Heifers on the vine

Friday January 15, 2010

By Yukon News

Open letter to Yukon Agriculture Association president Mike Blumenschein:

Mike Blumenschein, a permanent slaughterhouse facility in the Yukon will cause enormous environmental damage. It will damage the land it is on, as well as other land which would be cleared for more farmland, if you are right to assume the slaughterhouse would encourage more animal farming. Yet the Yukon Agriculture Association wants a slaughterhouse that is paid for by government? This doesn’t make sense to me.

Why not compete on the open market like other businesses?

Blumenschein: You went on public record on CBC North last month saying the meat from this slaughterhouse would be “free range and É totally healthy.”

Please explain to the public exactly what you mean by “free range” and why you think eating farm animals is “totally healthy.” Study after study shows eating other creatures (animal “products”) is directly linked to many health problems plaguing human beings. Why would you want to add to this problem?

Animal agriculture is the biggest polluter and waster of natural resources. It is one of the biggest contributors to deforestation and climate change.

How does the Yukon Agriculture Association plan to address these and many other problems/issues that will arise with the result of “livestock” farming, including human-wildlife conflicts that are created by this industry? Farmers already have many complaints about wildlife.

Also, I have heard the term “locally grown food” fairly often recently. How does one grow meat?

I am looking forward to your reply.

Mike Grieco

Whitehorse