Yesterday Nation Rising shared on our social media the news that the Province of Ontario is forking over $14M to help create a “swine research centre” in Elora, Ontario. The purpose they say is to use technology for “several research projects including animal health, nutrition and welfare, nutrient management, and reproduction among others”.
As you know, Nation Rising is working to stop all animal agriculture subsidies at both the federal and provincial level. And we certainly don’t support this recent decision.
One of our supporters, Calvin Neufeld, founder of Evolve our Prison Farms, took our call to action to heart and wrote an email to MPP and Ontario Minister of Agriculture Lisa Thompson, as well as MP Lloyd Longfield who represents Elora, Ontario, to tell them he doesn’t support this decision. This is an excerpt of what Calvin said to them.
“As you would know, family farms are rapidly disappearing. Animal agriculture is becoming increasingly industrialized, globalized, monopolized and controlled by large corporations. Animal agriculture is also a top contributor to the climate crisis as flagged for decades by the United Nations. The solution to all of these problems is not to pour millions of dollars into making animal farming even less natural than it has already become, or trying to find unnatural ways to make our unhealthy appetite for milk and meat less earth-destroying than it is. The solution is to invest in more natural farming, more sustainable farming, smaller scale, local, and much more plant-based. The solutions are simple and they don’t require millions, which means there are no powerful lobby groups invested, which is perhaps why politicians aren’t invested either.”
Tell Lisa Thompson you don’t support this unnecessary use of Ontarians’ and Canadians’ tax payer dollars toward industrialized animal agriculture, which is detrimental to the health of Canadians, our planet, and farmed animals.