I am very passionate about this topic. I am a farmer, and I not only can't sell meat from my farm, but I can't even feed my family, because it is illegal. If I slaughter a steer this afternoon, I have to kill it at home, I have to hang it at home, and I have to cut it at home. So I can't even eat my own meat right now unless I want to put myself through those substandards of hanging the meat in the barn and then cutting it up on the kitchen table.
I know we're in a very similar situation to what they have in B.C. I've corresponded back and forth. Unfortunately, in Ontario, we're not allowed to have the mobile slaughter plants, so we're in the process of trying to secure funding to build an abattoir. The closest abattoir I can access right now is in Dryden, which is about three hours north of Rainy River. That means I'm paying for fuel; I'm taking my animals to Dryden, and then I'm hauling them back to be processed. After I do that, I can sell them to my neighbours and I can feed my family. It's silly, because if I don't take my meat to that abattoir, it's illegal for me to take a roast beef sandwich to work, because the meat is supposed to stay on the farm. I can't take it to a potluck dinner or anything like that. It sounds crazy, but it's the truth.
It is a very big hindrance. The beef industry and all of our industries--other than the grain industry, which is doing well because of the biofuels--are hurting right now. The meat industries are in a bad way. We need to open up markets and local food. Consumers, if they can buy from you, especially in the districts and the communities that we're in--we're small and we're tightknit--want to be able to access products. An example about potatoes was given by the lady whose name I forget. People can go into a grocery store in Japan now and scan the bar codes with their cell phone and they will see a picture of the farmer who's raising that meat. They want to see that cow out chewing her cud, lying happily in the grass. People can come right to my farm and do that if they choose to. It's a huge hindrance.
We are hoping that an abattoir may begin this spring, but killing animals is not very profitable, so we're going to have to struggle and work really hard to keep that going. But it will open up some markets. And the farmers markets in the northwest have been crying for local product, but we're unable to meet them because of the regulations, because of the access to the abattoir and the regulations that go along with that.