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Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters
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Canadian Food Inspection Agency Destroys Shepherd’s Life and Sheep November 19, 2013 realfarmacy.com I am not a criminal. I’m a shepherd, farmer and writer who has been preserving rare breed Shropshire sheep for the last 12 years and farming various other heritage breeds and vegetables for the last 30. Then, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) descended …uninvited… into my life, onto my farm, and forever changed the course of both. They killed my beautiful ewes and their unborn lambs to find out if they were healthy. They were. Now they are dead. The CFIA and Minister of Agriculture ignored over 5,000 people who signed a petition to stop the killing. Their massacre of my rare genetics resulted in the Shropshire population falling to fewer than 80 heritage females left in all of Canada. The domino effect since they appeared has been devastating, it’s been a downward spiral from their first invasion. I keep telling myself “There are worse things”, and hang on. Now the CFIA has charged myself, raw milk activist farmer Michael Schmidt and 2 others with numerous criminal charges including conspiracy, all for allegedly trying to save Canada’s heritage sheep. I now have no income, no transportation, and am battling depression and post traumatic stress. I’m facing foreclosure and an astonishing $100,000. dollar legal defense fee for the upcoming criminal trial.If convicted, I face up to 12 YEARS IN JAIL and fines of $1.5 million. It’s not easy to admit, but pride aside—I need help. It’s up to all of us to change unreasonable policies that prevent our food and farming freedom and destroy our agricultural biodiversity. We must protect our heritage breeds, our heirloom seeds, my farm…other small farms. This dismal chapter of mine is just a detail—I’m not going to lay down just because I’m cold or broke or steamrollered by government. I am standing up, despite themIf I lose the farm—they win. And that would be another of their many wrongs. Please help me keep my home – and keep the farm going. Any help you can offer WILL make a difference! You can find the whole story on ShropshireSheep.org/FarmedAndDangerous or on the Save Our Shrops Facebook Page . With your help, we’ll breathe life back into this farm once again. Thank-you so much… please help spread word of this situation and share. Montana Jones December 3, 2016 update: Justice Laura Bird stayed the charges against Jones and Schmidt this week. She agreed with their lawyer that the delay in bringing the case to trial was unreasonable. Bird wrote in her ruling that "the applicants have established on a balance of probabilities that their right to be tried within a reasonable time ... has been infringed." (Source: The Canadian Press) |