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.

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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

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December 24, 2009 – In the spirit of Christmas, we don’t think this article could say it any better. The author, Jeanine Moyer, was raised on an Ontario farm and is one of the winners of the Guelph Mercury Christmas story contest. We think Jeanine captured the essence, exactly, of Christmas on a Canadian livestock farm. Merry Christmas to all. – OFAC

Farm families have special Christmas traditions
 GuelphMercury.com – News – December 21, 2009

Christmas is the holiday for traditions. Growing up, we knew our family had several Christmas traditions such as leaving milk and cookies out for Santa, hanging stockings and attending church on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t until we were in our early teens that my siblings and I began to understand just how different our family was and that our Christmas traditions were different from most.

Growing up as the seventh generation on our family farm, my sisters, brother and I knew we were different from most families, and for some reason it always seemed most apparent at Christmastime.

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Posted by OFAC on December 24th, 2009 :: Filed under Beef cattle, Farm life, Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: animal care, animals, Canada, Farmers

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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.

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

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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.27

It’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning and daylight hasn’t yet cracked the horizon as I head west along Governor’s Road on the far side of Lynden. I drive for miles without passing another car, but almost every barn I pass is already lit.

No one has said it better than John Kenneth Galbraith, the renowned economist and maybe the most famous graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.

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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Farm life, Pork
Tags :: Canada, Farmers, pigs, Pork

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Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, 02 Aug 2008

It’s Sandi’s turn to be milked.

She stands patiently in the barn, her pale-pink udder bulging between her long legs, as dairy farmer Terry Lebold wipes her teats with antibacterial solution and attaches four suction cups to them.

Within five minutes, about 20 litres of milk has been vacuumed out of her, the white liquid whirling through transparent plastic tubes. Lebold touches her hind flank lightly, disconnects the machine and quickly dips her teats in a reddish iodine solution to prevent infection.

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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Dairy cattle, Farm life, Veal
Tags :: agriculture, Canada, Consumers, dairy cattle, Farmers, food, milk, Ontario

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Manitoba Co-operator, 2/14/2009

A ranchers’ beef co-operative in Alberta and Saskatchewan has picked up certification from a U.S. group for meeting a long list of social and environmental standards for their product.

Food Alliance Certification Co-operative, based in Portland, Ore., has given Prairie Heritage Producers its certification for “sustainably-produced” beef. Prairie Heritage becomes the first company in Canada to meet Food Alliance standards, the U.S. group said Friday.

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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Beef cattle, Canada, Consumers
Tags :: animal care, beef, Canada, environment, Farmers, humane treatment, sustainability, water conservation

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Source:Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, 19.dec.08

Calgary, AB — FoodLogiQ, the leading provider of On Demand food safety and traceability software, today announced that they have signed an agreement with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association to provide a value added traceability solution to its members.

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Beef cattle, Consumers, Food safety, Innovation and technology
Tags :: beef, Canada, cattle, food safety, Traceability

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OTTAWA, Aug. 22 /CNW Telbec/ – Working in one of the country’s most dynamic agriculture industries, Canada’s egg farmers have had little time to rest. Just ask Laurent Souligny, 64, a proud egg farmer and chairman of the national egg farmers’ organization, Egg Farmers of Canada (EFC).

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Animal health, Canada, Poultry
Tags :: agriculture, animal care, Biosecurity, Canada, eggs, Farmers, food, Housing, misconceptions, Poultry

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Montreal Gazette, 2008.08.04, Letter to the Editor

“Free-range eggs rule the roost ” (Gazette, July 30).
This is an interesting and generally informative article, but it contains some factual errors. The most glaring being that its claim that some hens in cages are given hormones.

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Letters to the Editor, Poultry
Tags :: animal welfare, Canada, eggs, Farmers, hormones, misconceptions

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Vancouver Sun, 2005.08.19, Letter to the Editor

Re: Spin, not reform: The Canadian livestock industry goes for public
relations, Issues & Ideas, Aug. 18

On behalf of Canadian hog producers, I take great exception to Stephanie Brown and John Youngman’s comments regarding our industry’s efforts in animal care.

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Letters to the Editor, Pork
Tags :: animal care, Canada, Farmers, pigs, Pork

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