By Obsidian_Rex
My fresh basket of takeaways from an interview with Jackoline Milne this week, founder of the Northern Farm Training Institute, in Hay River, Northwest Territories, following her recent post on Facebook on how the NWT Government is clamping down on freedom.
It’s about twice the distance (4,300 klicks) from here to Hay River, NWT, than it it is to Florida, and yes we’re still in Canada.
THE STORY IS SIMPLE, the way shady tales often are: It’s now illegal for farmers to sell their produce directly to the public in the NWT, turning food sold the old-fashioned way into what will soon amount to illegal contraband.
Prior to stumbling across Jackoline’s post, I didn’t give any of this much thought. I just figured that selling wholesome farm produce to everyday people wherever the two shall meet was sort of like a founding freedom. Long before retail came along there were farmer’s markets, after all, which continue to flourish across this great land of ours offering all manner of curated, fresh, homespun goodies, and natural wonders our tummies crave and our fading sense of belonging yearns for. Farmers selling directly to the public is a good thing, for many reasons.
Like: Without them, we wouldn’t be here.
My conversation with Jackoline was a little like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. She’s so smart and agile that everything you hear makes perfect sense the second you hear it and it’s all so good you want to hold on and savor it just a little bit longer but before you can she’s off to the next thing and the next thing. I’ve learned from my consults with other experts in various disciplines that what is new and challenging for the rest of us is little more than a twirl on a frozen pond for those in whatever zone their specialty is. They make it all look and sound so easy. And to that end, Jackoline Milne is a gold medalist.
Here’s what I know. Ms. Milne, of Metis descent, was born in Saskatchewan and raised in the Northwest Territories. Early on she developed a love for her land and became passionate about regenerative farming in the hard-scrabble NWT, learning enough along the way to teach others how to make the ground provide regardless of short seasons and often ornery conditions. Maybe that’s why all of this appears less bureaucratically insensitive and more deliberate. Jackoline, and the Northern Farm Training Institute (NFTI) she started in 2013, seem to know a lot more about the land up there than most, and judging by our short encounter, you can’t put anything past her.
‘Around here, all decisions are rooted in bureaucratic dominance,’ Jackoline says, ‘Something like a quarter of the population (of the roughly 45,000 inhabitants) work in some form of Government, so people are easily pushed around. And then there are the immediate negatives. The NWT has the most food insecurity, particularly for First Nations, which is why local farming is key. How does making it harder to get and distribute food help?’
Jackoline goes on to say, ‘The disconnects are stunning. One the one hand, the NWT touts farming on its website as a key component of life in the North, and on the other hand the Premier (Caroline Cochrane) writes an email (above) in response to protests against the new regulation that ‘The NWT does not have the soil and conditions required to grow crops.’
Well, which is it?
What it’s really all about, Jackoline insists, is power. ‘They want food distribution under one roof. Period. By deciding who gets or doesn’t get a permit to essentially become a licensed food producer, they control who does and doesn’t eat. Just think about that for a second.’
I have, and it stinks. Even from here.
Jackoline points out that recent Federal dictates mandating fertilizer restrictions should likewise alarm all Canadians (‘It’s all a part of the same thing,’ she adds, ‘food restriction’), and just as quickly pivots back to how the Northern Farm Training Institute can be a model for how to feed compromised populations such as those now at greater risk in the Northwest Territories, ‘We’ve figured it out. We know what works. The solution to a ready food supply in the North requires more people farming and producing, not less; but that doesn’t seem to be the answer they’re looking for.’
https://nftinwt.com/
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=northern%20farm%20training%20institute
https://bit.ly/3vK7mNZ
You can email the Premier Caroline Cochran of the Northwest Territories at Caroline.Cochrane@gov.nt.ca
Rex and Jackoline will continue their conversation online at an upcoming date. Stay tuned for additional information on Twitter @obsidian_rex