Locavore News – Canada by Elbert van Donkersgoed
Posted: March 30, 2010
Categories: News from Sustain Ontario
- First-ever Canadian Chef Survey results are in!
- Food fight: When A is for apple and H is for hype
- Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin
- New Marketsafe Training Program the First of Its Kind for Canadian Farmers’ Markets
- Backyard Bees, Urban Farms, and City Chickens!
- Study finds Manitoba uniquely positioned to lead efforts to improve health through food
- You can do a lot with a bag of dirt
- Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide – First Nations, Inuit and Métis
Perspectives on good food and farming
March 30, 2010
First-ever Canadian Chef Survey results are in!
Local, sustainable and organic food choices top the list of what’s hot in Canada’s restaurant kitchens. The trends are revealed in a new survey of professional chefs conducted for the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) by independent market research firm BrandSpark International. The chefs were asked to rate a variety of menu items and cooking methods as either a ‘hot trend,’ ‘yesterday’s news,’ or ‘perennial favourite.’ List on Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association website.
Food fight: When A is for apple and H is for hype
The message: Move over, Honeycrisp. These days, an apple is no longer an apple. In the highly competitive global food industry, each new variety is a brand backed by years of research and heaps of money that growers hope will translate into a hit apple, rather than a fruit ignored by shoppers. Globe and Mail story.
Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin
- Primary sector restructuring and the strength of metropolitan agglomerations are two major drivers of changing population settlement patterns across Canada.
- Communities highly reliant on traditional sectors at the beginning of the 1980s (typically rural) experienced significant population downsizing. In contrast, communities with a higher share of employment in dynamic sectors (typically urban) experienced higher population growth.
- Sector restructuring has been paralleled by a steady process of agglomeration around urban centres. Although urban decongestion has occurred within high density regions, both proximity and population size of the nearest urban core are positively associated with population growth of their surrounding communities.
- Communities that were more diversified and had a higher educational attainment at the beginning of the 1980s experienced higher population growth over the following two decades. Statistics Canada Bulletin
New Marketsafe Training Program the First of Its Kind for Canadian Farmers’ Markets
A new food safety course, funded by the Government of Canada, will help farmers continue to deliver high quality products at food markets throughout British Colombia. Today the first graduates of the MarketSafe Food Safety Training Program at the B.C. Farmers’ Markets Association Conference received their certificates of completion. “Our Government is working to deliver real results for farmers and for all Canadians,” said Stockwell Day, Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, President of the Treasury Board and Member of Parliament (Okanagan-Coquihalla). “Our investment in this project will help farmers maintain their top food safety standards and continue to deliver safe, high quality food to consumers.” Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada news release.
Backyard Bees, Urban Farms, and City Chickens!
All of these thoughts led me to the city’s planning page for food policy in Vancouver, which, among other topics, includes information on the city’s Honeybee laws. For example, an apiary (honeybee hives) are limited to 2 per household and a fence or shrub 6 feet high must surround the apiary to ensure that bees fly high enough when leaving the yard so that they don’t interact with humans on the street — unless you happen to be 7 feet tall, I guess. There is also information on bee swarming, which sounds terrifying, but is basically when all the bees up and move along to find some new digs. However, if you see a bee swarm you can call the local beekeeper in your neighbourhood who are on a ‘swarm list’ and they will come and contain the swarm. I’m not sure how they do it, but I’m envisioning tiny lassos. Jake Tobin Garrett blog on Beyond Robson.
Study finds Manitoba uniquely positioned to lead efforts to improve health through food
According to the recently released study, “Benchmarking Study of the Existing Science Base Supporting a “Canadian Climate Advantage Diet (CCAD)”, Manitoba has the opportunity to lead efforts that could result in significant health benefits through the development of a diet that focuses on the unique characteristics of Canadian-grown and processed crops. Flax2015 and their health and nutrition consultant, Kelley Fitzpatrick, completed the study, which was commissioned by the Manitoba Agri-Health Research Network Inc (MAHRN). CNW Group Newswire story.
You can do a lot with a bag of dirt
For urban green thumbs, no land is no problem. At the City of Toronto’s booth at this year’s Canada Blooms gardening show, gardeners sewed plastic construction tarps into bags and filled them with soil to create instant gardens. Rather than conventional planters, the flexible bags are “good for really tight spaces in an urban place,” said Jodi Callan, an analyst for the Toronto Environmental Office. “It’s a great way to grow food on concrete or in lands that don’t have the best soil.” National Post story.
Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide – First Nations, Inuit and Métis
Moose stew? Char? Blueberries? Bannock? For the first time, a national food guide has been created which reflects the values, traditions and food choices of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. This new tailored food guide includes both traditional foods and store-bought foods that are generally available, affordable and accessible across Canada and provides unique images and content. Recommendations are based on the new 2007 version of Canada’s Food Guide. Health Canada
AND if You Have Time
PlantBot – The Sun Seeking Robot with a Green Thumb
You try and you try to keep your plants well-watered and situated in the brightest spot you can find, but that darned sun has an annoying tendency to move and leave your urban foliage wilting. You could try leaving them in the window, or switching to creepy robotic flowers, or you could just replace your pots with PlantBot, a four-legged contraption designed to seek out the sun and plunk your plant right where it needs to be. Designed by The Play Coalition, a group of people who “love to design things that are often functional but usually just fun,” it looks like something out of a woodworking-themed anime, tickling our geeky natures while exuding that undeniable aesthetic of a well-made piece of furniture — even if not delivering quite the same level of usefulness. Pictures on GreenUpgrader.com.