At the end of a remote gravel road in southern Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle Valley is the next target in a growing movement to rid North America of its horse slaughterhouses.
Horse advocates in both Canada and the United States are outraged that this vast green valley, lush and rolling, is now home to this country's newest federally licensed horse abattoir: Natural Valley Farms Inc.
They are also concerned that even more Canadian companies may start slaughtering and processing horses in a bid to satisfy hungry overseas markets that crave horsemeat, a pricey delicacy in many countries, since the industry is headed for extinction in the United States.
"This is all happening under the radar. Ask most people, and they have no idea that horses are even slaughtered in Canada for meat," said Shelley Grainger, director of the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition's eastern region.
Her group wants the practice outlawed in Canada, arguing it is inhumane and repugnant because horses are commonly regarded more as pets and sporting animals than livestock. The coalition is also calling for a national ban on the shipment of live horses to other countries for human consumption.
Currently, almost all the horsemeat processed in Canada by the six licensed horse abattoirs is exported to Europe and Asia, although there is a small domestic market for the product in Quebec. According to Statistics Canada, the top importers of Canadian horsemeat last year were France, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland.
The industry is worth an estimated $60-million annually in Canada.
Steven Rei, an American anti-horse-slaughter lobbyist and founder of the National Equine Rescue Coalition, said Natural Valley Farms' decision to begin slaughtering horses this summer is proof that Canada is already benefiting from the shutdown earlier this year of two of the three remaining horse slaughterhouses in the United States. (In 2006, about 88,000 horses in the U.S. were killed and processed into horsemeat.)
The last operating slaughterhouse in the U.S., located in DeKalb, Ill., is struggling to remain open while it fights a new state law aimed at putting it out of business for good. It has been shipping its meat to U.S. zoos for feed, and overseas for human consumption, for about two decades.
The horsemeat contract Natural Valley Farms recently signed is with Velda Group, the Belgium-based parent company of the business that owns the troubled Illinois slaughterhouse.
Ken Piller, president of Natural Valley Farms, was extremely reluctant to talk about the controversy surrounding the meat plant's move to begin slaughtering horses at its facility south of Neudorf, Sask., a farming community of about 300 located 1½ hours east of Regina. The meat is processed at a plant in nearby Wolseley, Sask. It took several unreturned phone calls and an unannounced visit to the company's Neudorf plant before he agreed to speak.
"We saw an opportunity here," Mr. Piller explained in an interview. "I really don't want to talk about the politics involved."
According to Mr. Piller, the producer-owned business opened in 2005 and has been struggling ever since. The meat plant, which has tried to set itself apart from competitors by only producing hormone- and antibiotic-free beef, received money from the Saskatchewan government to help get started.
Mr. Piller, whose family has been farming and ranching in the Qu'Appelle Valley for several generations, said that to keep the company's two plants operational and its 150 employees busy, side ventures such as processing horse meat are necessary. Even as late as April, it had to lay off some workers because of a lack of work.
Mr. Piller understands that slaughtering horses for meat is an emotionally charged issue for many, but added: "Nobody in Saskatchewan cares. Everybody here raises horses ... Everybody understands at the end of the day there has to be a cull."
