Small egg farmers are under attack in Canada!

Unfreaking believable.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2011/03/18/pei-free-range-egg-ban-584.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d8922d6844b3ad8%2C1

'Why take the chance when you have the ability to purchase a product from a government-approved source?'
— Joe Bradley, Department of Health

You have GOT to be kidding me Joe Bradley, you moron. Since when has the Government EVER had what's really good for people on it's agenda. Unless by "people" you mean "big business. PFT

If my free range county eggs start disappearing I am going to be PISSED! They don't allow backyard hens here. Time to move, eh? This place is getting a bit TOO civilized for me. I'm angry.

Let me get this straight, they can still sell them at the Farmer's Market but they can't serve them at their B&B??

don't know what the rules are around Canada, but here in the Washington State it isn't too hard to get approved to sell eggs.  there are a couple of silly rules about a candling room, and all the eggs have to be graded.  and we've got to pay something like .025 cents (not 2.5 cents, .025) for every dozen to pay for inspection.  $15 for a business license and $30 more to sell WSDA-approved eggs.

harder than it should be, but not really terrible.  could be a different story in Canada, though.

What a stupid law. All it takes is some thought.......who has a higher potential to cause widespread illness? The small farmer who raises his birds naturally and collects and inspects his own eggs, or the confinement farmer who runs all of his eggs through the same wash liquid after no inspection?

I don't get how they can be freaky about salmonella on eggs when raw meat is EVERYWHERE! WTF, raw meat is ok but eggs, OMG, those dangerous dangerous eggs. 

The problem with Canada is that they are too close to the US.  They are starting to pick up too many of our bad habits!

The smaller farmers do spread more pathogenic illness in the US, by like a wide margin. Sure there are the Joel Salatins of the world who make a really clean product, but there are also the folks with coop and run's who's chickens haven't got bedding so they nest in the shit.  100% of the milk born illness in the US (including a few deaths a year) is from small farms. It just seems like the big outfits are more dangerous because of the massive recalls, but the vast majority of recalled product is safe. The other year when they recalled those untold millions of eggs, yes a few thousand had salmonella, but tally all the small farm eggs with salmonella and you will doubtlessly find a bigger number, and no recall is ever issued for them.

A threat you see is not bigger than a threat you don't. That having been said the increased risk from local small farms is more than mitigated by simple food safety rules. Even a salmonella filled egg will be safe once you've cooked it fully.

Seriously a comparison to prescription drug related deaths and injuries would far outweigh those instances of raw milk dangers. By approved drugs that have been peer reviewed. My view of peer reviews is another whole thread.
2 deaths from 1998-2005 related to unpasturized milk, though more have been unreported.
Proper cooking of eggs would eliminate any salmonella danger.

Emerson White wrote:
The smaller farmers do spread more pathogenic illness in the US, by like a wide margin. Sure there are the Joel Salatins of the world who make a really clean product, but there are also the folks with coop and run's who's chickens haven't got bedding so they nest in the shit.  100% of the milk born illness in the US (including a few deaths a year) is from small farms. It just seems like the big outfits are more dangerous because of the massive recalls, but the vast majority of recalled product is safe. The other year when they recalled those untold millions of eggs, yes a few thousand had salmonella, but tally all the small farm eggs with salmonella and you will doubtlessly find a bigger number, and no recall is ever issued for them.

A threat you see is not bigger than a threat you don't. That having been said the increased risk from local small farms is more than mitigated by simple food safety rules. Even a salmonella filled egg will be safe once you've cooked it fully.

I have a totally different understanding and view of food safety and pathogenic illness spread than what you write above.  While I in no way think that small farm=safe and large operation=unsafe.  I think there is lot more in the middle.  A small egg producer has the same ability to pose a risk to public health as a large producer but also has the same ability to get it right.  The advantage that I see with small farms is that if there is an outbreak the range is relatively small and held to a few hundred customers at best.  In dealing with small farms vs larger farms I have found the level of transparency to be different.  When buying eggs from a large regional operation for a kitchen I worked in they denied us a tour of their facilities.  I have yet to find a small farmer who denied me access to see their flock and set up.  In fact they are generally proud to show off what they do.  That way as a consumer I can decide whether or not to assume the risk of buying their eggs.  Of course this is not scientific and all kinds of pathogens are present at levels that can not be seen by such an inspection.  It certainly gives me piece of mind.

As for the milk statistics that are referenced, I just finished "The Untold Story of Milk" which paints a different picture of milk contamination.  Granted the book is a few years old but there were many large farms as well as small farms responsible for outbreaks.  I guess depending on what is considered small (under 50 cows by my definition), that could be some of the discrepancy. 

I am interested in researching this more would you point me to where you read that  "The smaller farmers do spread more pathogenic illness in the US, by like a wide margin" and "100% of the milk born illness in the US (including a few deaths a year) is from small farms."

That is compiled information, based on research I did a few years ago for a course in food safety. I think you may have a toupee fallacy going on, where you only get to see the farms you get to see, and that is not representative of all farms. The thing is that the large farms are all doing things the same way, it's wrong and gross, but it's pretty damn good at stopping pathogens getting through, and when they do there is a huge recall, which makes the actual problem smaller but the perception of the problem much much much bigger. For my purposes small farm was anyone less than 1K gallons of milk who sells directly to the consumer or vendor rather than to a dairy or processor. While some nasty gross borderline toxic stuff ends up in milk pasteurization cleans out virtually all of the pathogenic risk; almost all of the pathogenic problems with milk come from unpasteurized milk or inadequately pasteurized milk.

You can take a turd and pressure cook it and it will still be a bad idea to eat it, but it will not bear a pathogenic risk.

Emerson White wrote:
You can take a turd and pressure cook it and it will still be a bad idea to eat it, but it will not bear a pathogenic risk.

it's the truth.

So that's why we don't get sick from all those packages we get from Washington D.C.

Robert Ray wrote:
So that's why we don't get sick from all those packages we get from Washington D.C.

you get packages of pressure-cooked turds?  I suggest you stop ordering from that catalog.

No...politicians dispense that stuff for free, even if you don't ask for it....read the lable!!

T. Joy - just mail the minister ...?
http://www.gov.pe.ca/phone/index.php3?number=21559

So indicative about the major shift in laws over the past few decades: laws used to be about what you did - now they're about what you might do.

It's like that story, I think it was called the minority report? We're not very far off.

That aside, a B&B is a registered business and in order to serve food at a registered business it has to be purchased from a registered business if it is a regulated enterprise (which eggs are - very much so in Canada esp w/ marketing boards). Therefore, the gov't is fully within it's rights to follow this policy. There are 2 ways out of this: 1) either get the eggs as a registered business or 2) keep the eggs as is and de-register the B&B. I'm sure they'd still have lots of repeat visitors... and they're no law against having visitors in your home. They can leave a small gift of thanks.