Having won a hard-fought battle to win the right
to grow chicken without quota, small-flock farmer Glenn Black of
Manitoulin Island is now battling with his municipality for the right
to keep using sea containers for a brooder and for feed storage.
This is the fourth time the municipality of
Central Manitoulin is trying to ban sea containers as animal
shelters.
They’re good enough for residents of Vancouver
to use as homes, but apparently not good enough for chickens.
Black and his wife, Jean, market pastured poultry,
free range eggs, lamb, and goat from their 100 acre farm in
Central Manitoulin.
“If this draconian by-law against sea containers
is passed, my farm is dead,” says Black.
“We customized a 40-foot sea container to be a world-class brooder. Without that brooder, we can
no longer raise pastured poultry. Without the income from our
poultry operations, our farm cannot survive.”
The previous three attempts to pass a sea container By-law were abandoned due to
significant problems in the wording of the By-law, and public backlash.
Black is hoping farmers will rally to his defence
and persuade the municipality that his use of sea containers is
acceptable.
