A Letter To The Editor

CREEK takes action

Don Chisholm - Media spokesperson for CREEK

Across Canada rural folks form organizations to help protect themselves from the result of industrialization of farmlands. Prince Edward's CREEK (County Regional Environmental Evaluation Ko-alition) was spawned when the local environment was seriously degraded by the establishment of an ILO (Intensive Livestock Operation) in the Cressy area.

The quality of air, surface water and deep ground water are threatened by these industries that operate under the same legislation as "normal" farms. But these factories are not "normal" farms. They require large tracts of land eliminating many family farmers, thereby weakening the spirit of the rural community. The barns are mostly automated requiring only one or two workers on a day-to-day basis thereby reducing the tax base of the community. Fleets of heavy trucks are brought in from time to time, summer or winter, to empty the manure pit, spreading it on the land and leaving roads muddied and broken for local taxpayers to deal with. Many of these factories use antibiotics in feed on a regular basis leading to the super bugs we now hear about that have become resistant to modern medicine.

Why then are these operations developing? Because of many factors. Some of these are: human population growth, corporate driven globalization, bilateral trade agreements or the use of GDP and trade balances as the only success/failure measurement tool available to our federal and provincial governments. And these governments set the rules for trade and they establish marketing boards that historically give advantage to high volume agriculture operations, pushing the small farmer to either sell, or automate and expand in order to increase protein throughput. (We note that in another local issue, the same perverse government thinking will not encourage local wind energy production because this would not be an export product, therefore its development does not receive subsidies and high level support, as does the fossil fuel industry!)

Do farmers welcome this push by our governments? NO, says a recent survey of the Christian Farmers Federation who surveyed about Ontario 300 farmers wherein 68% indicated they resent being forced to change their lifestyle. Yet almost every week there is some article in the local papers indicating our Federal Agricultural Minister wants Canada to be number one food producer and exporter.

All of this leaves local governments between a rock and a hard place. On one hand they have to deal within the legislative framework handed down by higher level governments that are biased toward economic expansion and who fail to provide legislative tools adequate to deal with ILOs. On the other hand, our local council members are part of the rural community where we all feel and observer the effects of our failing environment.

Act locally AND act globally, comes to mind as needed remedy. On the local level, CREEK has initiated a local surface water testing program in the Cressy area, and have distributed "stink sheets" on which residents near the ILO will keep records of how bad and how often the air quality causes quality of life to suffer.