SATURNA ISLAND, B.C. – Getting to Campbell Farm on Saturna Island involves an hour-long ferry ride from Vancouver Island followed by a slow drive on a single lane road.Once there, however, the view from the 500 acre farm nestled between mountains and the Pacific Ocean make the trek worthwhile.This is where Jacques (pronounced Jackie) Campbell raises cattle and sheep on cleared pasture land.Campbell returned to the farm in 1980 after studying agriculture at Dawson Creek, B.C., and working elsewhere for 10 years.She was one of four children raised by Jim and Lorraine Campbell.Campbell Farm was established in 1945 and had no road leading to it until 1997, when a new subdivision was proposed nearby. The family had previously travelled on horseback and by boat.However, the new road, high speed wireless internet and changing food safety rules in British Columbia have brought inevitable change in recent years.One of the biggest changes involved the market animals produced annually by her 88 ewes and 14 Hereford cows.New government regulations that require them to now be slaughtered in a licensed facility prompted Campbell to build her own plant.“We would have had to go into an entirely different line of business,” she said.“We wouldn’t be able to ship into Victoria or do all those other things.… It has been good for us.”Her father initially resisted the idea but eventually relented and helped her build the facility.Working with provincial inspectors, Campbell learned about food safety, hazard analysis critical control points and how to meet the new standards to process livestock produced by her and her neighboursShe found that the project made economic sense.Saturna Island is the southernmost of B.C.’s Gulf Islands, and it takes a full day to truck animals by ferry to deliver them to auction or slaughter on Vancouver Island.“Whatever a truck is worth, it was pretty well tied up for three days on that job,” Campbell’s father said.The freight bill wiped out their profit.“The big thing about having your own slaughterhouse is you know the price you are going to get. No one even asks us the price. They just say, ‘I want a lamb,’” Campbell said.Added her father: “We have no direct competition and we know they like it and they are willing to pay something for it that we think is reasonable recovery.”Campbell also joined a local market called 31 Square-Saturna Eats to promote and share local food among the 31 sq. kilometre island’s 350 residents.The slaughterhouse is a small red building built in 2008 with an A license, which means it can slaughter, cut and wrap all livestock to specific provincial standards.There is a holding pen, kill floor, cutting and wrapping area and enough cooler space to hang 20 lambs. All surfaces are washable and correct drainage was installed. Washrooms and office space for inspectors were also required.She slaughters on Fridays from the end of June until December and then cuts and wraps with a helper the following Wednesday.She also has a special permit to transport and receive cattle that are older than 30 months, although she prefers handling animals around 18 months of age.Two dump sites away from the farm site can receive slaughter waste: one for specified risk materials and another for general offal.She has also volunteered as one of two B.C. sheep producers to participate in a national radio frequency sheep traceability project.She is working with Stefan Kaiser of the Canadian Sheep Federation to identify all her animals with yellow electronic ear tags and enter all herd information into a computer system. It identifies individuals and offers a herd management component.Campbell, who is a diligent record keeper with plenty of information on paper, believes the electronic information will be helpful. A hand held mobile device called a Psion reader allows her to touch the small screen to enter information while in the pasture or the barns and later download it to a laptop.The Psion reader was developed in England and needs Canadian adjustments, but Kaiser said it was chosen because it offers a wide variety of functions.The sheep federation is looking at a cost benefit analysis and will report to the federal government in a year if the project works or needs refinement.“We need to discover if this works for farmers,” Kaiser said.Twenty-five Canadian farms are participating, including feedlots, breeding units and lamb production.Campbell said the program can help her make management decisions, record health treatments and calculate earnings. She can also enter information on slaughter animals to calculate weights, meat grades and costs.“A main element of the traceability program is the food safety aspect,” Kaiser said.For Campbell, it tells her more about her commercial ewes quickly and easily.“It’s about trying to get the program that is meaningful. To me it is nice to know if that ewe always has triplets or providing enough milk for them.”She can also add cattle information into the same program.She said the system could eventually be a labour saver, which is important because help is hard to find.She has often acquired help from international exchange students through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which allows young volunteers to work on a farm in exchange for room and board and international agricultural experience.These students have helped at lambing, worked on farm maintenance and left her more time to manage pastures and improvements to the land.The ranch borders the Pacific Ocean, and the Campbells recently agreed to sell three kilometres of ocean front property to Parks Canada. The cattle did not need an ocean front view and the Campbells did not want the area developed with large homes that would ruin the natural area.A small stretch of beach was retained and there is still plenty of space to graze animals among the cedars and Douglas firs.
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