Goats or Retirees

Gray Merriam | Mar 01, 2017

Excitement about factory goats raises basic questions. Is the goal profit? For whom? Feihe will enforce contracts to guarantee amounts and qualities of goat milk to assure their profits. Small, part-time herds won't fit.

Perhaps county representatives should visit some Mediterranean islands to assess the quality of a goat-impacted landscape. Goat desert! So only in big barns. Where to source the feed supply? And then there is the other end! The Netherlands' intensely planned pork industry expansion was down-scaled because the feed was all imported from elsewhere. So the manure output could not be used locally, could not be sold, and did devastate local waterways (and airways).

Our other development opportunity is retirees coming to the Frontenacs. Attracted by the superior landscapes and lakes, they bring their life savings, build their dream homes and can pour their pensions into the local economy for the rest of their lives. And if their septic systems are looked after, they won't cause the other problem.

So the leftover issue is employment. Do factory-scale goat barns employ many untrained folks? Or is it just the baby food factory day jobs that we want?

We should not gamble our priceless natural riches based on knee-jerk responses. More than two-thirds of Frontenac County is not goat country!