Think small and local

… and save Dan The Chicken Man
Letter from Cindy Hillard Transition Town Orillia January 21 2011
Let’s face it, local farmers are struggling under more and more regulations, making it increasingly difficult for the small scale farm to survive.
The recent news that a local abattoir, more affectionately known as Dan The Chicken Man, has been shut down, left me wondering, “How far will his 300 local farm customers have to ship their livestock now?”. Or will they give up on farming poultry (and local chicken and turkey will disappear as the peaches did in Niagara, when the canneries were shut down)? Our efforts to support local farmers who grow healthy affordable meats for Simcoe County residents are again being jeopardized due to stern regulations set up to monitor large operations.
There are many existing government policies and initiatives which address our growing need for access to healthy food and water for all. Two such examples include 1) The Severn Sound Sustainability Plan (www.sustainablesevernsound.ca) and 2) The Building Healthy Communities initiative (www.simcoemuskokahealth.org).
On the one hand, huge corporations are influencing Free Trade Agreements that are crushing small scale projects, and ultimately debilitating any possibility for sustain ability, and on the other hand, municipal initiatives are supporting and encouraging small scale local operations. It appears to be a case of one hand cutting off the other. Do you think we’ll be able to pull up our socks?
Modern technology is making the world ever smaller. Everything we do in our own backyard is now affecting communities across the globe. The simple decision to purchase a product at our local supermarket will affect economies around the world. Local communities worldwide are working hard to make the best decisions to ensure that humans live in a mutually enhancing relationship with the earth.
North American consumer society is presently consuming 2.5 times what the planet can sustain. A family can live very comfortably and happily by making informed local purchases, and their choices can affect the availability of clean drinking water, and healthy food for people as far away as the opposite side of the planet. Can we sacrifice convenience so that others may have necessities such as water?
Can we afford to cover 800 acres of farmland in Simcoe County with solar panels in an effort to keep up with present day wasteful energy demands when we are fast approaching a global food crisis?
There are answers. Think small. Small scale projects can be implemented with no added impact to the earth, so that local communities prosper, environmentally, economically, and socially. If the answer is to think small, it is of utmost importance for us to support local agriculture, and save Dan the Chicken Man. Our economy can thrive. Our valuable assets can be renewed and enhanced, and we can live on in a mutually enhancing relationship with the earth in perpetuity.
The recent Transition Town Orillia (TTO) meeting addressing The Severn Sound Sustainability Plan was a high energy, positive, motivational meeting of the minds. Approximately 70 people attended, including many members of City of Orillia Council, representatives from the Council of Canadians, AWARE-Simcoe, the Green Party, Zero WwasteSimcoe, and many concerned citizens. Immersed in the excitement of the TTO meeting, I had a strong visualization of the analogy of the caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. Each subgroup in the meeting represented the imaginal cells of the caterpillar, working together and merging to create something totally new and different. As I listened to and observed, everyones’ creative ideas growing, changing, and evolving, a feeling of renewed energy came over me. There was a kind of dream-like quality to it, where, I sensed that something great was happenning. There is hope. There is more than hope, there is something fantastic going on. The Transition town movement is growing all over the world. These small groups of “imaginal cells” are finding each other and moving humanity forward. Although our consumer society is gorging itself (as the caterpillar does before becoming a butterfly) the imaginal cells within our consumer society are connecting, merging, and morphing into something new and wonderful. Perhaps the next stage is the cocoon, where we wrap around each other to protect and conserve what is left, thus allowing the butterfly to emerge.
We are witnessing a birth. And hey, during these cold winter months, who wouldn’t want to become intimately involved in a long slow comfortable organic relationship with the earth?
So come on out and shag a piece of history. TTO meets the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 7:30pm at St. Paul’s United Church, at the corner of Coldwater Road and Peter Street in Orillia.
Hope to see you there,