details
Just a few details, in reply to various comments.
1. My position at this agency was as their technical writer. it was not as receptionist.
2. As a technical writer, I was responsible for factual ag info in EVERY ad, EVERY PR campaign, EVERY event. I knew whereof I spoke.
3. I did not, in fact, speak of this poultry farm sight at the time. I chose not to. But I am speaking now.
4. In fact, it would not have mattered what position I held at the agency. There were at least eight other people, all of whom grew up on farms, who were horrified at seeing this. THAT is the key point.
5. That this poultry barn met regulations is not the point. I have a hunch that regulations are, for large operations, written to suit how things are, not how they should be. Such are regulations.
6. The colony where this took place was near Drumheller, not Fort Macleod. I know the Newelm Colony, and the Hofers, at Fort Macleod quite well - they in fact were the ones who bought our farm near Turin, to establish the Cameron colony.
7. If the Newelm Colony does not ship to Safeway, that is neither here nor there - the Drumheller one did. Those were the turkey bosses' exact words at Drumheller.
8. I honestly do not know the solution to this problem, I'm still wrestling with it. But I do know that grilles full of low-cost chicken breasts and legs, as yummy as they are (I do personally love them) are not part of any solution.
9. I do know people ate eggs and chickens and turkeys long before this factory farming came to be, and they did alright. The cost never killed anyone.
10. I picked eggs and fed chickens myself as a kid. Watched them die when my mother cut their heads off with an axe. Watched her plucking feathers. Still loved eating chicken and turkey.
11. The Hutterite turkey boss did explain, as every farmer knows, that the profit margins on this turkey operation were very slender. Big poultry barn, yet the returns were no better, just a tiny bit from a lot of birds each. Makes one think.
12. I think all of us are going to have to start thinking about this, and we'll all be hearing it more and more as young, intelligent people come into the shooting sports. We can "curse the darkness, or start lighting a candle". As I say, I don't know what that candle might be, but I know we best be thinking on it.
Think about all that while you eat your breakfast eggs. 'Nuff said.
PS. I have moved from conservative AB, to the very riding of Elizabeth May, the federal Green Party leader. I find it funny; your comments welcome.
|