VANCOUVER—The familiar odour of ammonia wafts through the air as fourth-generation farmer Derek Edwards swings open the wooden doors to one of his heated barns, greeted by 4,000 juvenile turkeys, several of which dash over to peck at his feet. The Edwards farm in Richmond is more than a century old, and Derek, 43, is the latest in a line of turkey farmers, with roots tracing back to the British Isles. Turkey is involved in nearly every aspect of his family’s lives. It’s their protein each day for their meals and it’s the family’s source of income. Even his twin daughters’ pets are turkeys: Blackie and Whitie, named after the black and white colours of their plumage. But there are fewer birds in the Edwards barn compared to five years ago. The industry as a whole is shrinking, with Canadians consuming fewer whole turkeys per year and nowhere more so than in Vancouver.“Not as many people are eating turkey for holidays,” Edwards said, as he listened to the distinctive chirps of his four-week-old Christmas flock, wary of signs of distress. “The families aren’t as big as they used to be. For a lot of new Canadians, I don’t think we really have broken into that segment of the population.”The Canadian turkey industry is in trouble. Retail sales have decreased steadily: Industry figures show that more than a quarter of annual sales at grocery-store checkout counters — the equivalent of 22 million kilograms of turkey — have disappeared over the past 15 years. In British Columbia, the province hit hardest by the decline (annual grocery-store sales in the province are down by more than six million kilograms since 2002, according to Turkey Farmers of Canada), industry leaders are grasping at possible explanations, such as lack of advertising by grocery chains and lack of appetite among a growing population of Asian and South Asian customers. “That’s just another sign of our times ...
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