Activists say they will stand in front of trucks to stop animals from being removed from an eastern Ontario prison farm as it shuts down.

"We'll have several hundred people here within minutes … to block any cattle trucks from leaving," confirmed Eric McBay, a spokesman for Save Our Prison Farms, a group that has been fighting to save the farms.

He said the group, started by employees at the prison farm, is frustrated by the lack of public dialogue about the issue. That has led to a change in tone among the protesters, he added. "There is an escalation going on."

The protesters say the farms provide valuable rehabilitation for prisoners, support the local economy, preserve prime agricultural land from development and supply local food to prisons in a cost-effective manner, and it is therefore poor public policy to shut them down.

The government says inmates need to develop employment skills more relevant to the job market.

The cows from the dairy operation at the minimum security Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ont., are scheduled to be auctioned off by the end of June.

In order to stop that from happening, the protesters have set up an operation called Citizens on Watch Stations (COWS). It consists of a large white camping trailer directly across the road from the prison. From there, volunteers will keep an eye out for cattle trucks that might remove the animals.

If they spot any, they will contact supporters via phone, email and instant messaging trees.

Kathy Sage, Unitarian Church Minister in Kingston, is one of those who plans to respond to the call.

"For me as a person of faith it means, 'Where's my conscience?'" she said. "Now it's time to literally put one's body on the line."

Farm closure on target

A spokesperson for the Correctional Service of Canada said the agency respects the right of demonstrators to protest, but the plan to close the farm remains on target.

As of this spring, about 300 inmates worked on the six farms across the country, which started in the 1880s and supplied milk and eggs to the federal prison.

The Correctional Service of Canada announced in February 2009 that it planned to shut down the farms over two years.

In addition to concerns about the relevance of the skills training provided by the farms, security has been cited as an issue at the Bowden Institution in central Alberta.

Since September 2008, at least six inmates have escaped from the minimum-security farm annex of the federal prison, about 100 kilometres north of Calgary.