To the editor:
Vanderwees has said with changing regulations and rising costs for things like feed, there’s no profit to be had any longer in egg production and they will stop by summer of 2014.
Vanderwees will still package and distribute eggs from other producers. Vanderwees says it is “changing focus.”
It is important to me to buy only from farms who practice agricultural sustainability, so I hope that focus remains. However, I am more concerned about the growing bigger picture.
I am tired of watching government or big business regulations pushing more and more local farmers to ‘change focus,’ get out of business completely, or compromise their sustainable agricultural decisions just to survive.
As a member of the public, I want to know what regulations are changing and what pricing is going into effect by whom. As the public, we need to be petitioning and vocalizing our concern to our governments, that this squeezing by big business like Monsanto and others is unacceptable.
Our food security is resting more and more with a monopoly system that considers profit only, and does not consider local economies, environment, ecology, health, biodiversity, or even the survival of future generations. It’s all about patenting seed and feed, regulating and controlling farmers out of the industry, all to the end of making the biggest buck.
Small farmers must keep what little control over our food supply that they have left, so we continue to have some choice about what we put in our bodies daily.
If Thunder Bay cares enough, we have a year to let governments and business know. If Vanderwees does not benefit from any protests, perhaps with enough voices, other Canadian farmers will.
Let’s speak up Thunder Bay! This is not just a local issue. It’s happening everywhere and if we sleep through it then we, our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences.
Lindsay White,
Thunder Bay
