NATION
Backyard Chicken Movement Grows
Dave Thier
Contributor
(Jan. 28) -- In a recent Atlantic article, reporter Sarah Elton's key source took weeks of convincing to come clean. She was terrified of what would happen if her illegal activities were discovered. She only agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity.
The source, however, was not a government whistle-blower or financial criminal. It was a Canadian woman raising chickens. She is one of many Canadians explicitly violating zoning laws by keeping poultry in city backyards. The Canadian government banned chickens from most municipalities after World War II.
Canadian chicken bandits, as well as groups like CLUCK (Calgary Liberated Urban Chicken Klub), are joining a backyard and urban chicken movement that has been gaining ground in the United States for a few years. They began raising chickens as a simple way of taking control of their own protein, motivated both by the recession and wariness of industrial meat after reading books like "Fast Food Nation" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
A woman tends to chickens in her San Francisco yard. More urbanites are raising chickens, a trend that chould reshape the food system.
In many parts of the U.S., backyard farmers have been at odds with zoning laws similar to those found in Canada. City governments have been slowly altering regulations, however, in places like New Haven, Conn., Columbia, S.C., Portland, Maine, and others. In New York City, chickens are considered pets under the health code. Most regulations draw the line at noisy roosters.
The concept of raising chickens seems to have caught on to a particular locavore zeitgeist. In September, The Associated Press reported that chicken raising classes in Portland, Ore., were over-enrolled, and local hatcheries had trouble meeting demand for chicks.
Urban professionals with no agricultural experience may be over-confident in their chicken-raising abilities, however.
"Unwanted urban chickens are showing up at local animal shelters," Kim Severson wrote in The New York Times last year. "Even in the best of circumstances, chickens die at alarming rates."
Still, food activists believe this sort of trend is more than a middle-class diversion; it could also be the beginning of a new way of imagining the American food system.
Will Allen runs an organization that grows produce in a working-class neighborhood in Milwaukee. He believes that the food security of the future will hinge on millions of small producers in cities and elsewhere.
Of course, some just do it for the taste.
"When we cracked them for breakfast," the Atlantic's Elton wrote of her contraband eggs, "the yolk was yellow as a traffic ticket and the taste mellow, creamy, splendid."
Filed under: Nation, World, Only On AOL News
Backyard Chicken Movement Grows
Dave Thier
Contributor
(Jan. 28) -- In a recent Atlantic article, reporter Sarah Elton's key source took weeks of convincing to come clean. She was terrified of what would happen if her illegal activities were discovered. She only agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity.
The source, however, was not a government whistle-blower or financial criminal. It was a Canadian woman raising chickens. She is one of many Canadians explicitly violating zoning laws by keeping poultry in city backyards. The Canadian government banned chickens from most municipalities after World War II.
Canadian chicken bandits, as well as groups like CLUCK (Calgary Liberated Urban Chicken Klub), are joining a backyard and urban chicken movement that has been gaining ground in the United States for a few years. They began raising chickens as a simple way of taking control of their own protein, motivated both by the recession and wariness of industrial meat after reading books like "Fast Food Nation" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
A woman tends to chickens in her San Francisco yard. More urbanites are raising chickens, a trend that chould reshape the food system.
In many parts of the U.S., backyard farmers have been at odds with zoning laws similar to those found in Canada. City governments have been slowly altering regulations, however, in places like New Haven, Conn., Columbia, S.C., Portland, Maine, and others. In New York City, chickens are considered pets under the health code. Most regulations draw the line at noisy roosters.
The concept of raising chickens seems to have caught on to a particular locavore zeitgeist. In September, The Associated Press reported that chicken raising classes in Portland, Ore., were over-enrolled, and local hatcheries had trouble meeting demand for chicks.
Urban professionals with no agricultural experience may be over-confident in their chicken-raising abilities, however.
"Unwanted urban chickens are showing up at local animal shelters," Kim Severson wrote in The New York Times last year. "Even in the best of circumstances, chickens die at alarming rates."
Still, food activists believe this sort of trend is more than a middle-class diversion; it could also be the beginning of a new way of imagining the American food system.
Will Allen runs an organization that grows produce in a working-class neighborhood in Milwaukee. He believes that the food security of the future will hinge on millions of small producers in cities and elsewhere.
Of course, some just do it for the taste.
"When we cracked them for breakfast," the Atlantic's Elton wrote of her contraband eggs, "the yolk was yellow as a traffic ticket and the taste mellow, creamy, splendid."
Filed under: Nation, World, Only On AOL News
