Why You Don't Want Industrial Orchards in Your Community

Image removed.Once they come, forget about your peace of mind, clean air and water, seeing birds and wildlife and selling your property. You won't want to stay in it and nobody in their right mind will want to buy it. All it takes is one in an area to make properties unsalable and turn a lovely rural community into an area that sounds like a war zone and is unfit to live. Industrial cherry orchardists are on the lookout for cheap land and climate change is now making it possible to use land further north.

Once you hear hovering helicopters idle for 4 to 5 hours at a time, spewing jet fuel all around, or hear cherry cannons go off every few seconds and smell pesticides from Spring to late Fall, the "For Sale" signs will sprout as every one around wilts from lack of sleep and stress, as is happening to people in Lavington. They are warning us that "once one of these operations starts, you can't stop the noise, the pesticides, the dust, the camps of temporary farm workers (one of the farms has 160)." But they say we can act quickly to make it less appealing for Industrial Orchardist to come to our area and bring Noise, Pollution, Camps and Losses to the community. Read on to find out how....

NOISE: 

  • From dawn to dusk, several Bird Cannons that sound like loud gun shots, go off every few seconds turning the area into a war zone and rattling windows of nearby homes.

  • Helicopters and Large Wind Turbine Dryers that operate at all hours, day or night. Helicopters idle for four to five hours at a time.

  • Truck traffic: large heavy axel truck traffic day and night.

POLLUTION

  • Various pesticides, growth accelerants and drying agents are sprayed from May to October. Research has established that multiple types of *neurotoxic and carcinogenic chemicals used in Industrial Cherry Orchards are linked to brain cancer as well as numerous other diseases." They also pollute the air, the soil as well as ground and surface water. They drift and can persist for very long times, can accumulate in living organisms and increase over time. 

  • The exhaust from the incessant truck traffic and the jet fuel from idling helicopters add to the air pollution. 

WORKERS' CAMPS:

  • Temporary Farm Working Program is a profit centre for those industries so for most of the year a large number of foreign workers are crammed in tents or poorly equipped trailers and provided with inadequate sanitary facilities. 

LOSSES TO THE COMMUNITY:

  • Property values plummet as noise and pollution increase. “For Sale” signs multiply. Roads become ruts as the trucks roar in and out, day and night.
     
  • Jobs and profits: These industries hire foreign workers and create no local jobs. Since no low impact agriculture or local business can co-exist, local profits and local farm jobs that did exist are lost.

  • Food Security: All product is shipped to China so valuable farm land that did produce local food is lost as is our food security.

  • Health of animals and people: The stress affecting people is detrimental to animals. Farm owners will tell you their animals have not been able to reproduce since the noise and pollution has started and the many birds, coyotes and other wildlfe has disappeared.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

As an supporter of Bee SAFE agriculture, you can:

  1. sign this petition (to come soon), 
  2. copy and email this letter to government (to come soon)
  3. prominently place a Bee SAFE sign on your property
  4. join our supporters group so you can be made aware of when local demonstrations are planned so you can add your weight to local efforts by simply showing up to support.

As a protector of your community, you can:

  1. Speak to large landowners in your area to let them know that selling to this kind of outfit would ruin the community and that if they are thinking of selling, they should give their neighbours the right of first refusal. Many who have sold in Lavington cried once they saw the outcome.
  2. Sign up to appear as a Delegation to your council or RDNO to ask for a stringent bylaw limiting the number of Temporary Farm Workers able to be housed on any property and for restrictions of axel weight so that semis can't be used on certain property roads. Contact us for details on how to do it.

 

Attachment(s)

Cherry Agribusiness