The benefits
From ClimateNetworkWiki
Why Urban Hens? An AGSC 221 report
Growing our own food is one of the best ways that people can achieve food security in a sustainable and healthy manner. Vegetable gardens are a great start to producing food in your backyard but raising egg-laying hens are one of the few ways that people can introduce a home grown protein source into their diet. It is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, and it creates not only food security but food sovereignty on an individual, community and even global level. I wanted to create awareness about the benefits of this practice among Kamloopsians and vary the current by-law so that more residents can enjoy the benefits of fresh eggs. In doing so I became more aware of the Urban Chicken Movement that has been established in the United States and some cities in Canada. With all the media attention this project has received in Kamloops. I think it is even safe to say that it is a movement that is gaining momentum in this town too.
So why chickens? I first became interested in poultry while I was living in France in 2005. In Europe people have had chickens in the past, as have North Americans, but overseas the tradition was never lost. People who have land use it to grow vegetables and many choose to keep a few hens for eggs. A good friend of mine had 6 hens and she introduced me to the value of this practice. Most of all she made me realize the intrinsic satisfaction that comes with occupying one’s time and energy collecting fresh food from the land you live on. Beyond the personal satisfaction derived from homegrown food, there is the global benefit to think about too.
Environmental Sustainability
Environmental sustainability and concerns over global climate change have been all over the news lately. A huge chunk of ice just broke away from Antarctica, the bio-fuel debate is really starting to heat up, and carbon taxes are in the limelight. Every time I hear people talking about these issues I realize they really do want change and that they really are concerned. People are looking for ways to be more Earth-friendly. What better way to start than in your own back yard at, literally, the grassroots level?
While urban agriculture will not solve the problem of reducing cities’ oversized footprints they can do a lot to reduce it. By reducing the amount of food shipped into the cities, using waste water to irrigate urban crops and manure as compost and fertilizer we are producing and using resources right inside the city, narrowing it’s foot print. (Mougeot- 2006) Studies done in Chicago show that the average kilo of produce travels 2,400 Km from farm gate to plate, which is 25% farther than 28 years ago. (Halweil- 2004) Anything we can do to bring the production closer to the consumer is a step in the right direction (Karakatasoulis- 2007) especially with accords like Kyoto, which put pressure on countries to lower CO2 emissions. Last September Mayor Terry Lake made Kamloops the first city in BC to sign the Climate Action Charter. This committed us to taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2012 and to “foster a built environment that supports a reduction in car dependency and energy use, establish policies and processes that support fast tracking of green development projects” (Government of BC- 2007) By bringing food closer to home we are reducing trips to the grocery store, the distance produce travels and the cost of shipping food into a city.
Poultry and gardens also go hand in hand, encouraging further environmental sustainability via home production methods. Gardens are amazing for many reasons, but when it comes to global warming they are fantastic. Plants are the only things that take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Chickens love to eat bugs, pests and weeds out of gardens as well, which reduced the need for harmful pesticides. They provide free fertilizer, nutrient rich compost and they can help to aerate and cultivate the soil at the end of the season if you let them onto your garden. (Evans- 2005) There are many ways in which chickens galvanize people to live in a more environmentally sustainable way, but they also vastly improve social sustainability.
Social Sustainability
In Kamloops, the city that puts “Life Style Above All,” the top three employers are the School District 73, the Royal Inland Hospital and Convergys. (City of Kamloops- 2004) These are all professions that are done largely indoors and far away from windows and sunlight. So when considering the lifestyle here, it is easy to conclude that anything that will get people outside, in the sun and closer to the earth is a positive thing. Gathering fresh eggs in the morning and cleaning the coop on the weekends might just be the thing some people need to make sure they are getting their share of Vitamin D. Also it creates biodiversity in your own backyard, which according to the David Suzuki weekly newsletter improves mental health.
As cities grow and a rural lifestyle is becoming all but extinct, people are more and more separated from where their food comes from. Government policies reflect this lack of knowledge in the agriculture industry. With new and much more strict regulations, small slaughter houses, and other local farming facilities are forced out of business due to an inability to pay for the expensive new upgrades required. People are unaware of the trials of local farmers if they are not in-tune and interested in the benefits of local produce. Many free-trade agreements restrict governments from having policies to source locally, because it restricts free trade. This is wrong and frightening. People need to be empowered to know that even if global food policies don’t support it, they still can know where their food comes from by doing it themselves. Chickens are a great way for people to start doing this and thinking seriously about these issues.
Economic Sustainability
Economic trends in Kamloops show that we are going from an industry-based economy to a service based one.This means lower salaries and it also means that if we are going to keep up tourism in Kamloops we have got to maintain a vibrant, interesting and lively community. How do chickens fit in? Being a fairly small town, people from big cities are going to want to come to Kamloops to enjoy that “rural feel” while benefiting from the amenities of the city. Urban hens are a perfect way to create that ambience in the city. It gets neighbors outside talking to each other and encourages closer, friendlier communities. Due to this change is the Kamloops economy, many families will be earning less money, making it of paramount importance that we increase their capacity to supply nutritious food themselves. It had been found that free range, fresh eggs have a third less cholesterol, a quarter less saturated fat, 2 times more omega 3s and 7 times more beta carotene than eggs from industrially raised hens (Long- 2007). For healthy fresh eggs like the ones families could grow in their own back yards, the cost can be as high as $4/ dozen. Urban agriculture and more specifically chickens in an urban environment will help boost the economy by creating employment, such as coop builders, chicken care takers and poultry educators. Having chickens will also create a bigger market for local agricultural suppliers (Kamloops Food Policy Council- 2007). This is very positive for the economy. Even though at first it may not make a huge difference, it certainly won’t hurt.
Animal Rights
World wide, urban agriculture supplies 15 – 20 percent of food (Kamloops Food Policy Council- 2007). I think we need to be proactive in keeping up with the rest of the world and start taking advantage of the opportunities that are widely available in Kamloops for a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable future. This will not only benefit humans currently and in the future, but hens as well. The typical industrial egg-laying hen is kept in a wire battery cage with as many as nine other birds. They are tricked into laying more eggs by round-the-clock artificial lighting. Their cages, stacked one on top of the other are not very hygienic, as feces can easily drip down onto the hens below. Adult chickens can be kept in cages as small as 432cm2 (Canadian Agri-Food Research Council- 2003), which is a space so small they can’t even flap their wings. The hens are easily startled because they rarely have any human contact. Usually the only birds that producers have to touch are those that have somehow escaped from a cage or have died from stress. Not surprisingly, chickens kept in these conditions are more susceptible to disease and tend to die much earlier than traditionally raised chickens (Neirenberg- 2005). The more we can encourage people to take care of the welfare of their own hens and raise awareness about the inhumane treatment of the average hen, the more pressure will be put on the people making agricultural policies to improve living standards for hens and other creatures.
Healthy Hens = Good Immune Systems
Keeping hens in these types of conditions can be dangerous to human health too. A World Watch study shows that contrary to media portrayal, it is the huge factory chicken farms that have been the true cause of the spread of avian flu in countries in Asia. Small back yard flocks that have been misrepresented. Avian flu spreads through mucus membranes. So when thousands of chickens are kept piled on top of one another in wire cages, they have no choice but to be exposed to the feces of many different hens. When diseases enter this type of farm, they spread extremely quickly and effectively, making farmer have to rely heavily on antibiotics. However, because all the chickens are bred to be identical, viruses can easily mutate to become immune to the antibiotics and more able to spread from animal to human (Neirenberg- 2007). Backyard flocks do need to be protected from wild fowl (the main carrier of avian flu) but their immune systems are strong and the chances of the disease spreading far are very low. The center for disease control maintains that at present “there is no need to remove a flock of chickens because of concern regarding avian fluenza.” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention – 2005).
Avian flu is just one challenge for urban chicken keepers. There are also concerns about smell, noise and roosters. Kamloops has one of the best climates for odor-friendly coops. In places that are dry it is much easier to maintain a clean and bacteria free environment for you hens (Farley – 2008). As far as noise goes, hens really don’t make much racket, other than the occasional cluck after having laid an egg (Kilarski- 2003). Roosters are prohibited in residential areas in Kamloops, and I have no intention of changing that.
Acting Upon Existing Municipal Policies
In Kamloops we have numerous policies that have been voted on, adopted and are supposed to act as guidelines in council’s decisions. Policies like Municipal Infrastructure in our Official Community Plan (OCP) that states “ The Environmental Management Systems recognizes the need… to better monitor and evaluate the long term economic, environmental and social costs of City actions; and to accelerate the adoption of more sustainable practices by Kamloops businesses institutions, households and residents.” Our OCP aims to “Encourage initiatives aimed at local food self-reliance” in the Quality of Life Policy 5.2.3. In the same section of the OCP we find goals to “ Continue to provide… courses with emphasis on the importance of a sound diet and environmentally friendly growing,” Urban Chicken initiatives are like low hanging fruit when it comes to these policies. “To continue to promote agriculture in all schools, with emphasis on food production in the local region” is policy 5.2.10 Quality of Life (The City of Kamloops- 2004). Again, chickens are a great way to do this not only at school but at home as well. Why stop at just educating children about local agriculture? Many adults are uneducated on local production as well. By signing the Climate Action Charter we are required to reduce our footprint, CO2 emissions and act in a more sustainable manner. Allowing egg-laying hens is a great opportunity for the city to step up to the plate and show citizens that they are willing to act upon all the great policies they have adopted.
If Seattle and West Van Can Do It, Why Can't We?
In other cities this has been done successfully for many years. Cities much bigger than ours, such as Seattle, West Vancouver, Surrey, Victoria, Portland, and at least 100 other cities in North America have various by-laws that encourage this type of micro-livestock urban agriculture. In Seattle anyone can have 3 hens. In West Vancouver single-family unit zoned homes can have up to 12 hens. In Portland you need to have a permit, which requires an inspection, before you are allowed to have more than 3 hens. Victoria has a clever loophole in their by-laws in which they prohibit livestock in the city, but poultry is not defined as livestock. Victoria has also adopted an urban agriculture resolution supporting poultry, as well as community gardens, rooftop gardens, edible landscapes and other small livestock in the city. This helps lighten the load of the food bank as well as being proactive in preventing a crisis situation if access to the island should ever cut off food supplies because of storms etc. Seattle has had few problems with their citizen’s chickens. In fact, because it is a less popular animal to keep than a cat or a dog they find that the people who do have chickens are very responsible and take the time to educate themselves on it before going ahead and getting some (Farley-2008).
Times Have Changed
In 2007, the Kamloops Food Policy Council, BC Act Now and TRUE consulting wrote a report recommending Kamloops adopt a similar resolution or policy concerning urban agriculture. They even specifically stated micro-livestock as part of their definition. There are many policies, recommendations, evidence, studies and examples of how this can improve sustainability in cities in many diverse ways. Nonetheless, the city refused to vary the by-law that was created in 1981, at a time that was very different from now regarding sustainability and food security.
Food Sovereignty
Raising awareness about this issue is key. It may be a small, innocuous thing to have a chicken or two or three in your back yard, but it is the principal of it that makes it important. It is having the right to provide yourself as much of your own food as possible. It is about food security in the city. It is allowing people the dignity to legally become as sustainable as possible in a world that is quickly moving in the other direction. It is about individuals starting at the grass roots level to eat locally, making a difference in their lives, in the community and in the global market. It is about the freedom to use land to its full extent to feed people. It is about empowering Kamloops citizens to become more self-reliant, more food secure, and more able to step outside in the morning and collecting their fresh, nutritious and very local eggs.
Bibliography
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Karakatsoulis, J. 2007. Department Head, Natural Resource Science. Personal communication. Nov, 2007.
Halwiel, B. 2004. Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket. World Watch Norton & Company. New York, USA. Pp. 7
The Government of BC. September, 2007. The British Columbia Climate Action Charter. Pp. 2,3. http://www.cserv.gov.bc.ca/ministry/docs/climate_action_charter.pdf (accessed April 2008)
Evans, W. June/July, 2005. Beak Experience. Organic Gardening. Pp. 32-37. Red Oak, IA, USA.
The City of Kamloops. 2004. Economic Development. The Official Community Plan. Pp. 75 http://www.kamloops.ca/pdfs/kamplan/economic.pdf (accessed April 2008)
Long, C and Alterman T. October/November 2007. Meet Real Free-Range Eggs. Mother Earth News. Pp. 42-48. Windsor, ON.
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Canadian Agri-Food Research Council. 2003. Recommended code of practice for the care and handling of pullets, layers and spent fowl. Pp. 7 http://www.nfacc.ca/pdf/english/PoultryLayers2003.pdf (accessed April 2008)
Neirenberg, D. 2007.A Fowl Plague. World Watch; Jan/Feb2007, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p24-29, 6p, 5c [Journal, selected articles online]. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rch&AN=23441456&site=ehost-live (accessed April 2008)
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2005. Transmission of Influenza A Viruses Between Animals and People. [Article online]. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/transmission.htm (accessed April 2008)
Farley, P. 2008. Instructor, Seattle City Chickens Course. Personal communication. March 25, 2008.
Kilarski, B. 2003.Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs and Other Small Spaces. Storey Publishing. North Adam, MA, USA. Pp. 46.
The City of Kamloops. 2004. The Official Community Plan. http://www.kamloops.ca/business/selectorcriteria.shtml#kamplan (accessed April 2008)
