By Leslie Ballentine, Farming and food commentator

In recent years, the term ‘factory farm’ has been used with growing frequency in both conventional and online/social media to signify anything and everything that is seen as bad in livestock and poultry production. The term is almost exclusively used to criticize animal farming. You rarely hear it used to describe greenhouse tomatoes for example.

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Posted by FFC on March 17th, 2011 :: Filed under Canada,Consumers,Education and public awareness,Family vs factory farming
Tags :: agriculture, Consumers, Farmers, Media

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 by Patricia Grotenhuis, lifelong farmer and agricultural advocate

Although it seems there is not much to do in the winter on a farm, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work which people don’t think about.  Many people realize the animals still need to be cared for…that is a given.  But, as winter draws to a close, it is the start of calving season for many beef farmers, kidding season for goat farmers, and lambing season for sheep farmers.  Winter days in the barn can bring some extra jobs, as well.  Water bowls can freeze, straw can become wet even faster than normal because of the snow and animals that graze at other times during the year need supplemental feed.

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Posted by FFC on March 15th, 2011 :: Filed under Family vs factory farming,Farm life,Weather,winter
Tags :: animal care, animals, Canada, Farmers

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Vet tech turned pig farmer in the 2011 Faces of Farming calendar

By Patricia Grotenhuis

Pigs have captured the interest of Katherine Zurczak, a registered Veterinary Technician and city girl turned farmer.

Zurczak had her first encounter with pigs while studying to be a veterinary technician at Ridgetown College.  She was quickly fascinated by her work with the animals, and after graduating in June of 2009, began working at Hog-Wild Farms Ltd. in Ontario.

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Posted by FFC on March 8th, 2011 :: Filed under Animal care,animal handling,Education and public awareness,Faces of Farming,Family vs factory farming,Farm life,Misconceptions,Pigs,Pork
Tags :: agriculture, animal care, Farmers, pigs, Pork

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 by Patricia Grotenhuis, Lifelong farmer and agricultural advocate

In an earlier post, I highlighted what a day in the life of a tie stall dairy farmer looks like. Today, I thought I’d cover the other type of dairy farming – a free stall farm. 

On any dairy farm, days are laid out based on the milking schedule.  Cows cannot miss a milking, so someone always has to be present. Dairy farmers milk their cows two or three times per day.  The farmer makes the decision about how often the cows are milked, and a big factor to consider is how many employees work at the farm.  For farms that milk three times each day, extra workers are required.

At my parent’s farm, cows are milked twice per day.  George and Agnes wake up at 5 a.m. to go to the barn and begin milking by 5:30.  They have a free-stall barn, which means the cattle live in a large open space between milkings, and at milking time walk to a central milking parlour to be milked.  An example of both a free-stall and a tie-stall dairy operation can be found on the Virtual Farm Tours website at www.virtualfarmtours.ca

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Posted by FFC on February 16th, 2011 :: Filed under Animal care,Dairy cattle,Family vs factory farming,Farm life,Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: agriculture, animal care, dairy cattle, farm, Farmers

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Thanks to veteran American food-industry journalist and commentator Dan Murphy for this profile on a young, Canadian hog farmer. As a side note, Stewart has just been named outstanding pork producer of the year in his county. Well deserved, we’d say! – by the Ontario Farm Animal Council

Field Report: Canada’s Stewart Skinner

by Dan Murphy (www.agnetwork.com)

 We often hear about the aging of today’s farmers and the threat that creates for future food production. What we don’t hear about often enough is today’s young farmers, many of whom are not only tech savvy but media friendly, as well.

One such farmer is livestock producer, blogger and family farm champion Stewart Skinner, a pig farmer in Ontario, Canada, who raises some 400 sows on a family-owned farm in central region of Canada’s most populous province.

“Our acreage has been in the family and in production before Canada was a country,” Skinner noted. “We have been farming here since 1859.” (For any Canadian history-challenged readers, Canada became a confederated dominion in 1867 and an independent nation in 1882).

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Posted by FFC on January 31st, 2011 :: Filed under Canada,Family vs factory farming,Farm life,Pigs,Pork,Sustainability of the family farm

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by Leslie Ballentine, Farming and food commentator

The death of Ottawa-area dairy farmer Arie van Lindenberg in 2009 touched many members of the farming community. He was by all reports (I didn’t know him personally) a cheerful, driven and friendly man whose positive spirit rubbed off on others. His death, to prostate cancer, left a big hole in the family who are carrying on without him. Soon after his death, Arie’s widow, Marja, received a call from the Ontario Farm Animal Council to appear in its 2011 calendar. She said she’d be pleased to participate, but only if her sons Matthijs and Barend were included. All three family members appear together in the calendar that pays tribute to the farming community.

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Posted by FFC on January 12th, 2011 :: Filed under Dairy cattle,Faces of Farming,Family vs factory farming,Uncategorized

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Thanksgiving is different on the family farm

Guelph Mercury
Thu Oct 7 2010
Page: A8
Section: EDITORIAL
Byline: Rebecca Hannam

The Thanksgiving season is a special time of year for most families. As the sun sets earlier and the temperature begins to cool, families often gather together to celebrate autumn over a special meal or afternoon walk in the turning leaves.
Farming families have special fall traditions too, but they are much different than most.

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Posted by FFC on October 8th, 2010 :: Filed under Animal care,Family vs factory farming,Farm life

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By Drovers news source  |  Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Animal Agriculture Alliance is disturbed by the images of alleged animal cruelty documented in a video released this week by an animal rights activist group. The Alliance has long condemned the abuse and mistreatment of animals raised for food and works to promote animal care guidelines on all farms across the United States.

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Posted by FFC on May 28th, 2010 :: Filed under Activism,Animal care,Animal cruelty,Dairy cattle,Family vs factory farming
Tags :: animal abuse, Animal cruelty, dairy cows, factory farming, farm animal, mercy for animals

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The following is a guest post written for us by Lilian from Food and Farming Canada.

Most of us have very little knowledge of where our food comes from or how it is produced. As a result, misinformation is widely circulated in many different forms – so to get to the real scoop on what’s going on, there’s no one better to ask than a farmer himself.

I had the chance recently to visit with Brent, who raises turkeys on his farm in south-western Ontario, and seized the opportunity to pepper him with questions about one of my favourite holiday meats, turkey.

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Posted by FFC on May 26th, 2010 :: Filed under Animal care,Family vs factory farming,Farm life,Food safety,Poultry,Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: animal welfare, antibiotics, corporate farming, food safety, Ontario, turkey

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Posted by OFAC (This article first appeared in OFAC’s February, 2010 newsletter)

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is well known for its outrageous and attention-grabbing antics, “behind the scenes” pressure tactics and for capitalizing on the efforts of others. At the same time PETA (and other animal rights groups) use more subtle methods to exert their influence and line their pockets.

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Posted by FFC on May 19th, 2010 :: Filed under Activism,Consumers,Family vs factory farming,Media,PETA,Vegan,Vegetarian

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