Good Afternoon List Friends,
The snip/paste below is from the AnimalNet email clipping service from
the University of Guelph. It points our the benefits of - even how
essential - environmental farm plans are in the current environment of
liability risks facing farms these days.
Regards
Ross Gould, P.Ag. (Retired)
Calgary, Alberta
=======================
Farmer's records saved his farm
February 13, 2004
The Leader-Post (Regina)
B4 / Front
Angela Hall
David Biesenthal, a farmer at Walkerton, Ont. who saw his "ma and pa"
operation become the object of national
scrutiny in 2000 when an E. coli outbreak in the town's water supply led
to seven deaths and made hundreds ill, was cited as telling producers
Thursday at a Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association conference in
Regina that an environmental farm plan truly helped save his farm when
the finger for the crisis pointed in his direction.
The story explains that a well on the land adjacent to Biesenthal's farm
was a suspected contamination source -- a well that he hadn't even known
existed until health inspectors began showing up at his door and
examining
every aspect of his farming practices.
Biesenthal was cited as saying that his environmental farm plan, along
with the daily records he had kept, allowed him to provide officials
with accounts of how and when he spread manure, which fertilizers he
used and countless other details dating back two years.
Biesenthal, a part-time veterinarian who has about 50 cattle and plants
1,500 acres, was further cited as saying he started his plan simply
because he was concerned about the environment and his children's
future, adding, "It probably saved my sanity more than anything else
when things were going bad in Walkerton. I think what it did was it gave
me an awful lot of confidence to stand up to the accusers and say 'Look,
I've done things to the best of my ability.' I think it demonstrated due
diligence."
The story notes that Alberta launched its environmental farm program
last year, based on the Ontario model, and Saskatchewan is following
suit.
