In November of 2024 we received a letter from the Natural Resources Conservation Board expressing that our neighbors want to expand their feedlot by 800 calves.
I had this to write to them. We’ve learned that the best way to prevent or arrest injustice is to speak openly and plainly. No secrecy. No political correctness. And no fear of people’s reproach or protest. That’s why we’re sharing this letter openly and publicly.
My name is Martin Van Popta.
I’m the manager and resident of the farm Harvest Haven, which is located at 83047 Range Road 20-5. I manage the farm for Victor and Marilyn Hafichuk who are fully agreed with my concerns and message.
We’ll be sharing this letter publicly, but wanted to share it with you, first. No need for any confidentiality.
I’ve received a letter from the NRCB expressing that Rose Niedermier has applied to expand a CAFO just down the road from us.
I am unequivocally stating our opposition to this development. I’m not sure how seriously our opinion is considered in these types of matters, but everybody needs to hear us. Not just for our sake, but for the sake of everyone else involved, including the Niedermiers.
For reference, the Niedermiers are our neighbors to the East and the Van Roekels I mention in this letter are our neighbors to the South.
Hear me out, Kailee.
Please read the whole letter. I know it’s long, and it’s personal. Forgive the absence of political correctness and social niceties.
The letter is strong, but our motives and intentions are honest and pure.
Obviously, the indignation in my letter is not directed at you. It’s directed at every “farmer” who pollutes this country for profit, including the Niedermiers.
Feedlots are anti-Creator and anti-creation. They are hideous, they are foul and they are torment for the animals and the workers. They are exactly the opposite of what the Lord had in mind when He put us on this Earth to tend, keep, and watch over His creation.
Does anyone consider the lives those animals are subjected to living?
Diabetes is forced on every calf with high-carb, low-protein diets. They’re made prone to every sickness with their high stress, zero nourishment lifestyle, and just like every diabetic you know, their bodies, especially legs and feet become chronically cold, causing no end of respiratory infections and foot rot. They’re made to breathe horrid air, day after day unless the wind blows, and then the neighbors have to smell it. They’re crowded, stressed, and neglected.
Not a single farmer knows them, and they don’t know a single farmer. Disconnection. Instead of animal husbandry, it’s divorce. A total rejection of God’s intention. Instead of paradise, it’s a dystopian wasteland of estranged organisms.
Look, we’re not crazy hippie animal activists. We raise livestock for the dinner table just like most farmers do. But does farming have to look, smell, and taste like death? Is there no higher standard? Are you a “farmer” when you treat life this way or have you just become a heartless factory owner? Does a farmer have any real value if he doesn’t provide and protect the dignity of the creatures in his care?
And what about the end consumer being fed malnourished diabetic meat? What about the human diseases and cancers sure to follow such selfish money-centered animal “husbandry”? Surely, no one deserves a better quality of life than they’re willing to provide for the animals they eat.
Feedlots are violence against God, man, and animal.
But wait, there’s more! What about the dust, noise, and chemicals?
Most summer evenings I go for a walk at dusk to see that things on the farm are finished for the day. On countless evenings, instead of being comforted by the throaty songs of happy frogs, I get serenaded by the heartless roar of the industrial agricultural machine growling into the night. If it isn’t silage dozers beeping mindlessly as they back up over and over again, it’s somebody running their diesel irrigation pump without a muffler, shattering the calm of night with the sound of machine gunfire.
Or how about the sound of a thousand orphaned calves bawling all night long for their mothers, mercilessly torn from them without warning? Day after day, night after night, they carry on until they give up hope or life. “Oh well, just throw them in the pile.” Is that “just the way it is”, or is it evil?
I can tell you that there’s a better way, but will anyone listen?
“Good people take care of their animals, but wicked people are cruel to theirs” (Proverbs 12:10).
Or how about all the damned crop dusters that come flying low over our farm ready to unleash their chemical warfare on the crops next door? Who cares about the chemical drift, right? Who cares about the health consequences for all created things? It’s death from above! Don’t we have any right to object to horrible noise and toxicity? Don’t we have a natural right to clean air at all times? Why does everybody figure they have the right to do as they please with their neighbor’s property and health?
Lethal chemicals invented by the same companies that funded the Nazi war machine are still being weaponized against us. The deafening roar of their chemical raids sweeping over our buildings so low that I can’t even hear myself talking to my customers. And for what? A few dollars? Modern “convenience”?
Is this what you call “progress”? Is it “just farming”? Have we lost all conscience or concern? Have we lost our minds and hearts somewhere?
And what about the silage trucks that pound out the county roads and force everyone to close their windows or choke on the dust? I had to wear a mask for days this summer just to work in my backyard, because of how thick the dust was. There was no wind and the whole farm was choking on the hanging fog of high silica dust that mercilessly hooks itself into your lungs. It’s worse than cigarettes.
We had to close all our windows during the hottest nights of the year, because of how bad it was. The drivers never slow down and they destroy the asphalt outside our farm that we helped pay for years ago to keep the dust down. No one cares.
And when it isn’t the dust, it’s the foul odor of anaerobic shit and dead calves rotting out in the open when the farmers are too busy or too lazy to bury them in their piles.
Oh yeah! The “catch basins”? That’s just a fancy word for shit holes. Seriously! Is that how you improve the land you’re entrusted with? Dig holes and fill them with shit so they can inevitably leach into the water table and ruin our drinking water? Our dugout is unlined and easily poisoned by people defiling the water table with stagnant shit. I do not want my neighbors collecting foul water in giant ponds to poison the ecosystem. We don’t approve. And what is done with that water? Do we have to smell it being pumped on the land one day? How exactly do you properly manage shit holes, besides getting rid of them?
Manure is supposed to be mixed with bedding, pushed up in piles, properly turned and aged, and then spread after the nitrogen is bound up in the compost and no longer prone to leaching or evaporation. It should barely smell musty. That way the water and air stay clean. It’s the ONLY responsible way of farming. The foul odour we smell when you spread your shit is your nitrogen poisoning the air and water instead of nourishing your soil. You wouldn’t have to buy chemical fertilizers if you managed your manure and land properly.
I can scarcely believe that people desire to create such wasteful hellscapes! Only ignorance and greed make people behave so recklessly.
Do you know how angry it makes me when I’m forced inside on a beautiful spring day because it smells so bad outside it makes me sick? When I can’t eat a meal with my family on a July evening because we can’t breathe? When I’m forced to get up in the middle of the night and close all the windows in our house because the wind shifted and my whole house reeks like death instead of the sweet cool of night?
Maybe you’re all used to it, but we’ve had enough of smelling shit farming.
Or what about the first calm sunny days of June every year? Every farmer hops in their sprayers and chokes out the countryside with the foul stench of their God-damned chemical warfare.
Tell me! What right do they have to poison the air? I often have to call my kids and warn them to quickly close all the windows before there’s nowhere to hide from the smell and toxicity of pesticide drift. It’s like an emergency drill. Like sounding a bombing raid siren. Maybe you think I’m exaggerating. If so, I’ll be sure to remind you not to exaggerate your sorrow when you lose a loved one to cancer or neurological diseases like Parkinson’s.
According to the National Pesticide Information Center, if you can smell moth balls/creosote, you’re breathing in pesticide. I smell it on our whole farm and in our homes many times every year. I don’t feel like my neighbors should be permitted to decide whether or not my family has to huff pesticide for the afternoon. Never mind the perfect possibility of murdering my bees.
WE’RE SICK OF IT! If you’re guilty and you won’t repent of it, there is cancer headed your way. Indeed, cancer has struck and struck often because of pollution and gross mismanagement. You’re not making the world a better place. You’re poisoning it for money.
Do you think just because “everybody” is okay with it, that it’s right? That it’s fair? That it’s good? And is everybody okay? Really?
Another version of the Biblical verse (all versions are essentially agreed on this):
A righteous person cares [even] about the life of his animals, but the compassion of wicked people is [nothing but] cruelty” (Proverbs 12:10).
It’s VIOLENCE! I perfectly understand that even the cleanest organic farms have a few loud, smelly, dusty moments, but CAFOs make these moments a way of life. There’s no excuse! Feedlots are straight-up EVIL!
And understand, I’m not so naïve as to think that my passionate plea will be heard sympathetically. We’ve been preaching to people for years and we just get labeled as whackos. Cultists. Freaks. So, while we’d love to be heard and agreed with, we’re not counting on it.
BUT. We know that the Lord hears our plea and defends our cause. He’s been doing so on several fronts.
Let me tell you a true story, that should send shivers up your spine. It did mine.
It was a few days before Christmas Day of 2021. December 23, to be specific. A warm southwest wind blew in at about noon and I went for a walk with my good friend (basically my father) and owner of Harvest Haven, Victor Hafichuk. It had been quite cold, and the warmth was a relief. It was beautiful outside.
As we walked, the wind shifted from southwest to straight south. Suddenly, our whole farm reeked of death. It was putrid.
I was angry. I spend all this effort making our farm healthy and beautiful, and my neighbor gets to chase me inside on the nicest day that month, with his disgusting and ignorant farming practices. I didn’t know where the foul odor was coming from. It smelled like a hog lagoon crossed with rotting corpses.
I looked over at Victor, and said, “I’m angry. Maybe it doesn’t seem very Christian, but I feel like cursing whoever is making that smell.”
Victor looked at me and said, “I’m with you in full agreement. I do curse them. I curse them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The foul odor ended our walk, chasing us back indoors, which was also beginning to smell awful. It was better anyway.
Fast forward 3 days to the morning of Dec 26th. It was -25C and worsening with the wind chill. The Van Roekels were at church for the Christmas service on Sunday morning. Their large log home, with pets inside, burned to the ground. It was too cold to put out the fire. There was nothing left.
I didn’t put the pieces together until it was all over near dinner time that evening. The Van Roekel’s feedlot is the only one that’s due south of us. He later told me, that he hadn’t had time to bury a few animals.
Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, heard our cry for justice and answered before three days was up. We thanked Him for it. It was sobering to experience such a swift and direct response to our prayer. Brutal, yes, but then so is polluting without remorse the land you were given to steward, and abusing the animals entrusted to care. It was confirmation that God feels the same way that we do about raping the land and His creatures for cash.
If God, as Father, gave us Earth as our mother, then how do you think He feels about people abusing her for money? Go ahead and dismiss it all as coincidence. You’ll see where that goes.
Years later, I spoke frankly with Henk Van Roekel about what happened and why it happened.
When I told Henk how bad his farm smelled, he just callously said, “Well at least the wind doesn’t blow from the south too often.”
Was that supposed to satisfy me? Every warm winter’s day on our farm is defiled by the smell of putrid shit, but, hey, at least we don’t get too many of them. What a consolation!
And what about the folks living east of them? The Van Roekels built their home to the southwest of their feedlot. Too bad not everybody gets that option. My good friends live just east of him. They smell Henk’s yard almost every time the wind blows.
He also told me that he had wondered why his house was destroyed and never received an answer. I told him that I didn’t want to smell his farm or have chemicals sprayed anywhere near our property anymore. He confessed that it had been in the back of his mind that an organic farmer would one day confront him on his farming practices.
He told me he would talk to his sons and call me later that week. It never happened. So, whether out of resentment, cowardice, laziness, apathy, or carelessness, he broke his word. He lied to me.
He knows we’re right. He even said as much, saying about our farm, “Obviously, yours is the ideal way of doing things.” (Not an exact quote, but it’s close.)
Do you see the problem here? People who know better act against their conscience at their neighbor’s expense, and excuse it because there’s good money in animal abuse. And it’s not just the cattle being abused as I’ve clearly laid out.
So, while we may not have legal rights to oppose this feedlot development, we are cursing this plan in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not allow violence against His children or his creation to go unpunished. He’s fed up with that, beyond full.
Be warned, there is always a price to pay for selfishness. You can hold our message in contempt as many have, but it will not go well for those that do. The Lord will make sure of it.
Look, I get it. Everybody has grown numb to the atrocity of industrial factory farming. We’ve been conned into believing that it’s more efficient and more cost-effective. The average person is persuaded that without factory farming, food prices would go up and people would starve.
But it’s all garbage. We’ve all been conned into living in a wasteland of Roundup-burned fields, blowing dust, and the fecal pall of crowded animals marinating in their filth and stench.
I don’t know anybody that thinks positively about feedlots. I even have a good friend who operates a family feedlot. Even he doesn’t like feedlots.
The Lord has something much better in mind! Our farm is a testimony of that, as are many other properly managed organic farms.
Hear our vision! We speak to you in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I finished this letter, the Lord gave me the poem below as a prophecy for what is to come. The Lord will make it happen, no matter who stands against us, and we thank Him for it.
Our vision is of thick green pastures and cattle at ease.
For water that’s pure and safety for bees
For soil so clean that it sweetens the breeze.
And food that will nourish and banish disease.
For neighbors who care,
And don’t do as they please,
For honesty, fairness,
And justice that frees.
Instead of liars, and conmen,
Abusers and thieves.
We’ll have peace with our Maker, with no want or needs.
We see women and children, and livestock relieved,
We want men and their families that finally believe
That only Truth matters, not tradition or greed,
And that Truth will prevail, because Truth is our need.
And if we’re ever to win, or prevail, or succeed,
Then we have to look up,
But get down on our knees.
It’s our life that He wants,
And our hearts that He sees.
Will men ever listen?
Will they ever concede?
Don’t side with the experts.
Don’t side with the loud.
Don’t side with your family.
Don’t side with the crowd.
Just ask your Creator to show you what’s good,
And to give you the heart to farm as He would.
Don’t make excuses!
Don’t bother be proud.
He’s done with your bullcrap,
It’s no longer allowed.
So, open your eyes,
Your hearts and your ears.
Let’s put an end to heartache, suffering, and tears.
Isn’t it time, people?
Isn’t it near?
Say, “Yes, yes… it is!”
“It’s coming!”
“It’s here!”
Sincerely and with good will and intention for our community,
Martin VanPopta
[END LETTER]
Within a week of sending this letter on the morning of Dec 7th, I had a very short but shocking dream.
I was gathered and in pleasant conversations with my friends here at our farm. We were in our main square.
A large drone-like craft flew overhead. It was huge and silent. It had the ability to hover like a helicopter. It had clear “Government of Canada” identification on it. It wasn’t just a small insignia. It was very boldly and clearly marked. It knew it was an object of war.
It was in such contrast to the peace of the fellowship that we were experiencing. I remember thinking while it flew over, “I guess it’s happening now. War has come.”
It passed over our heads coming from the southwest and travelled away from us heading to the north east. After travelling some distance, it stopped and hovered. Then it released a bright white death ray of energy straight down. I didn’t see the target, because our farm buildings were in the line of sight, but there was no question that whatever it hit was perfectly destroyed beyond existence, let alone recognition. Whatever it hit would have been vaporized.
It was such an intense display of power that I woke up instantly feeling charged with energy.
The memory of the dream stayed with me until morning, but faded after I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and left the sleeping world behind.
Later that afternoon, I went for a walk while chatting with my close friends, Victor and Marilyn Hafichuk, the owners of Harvest Haven. I was leaning against a piece of equipment out in our field looking towards the NW at the Niedermier’s feedlot. We had been talking about my letter opposing it’s expansion. Marilyn had been praying last night for the Lord to destroy their plans to expand the feedlot. While still looking at the feedlot in the distance, I suddenly had the dream flash back to me. It was almost like I relived the dream from a different line of sight. I knew immediately that the target of the Gov’t of Canada warcraft was the neighbor’s feedlot.
A dream can be fulfilled in all kinds of ways, but the outcome of the feedlot was clear. It was gone. May it be so.