May 14, 2014
Does the state really not have anything better to do than harass innocent farmers and kill their sheep?
On Friday, April 27 at approximately 7:15 p.m., four CFIA agents and 2 security guards arrived at Montana Jones’ Hastings Ontario farm with an order for the destruction of 9 Shropshire sheep.
They left two vehicles “guarding” the premises overnight.
The CFIA inspectors returned Saturday, April 28 at 8:00 a.m., loaded up the 9 sheep, 8 of which were due to have lambs, and drove them approximately four hours to slaughter in Nepean.
The farmer, Montana Jones, now faces prison time for unsubstantiated charges such as conspiracy for trying to preserve sheep biodiversity.
From her blog:
Apparently I am farmed and dangerous…
But I am not a criminal. I’m a shepherd, farmer and writer who has been preserving rare Shropshire sheep for the last 12 years, and farming various other heritage breeds and vegetables for the last 30.
Then the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) killed my beautiful ewes and their unborn lambs to find out if they were healthy. They were.
They were also rare and pregnant. Now they are dead.
The CFIA ignored over 5,000 people who signed a petition to stop them . Their policy must change to protect our heritage breeds and heirloom seeds—I need to keep going and ensure they don’t destroy me, my farm or other small farms.
The domino effect since has been devastating, its been a downward spiral from their first raid, and worse with every invasion since. I keep telling myself “There are worse things”, and I keep going.
The CFIA charged myself and raw milk activist farmer Michael Schmidt and 2 others with numerous criminal charges including conspiracy, for allegedly trying to save Canada’s heritage sheep and preserve our country’s agricultural biodiversity.
I barely scraped through winter and now, I face imminent foreclosure and an astonishing $100,000. Dollar legal defense fee for the upcoming criminal trial. I have no income, no transportation, am battling depression and post traumatic stress.
If convicted, I face up to 12 YEARS IN JAIL and fines of $1.5 million.
If you’d like to support Jones in her battle against the totalitarian state, you can do so at her gofundme page here: http://www.gofundme.com/farmedanddangerous