We're choking on new rules, say Island farmers
CANADA - Columnist Jack Knox and photographer Debra Brash take a look at farms close to home. Small farmers face many hurdles from fuel costs to an aging workforce.![]() |
Lori Gillis, owner of The Cluck Stops Here chicken farm in Coombs, is worried that new livestock-processing rules are driving Island farms and slaughterhouses out of business. “Agriculture itself is being slaughtered,” says Gillis. |
Don't get Lori Gillis wrong. She believes in health regulation.
What drives her crazy is overkill.
A funny thought coming from a woman who runs a poultry abattoir called The Cluck Stops Here, but she's deadly serious: At a time when Vancouver Island's agriculture industry is fighting to survive, she says new livestock-processing rules are pushing farms and slaughterhouses out of business.
All over the Island, small-scale farmers are calling it quits rather than deal with the higher costs associated with new provincial meat-inspection regulations that take effect Oct. 1. "Agriculture itself is being slaughtered," says Gillis -- Chicken Lori to her friends.
But B.C. Agriculture Minister Pat Bell argues the new rules, which replace a patchwork of regulations, are needed to protect public health. "Walkerton was a wake-up call for governments across Canada."
It's a matter of setting basic sanitary standards, ensuring that, for example, meat is cooled quickly enough or animals are killed humanely. Individuals are eligible for grants of up to $50,000 to make the upgrades. The government is working with around 55 B.C. abattoirs, has licensed about 20 so far.