Scrub lands and farms

David Bates | Oct 29, 2015

I was disappointed to read in your paper (Frontenac County Budget, Oct 22/15) that Anne Marie Young is looking for county money to do away with our scrub lands and farms and replace them with "a tourism and recreation economy". As a farmer and a scrub land owner, I do not want the county to hire an "Economic Development Coordinator" who thinks in terms of "only farms". I would prefer if the county spent at least part of the $210,000 it is being asked for to do something to develop farms instead; for example, to help set up an egg grading station.

There are no egg grading stations for farmers in Frontenac County. That means that no farmer in Frontenac County can legally sell their eggs anywhere but at their farm gate without leaving here and coming back. Our farmers cannot advertise eggs for sale in newspapers, stock local stores or restaurants, put "eggs for sale" signs up pointing to their farms or even sell their eggs at a farmers markets. An egg grading station would change all that. Since a grading station is basically a sink, a bright light and a scale it would only cost a small fraction of the one quarter million dollars being asked for.

Graded eggs can be sold anywhere. With an egg grading station here, more people in Frontenac County could have fresher eggs while supporting their local farms. The egg marketing board won't tell me but I'd guess that a ton of money leaves Frontenac County in the form of egg sales at the grocery stores. Most of that would stay here in farmers' pockets.

In deference to people who wanted to replace our farms with a tourist economy, we could have signs printed up advertising "Frontenac County Laid Eggs". That would give the recreational tourists a warmer feeling about their visits here, not to mention that a fresh, local egg from a hen free-ranged on "scrub lands" is incomparably better than an egg that came on a truck from Toronto. We could show them that too.