Locavore News by Elbert van Donkersgoed
Posted: October 21, 2009
Categories: Food in the News / News from Sustain Ontario
Perspectives on good food and farming
A new approach to farming
Daunted by the challenges of entering the high-risk agricultural sector, they joined forces, established a workers’ cooperative and developed a unique business plan that has delivered what has largely eluded Canadian farmers over the past few decades: financial stability, creative fulfilment, companionship in an often lonely pursuit, and pride in producing healthy food. They represent the most optimistic future for food production in Canada. Toronto Star story.
Ontario boosts local wine with new labelling, tax measures
In an effort to squeeze foreign grapes out of Canadian wine, the Ontario government announced regulatory and tax changes that will encourage local producers to make wines entirely from domestic grapes. Ontario will reduce the tax cuts currently afforded to those Cellared in Canada wines as early as next year, and will beef up its support for Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) wines, which are made entirely of Ontario grapes and are currently produced by 108 wineries in the province. Globe and Mail story.
Fruit and vegetable growers deliver blunt message to Conservative leader
Ontario’s fruit and vegetable sector is in peril, and we could soon see it wither away. That was the blunt message delivered Thursday by two leaders of Ontario’s fruit and vegetable associations to provincial Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. St. Catharines Standard story.
Canada needs a national food strategy
We have lost so much control over our food system that our ability to act is diminishing. Indeed, we can hardly imagine that we can act, that food should be a public good, like health care, to serve people foremost. That the public should decide what food Canada produces, how it’s produced, and how we share that harvest. We have largely left those decisions to the market. Consequently, food has been cheapened into a tool for generating massive profits. And an increasingly small group of companies have gained enormous power over Canada’s food supply. Margaret Webb writing in the Toronto Star.
Ontarians Can All Raise a Glass to Government’s New Wine Plan
While the government’s new plan may be too late to save farmers whose current crops have no buyers, the long term strategy will ensure that there are more VQA wines, with a greater presence in LCBO stores across the province. The new direction also involves essentially phasing out the highly contested ‘Cellared in Canada’ wines by 2014. Ontario Greenbelt Alliance story.
We need to pay farmers … to protect nature
The farmer-driven initiative has cobbled together a small, $1 million budget from 16 funding sources to run a three-year pilot that pays farmers $150 annually for every acre they devote to ecological functions, the rental rate for cropland in the area. Margaret Webb writing in the Toronto Star.
Regional Locavore News Stories
Feast on the farm was a ‘magical’ experience
It was a five-star dining experience like few others but what helped make it so memorable, in addition to great food, was the setting: It all took place outdoors on a farm. For the 138 people who paid up to $125 to take part in the first Heritage Harvest Feast, part of the enjoyment was seeing directly where the food they were served actually came from. Most of it was grown right there at Wholearth Farmstudio and could be seen up close before the people took their seats at a long row of tables that sloped down a hill to where acclaimed chef Jamie Kennedy and other accomplished chefs were preparing a sumptuous dinner. Stirling Community Press story. Heritage Harvest Feast near Hastings, Ontario.
Students Teaching Children How Food Gets From Garden to Table
A group of University of Guelph students are helping local elementary children learn about growing, harvesting and preparing their own food as part of a new student-led program called Garden2Table. The Hospitality and Tourism Management students, along with the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming, are working with a Grade 4 class at Jean Little Elementary School. The program is based on an international movement to bring the basics of agriculture and cooking into the elementary school curriculum while giving back to the community. University of Guelph news release.
Group provides food for thought
Hemsted is a member of the Food Partners Alliance of Simcoe County, which was created to bring awareness of buying local foods and building a sustainable food system to the forefront of residents’ minds. As part of the alliance’s focus, Simcoe County proclaimed tomorrow as World Food Day, a request of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Barrie Examiner story.
‘Overnight’ farmer keen on new role
A later in life farmer who plunged into hay and cattle production only eight years ago, Vos is the new president of the Brant County Federation of Agriculture. She replaces John Nunan, who served in the position for two years. “I became a farmer overnight,” she often tells people. It differentiates her from the vast majority of Brant farmers, who start as children and can claim family pedigrees that go back generations. Vos was well into a nursing career and raising three children with her husband, Leo, when an opportunity arose in 2001 to buy 80 acres of farmland on Governor’s Road that was in the McCormick branch of her relations. Brantford Expositor story.
The Stop Newsletter, October
Features The Stop’s First Cookbook, Hungry for Change exhibit at Hart House, cooking classes
Foodlink Waterloo Region Newsletter, Local Harvest, October
Features cabbage and a local farm profile on the J. Steckle Heritage Homestead in Kitchener.
AND if You Have Time
Fancy Fast Food
Recipes for turning horrible fast food into dishes that look tasty and, well, delicious but are still ultimately horrible. It’s really quite amazing what can be created from a sack of sliders or a KFC Original Recipe two-piece breast and wing meal. You won’t believe that the “Dao Mi Noh Chow Mein” was made from nothing but a fancy Dominos pizza and a two-litre bottle of Diet Coke—but it was. “No additional ingredients have been added except for an occasional simple garnish,” the site promises. Blog.