Locavore News – Ontario
Posted: June 2, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
- Clucking for change to urban chicken-raising rules
- ‘Dating Service’ for Those with Local Food Interest
- Web 2.0 for the Food Movement
- Handmade jams, jellies now tested before sale at farmers’ markets
- Huron Pork Direct Marketer Adds Value
- Clucking for change to urban chicken-raising rules
- Group wants a chicken in every back yard
- Challenging city bylaw, one chicken at a time
- No substitute for fresh
- Want to be a farmer? Start surfing the web
- Friends of the Greenbelt launch Greenbeltfresh – a dating service for Local Food
- Rules create hurdles for local food
Perspectives on good food and farming by Elbert van Donkersgoed
June 2, 2010
‘Dating Service’ for Those with Local Food Interest
A new website has been launched to help meet consumer demand for local food and help Greenbelt farmers find new market opportunities. Greenbeltfresh.ca is a project of the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation. They’re hoping commercial buyers will source their requirements by tapping into the site’s listings for over 600 farms in the Greenbelt. Individual consumers can use the Marketplace section of the site to find fresh food from local farmers’ markets, on-farm markets, pick-your-owns and more. Foundation spokesperson Burkhard Mausberg says it’s like a dating service for local food – it helps people with an interest in local food find each other. The Foundation argues eating food from the Greenbelt is a powerful way to support family farms, improve the regional economy and strengthen the Greenbelt itself. CKNX Radio 920AM Wingham story.
Web 2.0 for the Food Movement
Social media is fairly young, but has already proven to be a powerful tool for spreading news and events quickly, in an interactive, engaging way. Farm and food leaders across the province are using a number of social networks to spread the word about healthy, local, sustainable food. Here are five social media tips for those of you interested in using these tools. Kyle L. McGregor’s blog post on Sustain Ontario’s website.
Handmade jams, jellies now tested before sale at farmers’ markets
Cost could force some vendors to offer less variety. New rules are making handmade jams, jellies and preserves safer to eat in Ontario, although farmers’ market vendors are bracing for the long-term cost and whether they’ll have to offer less variety. “If the cost is too big, we’ll just cut it out. We can’t do it for nothing,” said Gerry Stewart of Jackie’s Harvest in North Bay. It’s one of more than 30 vendors at the season opening of the North Bay Downtown Farmers’ Market on Saturday. Vendors who sell home-canned goods now have to submit samples of their food for testing before it’s given a clean bill of health from the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit. North Bay Nugget story.
Huron Pork Direct Marketer Adds Value
Dashwood-area pork producers Martin and Teresa Van Raay have added a few of their own twists to the direct-marketing business model. They sell packages or baskets with various cuts of pork directly to consumers. But they deliver, too. That includes trips to Toronto, Guelph, Sarnia, Kitchener, London, Exeter and Grand Bend. Teresa Van Raay says that’s not cheap but it’s a way to get to know their customers. She expects it to pay off once volumes increase.
Van Raay says they buy all their small pigs from one producer – have it processed at one abattoir – and guarantee only their own meat goes into the packages. They’re also marketing on-line at www.thewholepig.ca. CKNX Radio 920AM Wingham story.
Clucking for change to urban chicken-raising rules
Urbanite Ian Watson has always dreamed of owning a hobby farm. Now, the St. Catharines man wants to bring the farm to him. The 44-year-old brewmaster started a Facebook fan page calling on the City of St. Catharines to change its bylaw that regulates the keeping of animals and prohibits raising chickens in areas not zoned for livestock. Currently, city rules ban backyard birds, but allow chickens to be kept inside residences in urban areas. Watson, an avid gardener and local food supporter, has started clucking for change. After all, neighbouring Niagara Falls allows backyard chicken coops, as do at least four other Canadian communities. Why not St. Catharines? Watson asked. St. Catharines Standard story.
Group wants a chicken in every back yard
A pro-chicken group spent a couple hours at a Laurier St. church spreading the gospel on allowing Ottawa residents to raise the birds on their urban property. The meeting at St. Joseph Church was put on by the Ottawa chapter of Canadians Liberating Urban Chickens Klub (CLUCK). Currently, a municipal bylaw prohibits raising any kind of livestock on residential property, but CLUCK claims that hens make very little noise because roosters are not needed for eggs, they’re easy to keep and feed and they produce minimal fecal matter, which can be composted into nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Ottawa Sun story.
Challenging city bylaw, one chicken at a time
Lyssa Rhodes picks her words carefully, telling me she is not so much “defying†City of Ottawa bylaw 2003-77 as she is “challenging it.†“I’m hoping to change the bylaw, not defy it,†she says. “I don’t think it’s a good bylaw, and I also think it’s not the jurisdiction of the municipality, to tell me what I can and cannot eat.†Rhodes says she expects a visit from City of Ottawa bylaw officers (a determined and vigilant group, to be sure) shortly after this story appears. She expects to end up in court sometime after that visit. Ottawa Sun story.
No substitute for fresh
It’s a trend Local Flavours organizers hope will continue -forever. Local restaurants, inns and consumers are buying locally grown vegetables and meat as the membership of the Local Flavours food network has increased to 113 strong -and that’s without funding or advertising. “It has exploded,” said Wendy Banks of Wendy’s Mobile Market, one of the Local Flavours committee members. “We hope to see it grow more. It’s building support for the community and bringing us back to where we got our food from originally,” Banks said between serving customers Sunday. “It’s not just romanticism or nostalgia. It’s fresher, it tastes better, and it supports your local economy,” said Local Flavours co-ordinator Jerry Heath. Brockville Recorder and Times story.
Want to be a farmer? Start surfing the web
Young Canadian farmers have been given the “skeleton key” to the policy-making process in Ottawa, says the country’s minister of state for agriculture. Following months of roundtable discussions with young farmers across Canada, Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Monday he knows they face many challenges starting out, including limited access to capital, land and property, the prospect of taking on massive debts, and struggling to find out what government programs exist to help. A new section of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada website, launched Monday, will help with the latter by identifying federal and provincial programs that help farmers just getting into the business and young people who are thinking about it. Simcoe Reformer story.
Friends of the Greenbelt launch Greenbeltfresh – a dating service for Local Food
The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation celebrates the launch of Greenbeltfresh.ca, an online database of Greenbelt farm products designed to help meet consumer demand for local food and help Greenbelt farmers find new market opportunities. Free and easy to use, this online tool supports the building of regional food networks in the densely populated Greater Golden Horseshoe and beyond. Commercial buyers can source their requirements by tapping into listings for over 600 farms, while individual consumers can use the Marketplace to find fresh food from local farmers’ markets, on-farm markets, pick-your-owns and more. Fresh Food Finder.
Rules create hurdles for local food
New Ontario meat processing rules threaten small-scale local food producers at the same time the provincial government seeks to boost local food sales, people in the business say. “They’re applying the same standards to us as a small producer . . . as they are to Maple Leaf,” said sheep farmer Brenda Forsyth. “It seems to be fairly random how stuff gets interpreted.” An Ontario government inspector recently supervised the disposal of about $6,000 worth of meat pies Forsyth prepared in a commercial kitchen on her farm near Wiarton and delivered frozen to a customer. Forsyth sells some of her pies at the farm and others through wholesalers and retailers. The kitchen is inspected by Grey Bruce Health Unit officials and complies with public health requirements, but it is not licensed under fairly new provincial regulations for food processors that supply retailers and wholesalers, however. Owen Sound Sun Times story.
AND IF YOU HAVE TIME
Flash Opera at the Market
On Saturday, April 24th, the Opera Company of Philadelphia teamed up with the Reading Terminal Market Italian Festival for a large-scale “Flash Opera” event! Over 30 members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus and principal cast members of LA TRAVIATA performed the famed “Brindisi” in the aisles of Reading Terminal Market, entertaining hundreds of Philadelphians, and proving that the perfect accompaniment for all things Italian is a little Verdi! The Opera Company sincerely thanks members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus and cast for generously volunteering their time and talents… BRAVI TUTTI!! LA TRAVIATA runs from May 7 – 16 at the Academy of Music. For tickets/info: 215-893-1018 or operaphila.org. You Tube video.