The Parable of the Eggs

“… in BC it took a near-riot on Saltspring Island and a face-to-face meeting with farm market managers, BC ministry of agriculture folk and Health regulators to decide that , yes indeed, farmers should be able to sell clean, ungraded eggs at their local farm markets. This was a battle that has raged for over 30 years in BC and remains unsettled throughout Canada.”

– from “Small Farm” magazine (Sept/Oct 2008), under “Market Trends”.

Sounds interesting, no? Sounds a little like the situation we’re dealing with in Ontario with Michael Schmidt’s raw milk being demanded by a strong-minded group of people who want that product in that particular state for what amounts to “health reasons” and who justify their demands under the general banner of “freedom of choice”.

That tantalizing fragment from “Small Farm” led to an exchange of emails with Jim Scott of Salt Spring News, asking if his site covered the story when it unfolded or if he knew where more information could be found. Thanks to Jim for digging up the two stories below. These stories are originally from “The Gulf Islands Driftwood”. Thanks to Gail Sjuberg for permission to republish them on this blog. By the way, Salt Spring News comes highly recommended as a general news source that is truly independent and wide ranging. You can find their link on our blogroll.

And the hits just keep on coming

The Bovine blog got 330 hits on September 12th, not bad for only having started less than a week earlier.

Saturday Sept 13 Press Roundup

It’s hard to believe that the National Post has missed covering this story entirely. At the other Toronto papers, election coverage has merely pushed the Michael Schmidt trial story to the inside pages, but at the Post it seems to have totally dropped off their radar. If there are any Post readers out there who saw something last week on this story, please comment.

And just to show we’re not down on the Post around here, we’re headlining today’s press review with a dramatic-looking snapshot from the Post website, as a sample of the coverage they gave to Michael Schmidt’s July 31st court appearance. By the way, if someone at the Post has an issue with this, copyright-wise, just drop us a comment to that effect and we’ll remove it pronto. Otherwise, consider it “fair use”.

Compared to Michael’s brief court appearance July 31, media coverage this time around has been understated. No doubt this is due to the mindspace demands of simultaneous American and Canadian elections, not to mention the Sarah Palin feeding frenzy and consumer outrage over recent gas price increases. By contrast, July 31st must have fallen during a slow news week. Hey, let’s hope there’s not too much else going on during the January 2009 trial.