‘Rural civil contingency planning; promoting food security and resilience through effective preparation and response.’- lessons from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick The unpredictability of the British weather is a pre-occupation of many of us. The frustration of planning and organising to accommodate the range of weather this island sees within 24hrs is well known part of our national character. Whilst the weather may bring some humour (and other emotions) to our lives, the increasing unpredictability and extremes of weather patterns observed over the last five years has bought extra strain, through flood, ice, snow and storm damage. The weather is only one of many eventualities which emergency planners seek to address, the other most pertinent to rural life is the threat of widespread animal disease. The effects of extreme weather like a disease outbreak can have severe financial, physical and emotional impacts upon agriculture. In the contemporary world where food security is ever on politicians’ lips, anything which damages the future capacity of our industry to produce either directly by killing genetic lines, damaging soil or by removing agriculturists as a result of economic hardship should be considered part of the overall need to bolster food security. Sadly this is not the case, and rural emergency planning does not always receive the focus which urban areas receive. It was with this in mind I travelled to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with the aid of a Farmer’s Club Charitable Trust bursary to investigate how their Provincial governments and the agricultural industry tackled planning for rural emergencies. The neighbouring Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are famed for their rural and coastal landscape. The have an abundance of small family farms, specialising in dairy, poultry, hogs and horticulture with a few large commercial farms growing, in particular, potatoes. My introduction to how Nova Scotia plans for all kinds of emergencies but in particular weather related (the Province has regular Hurricanes throughout late summer) was through Mr Barry Manuel, Co-ordinator of the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Organisation. Barry very much believes in empowering people and developing the skills of first responders. I first met him at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, where the Nova Scotia Disaster Animals Response Team (DART) were meeting for a training session facilitated by the US Humane Society. These volunteers co-ordinated by Marcel Marcotte, regularly meet, train and deploy to assist people caught up in disasters whether they be fires, floods or storm related incidents. DART are equipped to handle and move both domestic animals and commercial and work with other volunteer organisations in order to temporary house and give veterinary attention if needed to animals which are often left out of ‘conventional emergency planning’. Talking to Marcel and his volunteers it was clear that very much volunteering and public service were at the heart of Nova Scotia communities. DART is an officially recognised part of the emergency planning response and being able to shelter animals within a disaster scenario was seen as an important part of building community resilience. In an evacuation 1
scenario, people are more likely not to leave or return if they cannot accommodate their animals. Similarly in a recovery phase being able to feed and water them is key to promoting social and business continuity. Spending some time in Truro the home of the Agricultural College I met with Dwane Mellish of the Dairy Farmers and Nova Scotia (DFNS) and Dominc Fewer, Emergency Management Planning Officer for the Nova Scotia Central Zone. Dwane and Dominic have been working closely together to produce an emergency plan for the dairy industry. This collaboration came not through a hurricane or flood but an industrial dispute in Quebec which shut the dairies DFNS use, leaving them with thousands of gallons of potentially waste milk to dispose of and thousands of dollars out of pocket. Resolution of the dispute might have bought relief but prompted the organisation working with the emergency manager to develop a business resilience plan. Business resilience is a way of forward planning for an enterprise to identify where external issues could arise which may affect management, production or distribution and therefore enable putting actions in place to mitigate against the issue. For NSDF this has meant accessing funds from the Provincial government to install back up generators and increasing bulk milk storage to two and a half days worth. They have also worked on a plan with their tanker drivers to enable access roads to be kept open or tankers to be taken to a central point for collection in the case of bad weather. Working together the farmers have also bought about agreement in regard to promoting good biosecurity across their industry. Collectively they require all visitors to sign a standard format log and follow good practice. The log would be a valuable asset in tracking movements in case of a disease outbreak. West of Truro is the picturesque valley running from Wolfville down to Annapolis Royal. A rich and fertile mixed farming area with a developing reputation as a wine growing area and an established orchard and soft fruit industry. In Annapolis Royal, one of the oldest settlements in North America I met with Vern Fraser another of the Emergency Management Office planning officer and David McCoubrey, the Regional Emergency Management Coordinator. Their area is a patchwork of small settlements and isolated farms, which often receives a great deal of snowfall. David and Vern work within a very diverse rural community. Here they work along the premise that in the case of extreme weather, a community, household or farm needs to be able to ‘survive’ for at least 72 hours before external assistance would arrive. The 72-hour plan is a Canada wide initiative and indeed there is much literature available aiding farms and rural businesses to resilience plan. However, the real problem is not the advice – of which there is plenty but getting people to adopt it. A 2008 national survey of emergency preparedness in Canada showed the majority of people were unprepared for the 72-hour window. However, in Nova Scotia the degree of preparedness is much greater and particularly in rural areas there is evidence that not only are better prepared but are also prepared to help others.
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Joint Emergency Management Teams (JEMs) are part of this robust approach. Again these are volunteers who perform a number of tasks. Normally focussed around the Volunteer Fire Department and the Canadian Red Cross. JEMs main role is to produce a Community Status Report – detailed information on power loss, flooding, trees down etc within a local area. As such the JEMs role is very much a humanitarian one –feeding information into the system, in effect the community monitoring its own situation and enabling the Volunteer Fire Department to allocate resources for effective response. In addition to providing situational awareness, JEM teams also run the more traditional concept of community response – the comfort centre, which is a core necessity to maintain first responders. As the JEM programme develops a whole community planning system will be adopted which will identify potential shelters as well as key resources such as fuel, food and water. JEMs was summed up by one volunteer fire-fighter I met as ‘neighbour helping neighbour’. JEMs harness the skill and strength of the rural community and its innate resilience for a wider benefit. Moving on from Nova Scotia I travelled across the Bay of Fundy to meet with the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick and Dr Michael Maloney, the Chief Provincial Veterinarian of the Province. New Brunswick has a strong focus on biosecurity and has looked to the UK’s experience with FMD to build a system with its farming community to protect its assets. Access to affordable veterinarian coverage is seen as crucial and the state veterinarian service is funded by a levy on animal health products. The Province prides itself on a good coverage of the livestock areas with regular farm visits that enable disease monitoring to take place. There is also a plethora of information and biosecurity is a word regularly employed and practised on farms. Of great concern to the farming industry is an emerging group of hobbyists who lack knowledge of animal disease. Recording the location of these hobbyists and targeting information is seen as a biosecurity priority of the Province. Business continuity in the face of a foreign animal disease is of great importance. For this reason New Brunswick is researching insitu composting to be used in emergency. The concept of barn based composting is based on minimising movement of contaminated material and killing the virus or bacteria before material is moved off site. This approach reduces the need for land fill or burning – saving valuable land for production and allows the farm to move onto decontamination and restocking quickly. One thing that stands out from meetings in New Brunswick was the degree biosecurity was spoken about and planned for at all levels, including not just farms and veterinarians but police, local government and the wider community. There was a clear recognition of the wider impacts of a disease oubreak. Moving on from New Brunswick and returning to Halifax, Nova Scotia I met again with Barry Manuel. Here I began to collate my thoughts. The 72 hour window seems crucial, and for rural populations a vital consideration. Not just food and water, but also medications, animal health products, fuel all needed to be part of the business continuity plan. Whilst the whole of Canada has 3
had the same messaging on this, Nova Scotia has begun embedding this information within communities by empowering them to help themselves. Social media also plays a part, the internet, twitter, Facebook are all employed to allow rural populations to receive and post information. Most of all people recognise that there is an issue with weather in particular and prepare themselves. Whether it be servicing their generator in the summer or buying in extra tinned goods. Rural pride is very evident and being prepared and independent is one of the ways in which they best demonstrate it.
I would like to thank the Farmer’s Club for their very generous support in this study and the following individuals for their invaluable help, time and Maritime hospitality. Ms Nicole Arseneau – Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick Mr Dominic Fewer – Emergency Management Planning Officer, Central Zone, NS Dr Michael Maloney DVM - Chief Provincial Veterinarian, New Brunswick Mr Lewis MacDonald – District Chief, Special Operations, St John Fire Mr Barry Manuel- Co-ordinator Emergency Management Organisation, Halifax Regional Municipality Mr Marcel Marcotte - DART, NS Mr David McCoubrey – REMO, Annapolis Royal, NS Mr Dwane Mellish – Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia Mr Richard Melvin – Vita Bite, NS Mr Len Milne - Eastern Shore Joint Emergency Management Team Ms Murielle Provost – Manager, Emergency Preparedness, St John, New Brunswick Department, New Brunswick Richard Byrne Harper Adams University College Newport Shropshire.
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