The Politics of Poultry

I'm a strong believer that people's ability to feed their family quality and healthy foods should never be impacted by bureaucratic red-tape. Sadly, not everyone feels the same way.

Our biggest seller here at Central Park Farms is our chicken and I am very proud of the poultry we raise.

However, chicken farming has recently become a rather challenging feat.

In order for poultry to be able to be sold to the public it needs to be processed at a provincially inspected abattoir -- The facility we use happens to be both provincially and federally inspected. The issue that has come up lately is one of the last plants in the Lower Mainland willing to process small batches of birds recently changed it's policy to only handle large quantities, leaving many small farmers out-of-luck.

In an email sent out to farmers, Farm Fed explained, 'With our expansion completed, additional automated equipment installed, adding additional product and hiring of extra employees we are unable to offer custom processing due to lack of processing time.'

As you can imagine the only remaining facility providing custom services here in the Lower Mainland cannot keep up with demand and as a result many small farmers are no longer able to sell poultry.

Now, what does this mean for Central Park Farms? Thankfully, it's business as usual for us. But, how could that be? When so many other local farmers are having to completely change their business model or shut their doors to poultry, how could we possibly have no change in our operations?!

Well with the help of my third-generation poultry farmer Big Jay we've been having our birds processed though a plant that doesn't offer custom kill to the public -- and we always have been.

For us this change has meant an increase in business as we begin to custom raise birds for other farm-to-table style farmers who don't want to loose the ability to sell chicken to their customers and who's humane and sustainable farming practices aline with ours.

You may question how I could possibly see one processing plant's decision to streamline their operations as 'bureaucratic red-tape' but this is where things get more complicated. Although Central Park Farms has no issues getting our birds processed, we still believe other small farmers like ourselves deserve the right to raise poultry and customers deserve choices.