Captain Canada Champions Chicken

“If God keeps me, I will make sure that no peasant in my realm will lack the means to have a chicken in the pot on Sunday!” - King Henry IV of France (1553 - 1610)

Here we are, 413 years later, and many Canadians can only hope for the return of Good King Henry's ideals.

The Salvation Army sponsored the April 2011 survey of Canadians by Angus Reid.  This survey found that 22% of Canadians had received help from a food bank or a charity.  When you look at those who earned $50,000 per year or less, 36% of those people had received help from a food bank or a charity.

I see a linkage here between locally produced, affordable food and Small Flockers.  Once Small Flockers are able to break the Canadian chicken monopoly, everybody will have the right to produce poultry for themselves, their family, and neighbours.  Once that has been achieved, prices should become more and more affordable.

US Government poultry advertisement during World War I (1914-1918)

I attended the Manitoulin Community Food Network meeting this week to make a short presentation about Small Flock Poultry Farming. I was pleased with the reception I received.  I was also quite impressed with this dynamic group meeting of 14 people, making a difference for local food.

The advertisement on the left was from 1917, and is as true today as it was then.

Perhaps we can get Captain Canada to re-issue a new version of this ad for us today.






Feel free to lift anything from this Blog, print it out, and give it to a neighbour or a local community group, hopefully sparking a conversation about these issues for your community.