operator …in which the anal-retentive government of West Australia has “licensed” a family farm out of operation due to some shonky science and arbitrary application of the “sniff test”. Yes that’s right, cattle farms smell, so do pig farms, as does any farm. But now it’s reason to shut one out due to baseless complaints from the local greens. And, it all started when Matt Thompson started doubting global warming and talking about it publicly.
See WUWT for the details.
Truly, they are now burning us as witches.
May I suggest that this should be the charity to which the winner of the “Scary Name” contest contributes? The contribution should be made in the name of SDA and its supporters.
” Aneroxia Envirosa “, The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Who wants this family’s land; doesn’t want the local competition; and there from, who is being paid off to foment/allow this injustice to unfold?
“we’re from da gubbamint and we’re here to help you”
First they came for the _________ and we did nothing.
Did my bit.
This crap has been going on for years in the Canadian Oil Patch. In fact, we probably helped to perfect anti-development tactics for the rest of the Western World.
Local landowners, environmental special interest groups and even individuals that gained notoriety by regularly locking horns with the Oil & Gas biz are given consideration at every turn within our government. It doesn’t matter if the claims against development are frivolous or submitted in writing in crayon with grade 3 level grammar. Our government has been conditioned to grant everyone standing. Heck, the Alberta Government even gave a $55,000 grant to make an anti-oil sands development propaganda film (the Oil Sands are the only reason why Canada’s economy isn’t totally tank right now). It’s our Oil & Gas industry that pays for all the hyperbole and it has cost us many valuable jobs and cut tax revenue. This insanity will continue to do so and is only getting worse.
However, the Oil & Gas companies do have pockets deep enough to at least selectively fight back.
I do not know this Australian family, but I do know how governments use agenda driven blind regulation in ways that hurt and cripple good people.
I wish them well on their fight to survive this mess. It is our fight too.
My understanding of agriculture in Australia (from anecdotes) was that anything could grow and produce could not be transported between states. Why not focus on that instead of leaving a family to hang?
There is a Paypal link to donate – it’s quick and easy.
When in the course of human events . . .
I’ve sent a contribution.
This insanity will continue to do so and is only getting worse.
~Martin Buschau
Only until the next election, Martin.
Then it’s bye bye PCs, hello Wild Rose.
I’m thinking the Aussies are going to wake up to reality very soon too.
Donation sent.
More than one perfectly viable Canadian mining venture has been postponed into the dim and distant future, leaving its proponents in bankruptcy. All the while an army of environmentalist bureaucrats remains well employed in one or more capital cities. And the capital city need not be in Canada.
A mere feed lot would be duck soup for these professional obstructionists. Yet they eat, use metal, and otherwise benefit from all they protest.
How do you ban hypocrisy?
First off, I am sympathetic to the plight of the Thompsons, but part way down the comment list is a link to a website that documents some of the complaints against their feedlot operation. Based on that commentary, the residents may very well have legitimate complaints, notwithstanding the histrionics of the greenies and others with agendas.
It would appear the Thompsons are running a feedlot operation beyond their acerage or management capacity within their farm plot. Some of the complainants have resided in the area decades longer than the Thompsons. The argument that “its farm country, get over it”, doesn’t wash. A feedlot operation is about as far from a farming operation as it gets, and still be called agricultural. It is, essence, factory farming. There is a higher onus on responsibility of the operator to mitigate the extraordinary byproducts of such an operation. It would appear that the Thompsons are failing to do that. I don’t know if its a case of biting of more than they can handle, or not. It appears they are caught in a catch 22 – too under-capitalized to manage the scale of the operation need to capitalize the lot
Many donations can provide enough money to make that happen. Regardless, the status quo in that operation can’t continue to exist.
I pass by a similar operation north of Burlington on my way to Mississauga on my way to work. There are days when the yards are so rank, you think the paint is going to blister off your car before you get by. I can’t imagine living on the adjacent farms or residences.
[quote]How do you ban hypocrisy?[/quote]
You don’t.. You invest in body bags…
Do you bend over, or perish?.. your choice
Skip, I read the entire comments thread at WUWT, and followed that link you mentioned. It seems pretty clear that all those tear-jerking hand-written letters were patterned after a model, and mentioned the same things in the same sequence.
In other words, part of an orchestrated campaign. Astroturfing, if you will.
don’t elect this O’donnell and we’ll have men AND women masturbating…..in the street…in YOUR town!
From time to time, nose pollution is a genuine problem.
I recall a local laying hen operation getting shut down…..the neighbours involved were dairy farmers. The problem was the spreading of the resulting liquid manure…the smell of which made ME toss my cookies…..even the dog was queasy.
However, I think skip has too delicate a nose….pulp mills—fat hog operations….but feed lots….buck up buttercup.
I find the smell of cattle manure….makes me crave a chess-burger….
Hog manure….not bacon but rather Scotch whiskey.
Witness the -real- purpose of environmentalism: the destruction of anyone environmentalists find difficult, non-compliant or as in this case merely annoying.
Anybody who thinks Sharia law is a problem needs to go have a peek at the Greens. There’s your real enemy. Muslims have the odd riot now and again, these Green a-holes are going to tax you into a mud hut.
Incidentally the very fact of needing an ENVIRONMENTAL PERMIT for a farm or feed lot should be a sufficient warning to stay out of that business or get out of it if you’re in it.
Locally we have a lot of guys growing hay, corn soy and selling it, number of dairy and beef farmers is -way- down. Pig operations also way down. Chicken is a special case, they’ve been so over regulated that pretty much one family has a lock on the whole business in this county. Pays to have friends I guess.
Just in case anyone was wondering why chicken costs as much per pound as steak here in Dumbtariostan, that’s why. When food prices spike and everyone wants to know why, we will all just point to the Ministry of Agriculture and the greenies and say “told ya.”
Note to greenies, its hard to eat stones.
Shonky?
Those Australians have a word for everything.
I am not going to place words in Skip’s mouth so-to-speak but he made a Freudian-slip with that “factory farm” remark.
Many urbanites have lost any link to agriculture for generations and have been indoctrinated by these utopian notions of how agriculture should be…
Chickens running about the yard, defecating everywhere, breeding flies, and laying their eggs all over….gathering eggs that way is like mowing a lawn with scissors.
Brown eggs are “farm” eggs and fresh….
Cows must graze in chemical free meadows….
That farmers only build fences because they are mean to the cows and seek to inconvenience urban trespassers..
….That a field of cabbages adjacent to a road is a “help yourself” installation….
Chemical fertilizers and chemical weed control degenerate the nutritive qualities of crops….then complain of the dust from mechanical tillage…then go home and dump copious quantities of chemical fertilizer on their lawn.
These same opponents of chemical fertilizer protest bitterly if their delicate olofactories detect the odour of a farmer recycling animal waste on his crops.
Then they buy a rural property and attempt to impose their notions of good agricultural practice on the area about them….such as field operations—planting or harvesting….only occur between 7 and 5 and never on weekends or holidays.
One gal went to the local council and complained bitterly that an adjoining corn field interfered with her view….as well as disturbed her tranquility with “afterhours” field work.
Donation sent; not the easiest thing to do and hopefully this section of the site will be repaired soon.
Maybe it’s my olfactory system, but I find cow manure not very odiferous at all. I’ve shoveled the stuff and it’s never bothered me. OTOH, pig manure I do find rather rank and a rendering plant in SE Calgary 40 years ago had a quite memorable olfactory signature. Having spent a lot of time visiting farms, I associate the odors with tasty free range beef and lamb. For truly nauseating odors I recommend one of the “natural” soap places whose name I’ve forgotten. They have an outlet on Robson street in Vancouver and I wouldn’t go within one block of the place as I’ve never encountered anything as gross and disgusting as these “natural” odors. In comparison, a feedlot is olfactory paradise.
@loki: you’re talking about “Lush”. That place is so perfume-y, you’re right, it makes even the hippies not so smelly, but not in a good way.
loki
[…….OTOH, pig manure I do find rather rank and a rendering plant in SE Calgary 40 years ago had a quite memorable olfactory signature……]
Oh yeah! I recall getting a load of meat meal at an establishment in Montreal, back when I was OTR driving. Fortunately, I was hungry when I arrived to load……I didn’t loss my cookies. I recall pulling that load about 150k before I could even consider eating….YEEUUUUKKKHHHH….
I must have offended the Gods….I also had a “gut-truck” that needed moving from Ancaster On to Winterpeg…in warm weather. I took it through the states…..back then we had transit bonds.
The speed I was cleared at Port Huron gave me the notion I could make the run without buying authority….I was right….diesel bears had no interest whatsoever and a really, really, fast clear at Sprague Manitoba. I had (un)diplomatic immunity.
Fortunately that truck ran like a swiss watch.
The new trucks made up for it…though I suspect I was test-driving them. I recall stopping for serious warrenty work 5 times between Dallas and London On….
It really fills you with confidence when you turn the key off and watch the air-guages plunge to 0. The dealer’s SOP is 12hours PDI….followed by a 1 hour test drive.
It’s not a “farm”, it’s a feedlot. They have the rottenest, most rank stink of anything on this planet. The stink can be managed, but obviously these folks aren’t into mitigating the stink. I second the motion.
Skip and JJ are on to something. Big feedlots are necessary in the modern world but, to call them farming operations is downright silly.
I was farm raised, and I’ve shovelled lots of shit with no ill effects. On a farm, you put up with really rank stink only when you clean a shed in the spring or spread the stuff on a field. Fresh cow manure is actually quite innocuous but the ammonia stench from a feedlot burns your eyes and the odor makes you wretch.
Case in point – the feedlot beside the highway west of Brooks has been pretty well cleaned up but, it used to be so bad that anyone driving through would roll up all the windows and speed up while passing through the cloud.
This isn’t a case of acreage owners moving in beside an industry and then bitching to have it shut down so as not to interfere with their lifestyle. They were there first, and the Thompsons used very bad judgement parking themselves in a residential area. You know the old libertarian saying, “Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my chin”.
The involvement of “greens” seems to be peripheral. They are shit disturbers (no pun intended) but the basic problem seems to be between the Thompsons and the homeowners. If I was on the receiving end of feedlot stink, I’d fight too.