Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 10:12 AM
To: Paterson, Jody (Times-Colonist)
Subject: Re: Organic chicken
Hello Jody
I don't mind being interviewed. How would it work? Over the
phone? Do
You
come here? Do I have to hang around the place?
Tom Pickett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paterson, Jody (Times-Colonist)"
JPaterson@tc.canwest.com>
To: "'Tom Pickett'" <tpickett@savesaltspring.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 11:13 AM
Subject: RE: Organic chicken
I'd like to follow up this story in a week or 2. Are you open
to being interviewed?
Jody P
From: Tom Pickett
Sent: Monday, June 9, 2003 11:13 AM
To: Jodi Paterson
Subject: Organic chicken
I am a certified organic chicken grower and I 'd like to thank you for
addressing the chicken marketing board v organics, June 03 .
I grow about 150 chickens per annum, on grass. This model
produces a vastly superior animal both in taste and nutritionally. The
sun, grass,herbs, insects, soil and the flax in the certified organic
feed supply thebirds with vitamen "D" and superior sources of protein,
vitamens and minerals, trace elements and omega three's.
The sun and fresh air sterilizes droppings and they turn into
richsoil.
Weakling birds do not make it to your table, they are not
propped up by antibiotics and confined in dark barns, they are culled.
Like the Reids I also have been sent a letter from the
chicken marketing board.
I think the Reids have been targeted because they are the
main supplier of organic chicken feed in the lower mainland. Stop the supply
and you stop all the growers.
Certified Organic Feed contains no rendered protein from road
kill andsick animals or genetically modified or irridiated materials
as is found in conventional chicken feed.
I have no intention of joining the board or buying quota.
I will not support the inhumane production methods of the
mainstream chicken industry. My opinion is that the chicken marketing
board is an unholy mix of beauracrats and vested interests who get rich
at the public's expense by producing food which is second rate and
in some cases dangerous and unfit for human consumption.
This is why they want to cold pasturize or irradiate your
poultry.
Despite the fact that I sell my hundred and fifty birds for
for three times their price, these chicken shits fear people like me.
Their product sucks, and people are catching on. They won't clean up their
industry.I think they're trying to put organic producers out of business
so consumers will have no choice.
If they get away with this, the real losers will be the
public.
Tom Pickett