Lloyd Weber sounded shaken on the phone.

Hearing word that activists were at his West Montrose farm, Webstone Holsteins, I called him to confirm before jumping in the car.

“I don’t know what to do, I’m just so…I don’t know how they explain it,” Weber said. “When they showed up I said, ‘I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t go into the barn,’ and they just walked right past me and they just kept going.”

Weber was faced with a situation in which any person would feel a degree of fear, vulnerability, and anger: 15 people showing up on your property, your business, unannounced, because they don’t agree with your legal business, which produces food for society.

Tommy Faulkner’s London Dairy Farm was also targeted in Saturday’s activist tour, however, they maintained their distance, choosing instead to set up at the farm entrance along the road. No self-guided tour was initiated.

“What do you do if they want to come on your property? What do you do between the time they do and the police come?” Faulkner said. “You can’t take the law in your own hand.”

On the activists’ live stream video of their self-guided tour of Weber’s farm a woman, who identified herself as Joanna Elizabeth, said in the wake of dairy-focused activism they’ve been told by farmers they lack understanding of dairy farms and should come to take a look for themselves.

“Obviously they were inviting us to come on visitors day when they’ve had a chance to tidy up and make things look presentable to the public and tell the stories the way they want them to be portrayed,” she said on the video. “That wouldn’t exactly be a fair evaluation.”

Faulkner said activists don’t have an understanding of how busy a farmer is if that is their belief.

“If they did they’d realize a farmer is too busy to change things much for any reason,” he said. “Sure you can hang things up that get left in a corner and you can sweep the cobwebs off the ceiling, but you can’t change the fundamentals because they don’t have time to do it.”

If the same 15 people were to walk into any other manufacturing facility, one that made tires, or plastic bottles, for example, to urge the producers to modify their industry because it was bad for the environment or people’s health, there would be an immediate response and a good chance arrests would be made and charges laid.

When it comes to agriculture the law appears to lack teeth, or if it has teeth, it lacks the appetite for prosecution.

The activists took a dead calf from the Webstone facility. The loaded it into a vehicle and left. They were gone by the time police arrived and the calf was never recovered.

Faulkner said it doesn’t matter what they took, it could have been a shovel or a blade of straw, the fact they took anything at all is galling and concerning.

“In our society you have recourse to the state, meaning you call them and say, ‘It’s your problem, deal with it.’ And you have recourse through the courts. And that’s all you have,” he said. “Somebody crazy, they can do a lot of damage to you and the repercussions to them are nothing, they have nothing to lose.”

The potential impact on farmers is huge. Any sort of on-farm incident involving activists, even something as innocent as a person slipping, tripping or falling on the property, while they are trespassing could be construed on social media in a very different fashion.

“Everyone carries a camera around nowadays, maybe if they’re taking a picture of you, you’re taking a picture of them,” said Faulkner. “These people want publicity, so they want their names out there. It shouldn’t be that hard to find them, but what a waste of society’s resources to have to hunt them down.”

The Dairy Farmers of Ontario sent out an email to all members in advance of the weekend, warning activists were planning to take action at a dairy farm within 75 minutes of Toronto. They encouraged producers to post no trespassing signs, biosecurity signs and to report any suspicious behaviour or vehicles.

The DFO also encouraged producers, their family and staff to have an emergency plan and protocols in place in the event an emergency cropped up.

“DFO is working closely with local authorities to make sure our farmers, their families, and property are kept safe and secure,” said Murray Sherk, DFO chair, in an email Monday. “We can’t release specific information around the activities this past weekend as the details are still being reviewed.”

Joanna Elizabeth acknowledged on the live stream the 15 activists were trespassing on private property and they had no ill intentions.

“We’re here today with only love in our hearts for the farmers, for the community members, the people who are in the farming industry,” she said, adding they brought pastries for the family and flowers for the calves. “We have no ill intentions for anyone here . . . and we’re hoping that today can be the start of a relationship with this farm. And hopefully, we can convince them to turn this farm into a sanctuary and give these animals the lives they deserve.”

Elizabeth said they were hoping to negotiate the release of a live calf from the farmer to transport to a sanctuary where they had secured it a spot. Instead, they took a dead calf in order to bury it, ignoring Weber’s calm requests to put the animal down.

Faulkner said the challenge with activists trespassing compared to people on visitor’s day is you know the intentions of one group, but not the other. One group is genuinely interested in learning about your business with an open mind, while the other is less likely to loosen their grip on what they believe to be true and make room for the facts.

“Farmers make their living with livestock so 99.99 per cent of them care for their animals because that’s their living,” he said. “Who wouldn’t look after their own interests? Farmers have respect for animals, these people – you don’t know if they have respect for animals or not.”

Diana Martin, Ontario Farmer