What does Local Food mean to you? We asked Eat Local Sudbury
Posted: June 7, 2017
Categories: Events / GoodFoodBites
For local food week this year, we interviewed three of Sustain Ontario’s members on the importance of local food, buying local and the barriers to purchasing locally. Below you will find Eat Local Sudbury’s responses to some important questions for us all to think about this week!
Tell us a bit about your organization and one or two highlighted projects or activities you would like to share.
Eat Local Sudbury Co-operative is celebrating 10 years of connecting regional farmers with local consumers! We operate a full-service grocery store that’s open 7 days a week, offer a seasonal Community Supported Agriculture program, run the Greater Sudbury Market, are the host organization for the Fruit for All program, and have worked on many initiatives to increase the amount of and access to locally-grown food products, such as the new artisanal chicken program.
What does local food mean to you?
Local food means many things – freshness, health, community, and overall is an important part of being a steward of our natural resources as it connects us to where our food comes from.
Why do you think it is important to buy local?
Buying local means directly supporting the farmers, producers, and artisans that provide us with the food we eat every day. It also means positively contributing to the local and regional environment by reducing the fuel and miles that it takes to transport food internationally. Local food builds community by connecting people to the farmers who grow their food and helps build the regional economy by keeping food dollars within the community. It also encourages new farmers to establish themselves in the region, knowing there’s a market for their goods.
What do you see as some of the barriers for people to buy local? Could you offer some advice?
Access to growers in a widespread landscape is one of the largest barriers. How do we effectively and sustainably transport food products from one community to another when there can often be great distances involved? Creating partnerships within and between communities, looking at rideshare programs, this can help us access new growers and new markets, but there’s still much work to do