Locavore News by Elbert van Donkersgoed

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Author: Katie Rabinowicz

Posted: July 30, 2009

Categories: Food in the News / News from Sustain Ontario

Perspectives on good food and farming

July 29, 2009

Young Urban Farmers shows us how to cheat at backyard farming

Most urban foodies would love to grow their own organic spinach, but most of us barely have time to stop at Sobeys on our way home from work. Recognizing Torontonians’ collective lack of time (read: laziness), three recent business grads started Young Urban Farmers, a service that turns clients’ yards into produce departments. Toronto Life story.

The time is ripe for mid-season planting

Contrary to popular belief, spring is not the only season for planting. In fact, arugula is one of several crops that actually prefer conditions at the end of the growing season, when the climate shifts to progressively cooler temperatures. Globe and Mail story.

Support Ontario Grape Growers

Come roll up your pants, squish some grapes and support local farmers. The Ontario Greenbelt Alliance will be outside two LCBO locations supporting Ontario Grape Growers. Rallies organized by Environmental Defence on the web at web.

Rule changes inject local flavour into markets

If you are not eating fresh local fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy produce this summer, you have only yourself to blame. Fresh local produce is more widely available – and easier to identify – than it has been for decades. The City of Ottawa has made a significant change in the rules governing the city-controlled ByWard and Parkdale markets. The long-overdue rule changes encourage local growers and producers to sell in the two markets. They also make it easier for the public to know that they are buying local produce, and not imported stuff that may have been picked days or even weeks ago.Ottawa Business Journal story.

Sink your teeth into the local markets

The stats are in — Canadians are in favour of eating local. Nine out of 10 Canadians prefer locally sourced foods, according to a study commissioned by Hellman’s, and 60% of us are eating more of it than we did just two years ago. The most popular reasons cited are support for the local economy, to keep farmers in business, and choose food is fresher, better for us and better for the environment. Northern Daily News, Kirkland Lake story.

Dobbies plans to create allotments at its Southport store

Dobbies outlets have seen a boom in the sale of vegetable seeds (all 25 stores) and chicken coops (in 17 stores) leading to the allotment proposal, it says. Dobbies chief executive James Barnes said he wanted Dobbies centres to become carbon negative, where they are net consumers of carbon rather than producers. HorticultureWeek story.

10 Best US Cities For Local Food

We here at HuffPost Green think the local food movement is a thriving and exciting part of the discussion about sustainability. After researching the best local food in the United States, we compiled this slideshow of our discoveries, focusing mainly on restaurants. However, thankfully, this list is far from comprehensive. There are so many exciting things happening in the good food movement, there is no way we could mention everything. The Huffington Post story in pictures.

Are you food smart?

The Brisbane Institute and Brisbane City Council invite Brisbane residents to find out more about how the city can become “local food smart” through community and backyard gardens, city farms and supporting local farmers. Public seminar announcement in the Brisbane Times.

How green was my valley: California’s drought

For all the signposts of despair that he passed on his morning drive, what kills him, what absolutely kills him, is the moment that he pulls his beige Ford pickup truck into his own fields: 240 hectares of the most productive farmland on Earth, bought by his father to bequeath to his sons. The fields of wheat, cotton and cantaloupe that sustained his family for three generations are gone. The land is a mess of fallow fields, cracked earth and swirling dust. This is not a story about fish. Rather, it is a story about how efforts to save the fish through a court-ordered water shortage have pushed a region already brought to the brink by recession over the edge. Globe and Mail story.

Recommendations towards an ethical food system

Students in an Environmental Ethics course at DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) have researched and written a report on the ethics of buying local food: Towards an Ethical Food System: Considerations and Recommendations for Local Food Procurement. Their key recommendations include: (1) institutional food procurement rules should be ethical, (2) an additional staff person should be hired to facilitate the achievement of these goals and (3) authority to evaluate Dining Services’ progress should be granted to a currently existing committee or a new Ethical Food Task Force.