January 6, 2010 – Happy New Year to the readers of this blog. This article was printed in the Toronto Star over the holiday season and we think this columnist got the issue exactly right. Farm animals aren’t pets and they definitely aren’t 4-legged people. And, with only 1 in every 46 Canadians now actively farming, there is a huge disconnect between farmers and consumers. Enjoy the read – OFAC

The annoying tendency to anthropomorphize animals is likely from our lost connection to rural life

by Connie Woodcock, Out There

Toronto Sun, December 20, 2009

When I was a little girl, I fell in love with a series of books about a pig named Freddy and his barnyard friends on the Bean farm in New York State.

I read every one of the 26 books available in my library over and over. I can remember peering at a New York road map in search of fictional Centerboro, the town supposedly nearest Freddy and his friends.

Written between the 1920s and 1950s, the Freddy books disappeared for a while but they were republished a few years ago and there’s even an association called The Friends of Freddy with its own website. I’ve bought several Freddy reprints and reread them still.

I mention this because much as I loved Freddy, Mrs, Wiggins the cow, Hank the horse with rheumatism in his hind leg, and Charles the henpecked rooster, we all grow up and realize there’s no such thing as a talking animal. At least, most of us do.

---

Posted by OFAC on January 6th, 2010 :: Filed under Activism, Canada, Consumers, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: activists, animal care, animal welfare, Canada, Consumers, Farmers, misconceptions, PETA

---

By Dairy Herd news source  |  Friday, October 30, 2009

Mike Rowe, host of the show “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel, has been trying to separate myth from reality when it comes to farming and many other occupations in this country.

“Anybody from a city, in my opinion, who spends a day, a week, maybe even just a few hours on a working farm is going to be quickly disabused of a lot of what they believe,” Rowe told AgriTalk radio host Mike Adams last week.

---

Posted by BCFACC on November 4th, 2009 :: Filed under Activism, Animal health, Consumers, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Media

---

Lilian Schaer
Owen Sound Sun Times
October 19 2009

I ‘ve started noticing a bit of a trend in popular media — the bashing of farmers, especially those who grow crops we all depend on.

These horrible people — or so the theme goes — are ruining the environment by producing large volumes of corn and soybeans and they’re making us fat to boot.

There are two sides to every story and the farmer’s is rarely heard or included in the barrage of popular media and consumer criticism about agriculture. So let me debunk a few of these myths.

---

Posted by OFAC on October 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Consumers, Education and public awareness, Media
Tags :: Canada, Consumers, Farmers, food, Media, misconceptions

---

BC egg farmers care for the right reasons. There is more to caring for hens than meets the eye.

---

Posted by BCFACC on October 16th, 2009 :: Filed under Animal health, Education and public awareness, Poultry, eggs
Tags :: animal care, chicken, education, eggs, Farmers, free range, Poultry

---

Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.04

I’m playing a word game with Temple Grandin. It’s fascinating to hear her describe how her brain works.

Temple Grandin is a professor of livestock behaviour at Colorado State University. She also happens to be autistic.

You could make the case that she’s the world’s most highly functioning autistic person and I wouldn’t argue with that.

---

Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Family vs factory farming, Farm life, Housing, Pork
Tags :: animal welfare, beef, livestock, meat, pigs, Pork, slaughter

---

Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.28

Six months, 250 pounds. That’s Piggy’s destiny in life.01 At first, he’ll double his weight in a few days, then it will double in a week, then every couple of weeks, then every month. It’s incredible, isn’t it, to think that a barnyard animal is capable of growing so large, so quickly.

---

Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Pork
Tags :: animal welfare, artificial insemination, Farmers, meat, Ontario, pigs, Pork, Research

---

Food For Thought looks at how we use hens as protein factories to produce an egg a day for our tables

By Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, 05 Jul 2008

When you walk into the long, dimly lit barn where Gary West keeps 25,000 egg-laying hens, the first thing you notice is the sound.

---

Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Poultry
Tags :: eggs, Farmers, free range, Ontario, Poultry

---

Source: Farmers Weekly Interactive 22/11/2007

Poultry meat uses less global energy than other livestock systems and
intensive poultry uses less than free range and organic, according to new research.

---

Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Family vs factory farming, Poultry, Research
Tags :: chicken, environment, Farmers, free range, livestock, organic, Poultry, Research

---

Source: CBC News
Last Updated: Thursday, March 13, 2008

Animal health experts are concerned about the spread of disease from backyard chicken flocks in British Columbia.

The risks associated with keeping poultry was a key topic for discussion at a seminar Wednesday in Abbotsford, hosted by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

---

Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Animal health, Canada, Education and public awareness, Pork
Tags :: backyard flocks, eggs, influenza, Poultry

---

PRNewswire, ATLANTA, Dec. 19 / 2007

Animal rights activists have long alleged that hens in modern cages live a horribly stressed life, but new research appears to debunk those claims. Researchers have discovered that free range hens experience just as much or more stress than hens raised in modern, conventional cages.

---

Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Housing, Poultry, Research
Tags :: animal welfare, Farmers, free range, Housing, Poultry

---