Eastern Ontario farmers talk turkey about opening local slaughterhouse

t's a step the average meat eater likely doesn't want to dwell too much on. But if you want fresh meat from local farms, you also need a local slaughterhouse.

But abattoirs are becoming scarce in eastern Ontario.

So one pig farmer is taking the bull by the horns and raising money for a non-profit slaughterhouse in the community of Athens.

"This is so important to food security in this part of Ontario," said Barb Schaefer, who raises about 350 heritage pigs on her farm between Smiths Falls and Brockville.

"If you don't have the infrastructure for [local meat], then you won't have it. There are farmers considering getting out of livestock completely because they can't afford the trucking cost."

Schaefer said she drives to an abattoir in Chesterville every week, about an hour and a half away from her farm.

"You really want the pigs to have a  journey between 20 minutes and 40 minutes," she said.

The public-servant-turned-farmer said there used to be more abattoirs in the area, but they've almost all closed. Besides the Chesterville location, there's also one past Kingston.

"Many of these abattoirs, most of them in fact, have been operating probably for the last 40, 50 years perhaps and they've been family owned. The owners are older and they're retiring," she said.