When it’s hard to find words
It’s been one of those weeks that has been hard to watch unfold and put words too.
It has felt like there aren’t the right words to encapsulate how it feels to watch something of this nature happen in real time, to people you know and the incredible people of BC.
Particularly, to those in the dairy farming and agricultural community of Abbotsford, BC and what they’ve endured and lived through with their fellow residents, when catastrophic floods hit them unexpectedly this week.
It’s one of those times where you feel completely helpless watching something happen to people you care about from afar. Watching the videos and seeing photos on social media made me ask, “What can the rest of us do?” and feeling that despair of helplessness.
These are people we know, people we care about — people who love what they do.
Then, you quickly remind the feelings part of your brain, that if you feel this way, imagine what the people who are going through it, are feeling.
It’s hard to comprehend.
It is hard to imagine what these farmers just a few short days ago asked of themselves.
They ensured their children and family’s were evacuated and safe, while they then stayed behind to evacuate cows, animals, livestock to higher grounds to ensure their safety and well-being.
They were then asked in the State of Emergency to walk away from everything — the animals they may have had to leave behind, their barns and infrastructure, and everything that represents their livelihoods.
Only safety and survival is what mattered in these moments I’m sure.
Anything else we were fortunate to be talking in this week felt like it was a PRIVILEGE to be discussing. It felt like it was not the appropriate time to talk about things while lives were in danger — things like eating less meat/dairy, supply management, animal welfare, consumerism — these topics that stewed on Twitter as an example, felt unnecessary, impolite and simply…. privileged.
The only thing that felt like a saving grace (and a time where I was extremely thankful for social media), was hearing from dairy farming friends in BC. They openly shared on Twitter and social media, how they were managing through the despair.
Tweets like these from dairy farmers in the Abbotsford area, are what made it feel like there was hope:
Watching videos like this of dairy farmers taking in the evacuated cows of their fellow farmers made me so damn proud to be Canadian, let alone be part of the Canadian agriculture-food sector.
These pictures and videos will be a long-lasting reminder and testament to anyone who questions what our Canadian farmers do and why they do it.
To go beyond themselves in times such as these to save their animals.
Community, helping others at the drop of a hat and PEOPLE are what makes #CdnAg truly the BEST.
Seeing how the community of people and residents of Abbotsford and our agriculture community rallied while it faced and continues to face adversity, is why I’m simply proud to be a Canadian on this Friday.
It reminds us that THIS is what humanity is all about.
Thinking about what lies ahead for the residents of Abbotsford and BC is daunting. This is only the beginning for them as infrastructure has been crippled. Knowing there are empty grocery store shelves, limited food, limited rations for the feed needed for animals, no gas, still animals stuck, humans displaced and no way to quickly fix all of this, must be hard to process.
The timeliness of this weeks’ devastating events has only left me feeling even more fired up, motivated and downright inspired. It has left me even *that* much more motivated by what I do, who I work with and all the *whys*.
WHY we need to communicate the value of our agriculture-food sector.
WHY the food conversation is one that needs to be had in Canada.
WHY it is so vitally important that we all understand how our Canadian food system works, so we can understand the implications if one part of the food supply chain falls as we’ve seen this week.
WHY the conversation around agriculture-food and climate change is the most pressing of our time.
Our continued thoughts and prayers to everyone in #Abbotsford and #BC 💓
