Food and Farming Canada » fruits and vegetables

Apple grower featured in Faces of Farming calendar

Lilian — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:03:43 +0000

She was the winner of the Golden Apple Award for industry service and leadership at the 2011 OFVGA annual meeting. Now, in 2012, Cathy McKay will also be a calendar model.

She is the first-ever apple grower to be featured in the popular Faces of Farming calendar, produced annually to promote awareness of food and farming in [...]

New crops in local soils raising high hopes

Lilian — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:06:56 +0000

Ontario lavender bunches

Lavender, hazelnuts and sweet potatoes are not crops we commonly associate with this province.

Yet they’re starting to emerge in Ontario’s south coast area, the fertile sand plains in Norfolk, Brant, Elgin, Middlesex and Oxford counties where tobacco used to reign supreme.

As the decline of the tobacco industry continued [...]

Apples – organic or conventional?

Lilian — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:55:22 +0000

The debate over organic versus conventional agriculture is an ongoing one in the world of food production.

For one Ontario apple grower, though, that debate ended a decade ago after some firsthand research into the issue.

But first, a little bit of background.

If you’ve eaten apples from any of Ontario’s major supermarkets, chances are you’ve eaten a Martin’s [...]

Where potato chips are grown

Lilian — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:55:50 +0000

Mmm, there’s nothing quite like cracking open a bag of fresh, crunchy potato chips.

I confess to consuming more than my fair share of the salty snacks over the years and love seeing what new flavours will be coming out next.

But one thing I’ve certainly never really thought too much about was how the contents of that [...]

Greenbelt farmers saving energy, survey shows

Lilian — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:59:13 +0000

A new study shows that energy saving initiatives by farmers in Ontario’s Greenbelt are conserving enough energy to power 1,788 homes annually.

And on-farm solar panel installations in the Greenbelt are generating enough electricity for an additional 170 homes, says the report completed by engineering consulting firm Agviro, Inc.

“Our study showed some really positive results related to [...]

People could use a little reconnecting to the farm

Lilian — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:57:37 +0000

The case of watermelons spontaneously exploding in Chinese fields made headlines recently. This coming weekend marks the annual Rural Romp in Wellington County – a county-wide food and farming open house of sorts. These two events are worlds apart, yet to me, they’re both part of the complex network our global food system has become.

Most Canadian [...]

Wait for local Ontario asparagus is over!

Lilian — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:55:24 +0000

It’s become almost like an unofficial kick off to summer, sort of like our Victoria Day long weekend – an early anticipated milestone that marks the start of warm, sunny days. For me, that’s asparagus season.

Asparagus is one of the first crops of the new growing year that hits the market for consumption. Here in Ontario, [...]

Long awaited support for local food and farming

Lilian — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:58:07 +0000

There was good news in the provincial budget for farmers this week. The Ontario government announced new, permanent risk-management programs that farmers have long been asking for to help bring some much needed stability to notoriously fluctuating farm incomes.

Farm leaders have been making their case both federally and provincially about the need for this kind of [...]

Fabulous farming fotos

Lilian — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:05:17 +0000

For anyone writing or blogging about farming, here’s a great resource for you.

One of my biggest struggles is always trying to find current, accurate and available photos to go along with articles or blog posts.

The Ontario agriculture photo library has a wide array of available photos depicting many of the different aspects of farming in our [...]

Let’s take those new year’s resolutions seriously

Lilian — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:26:41 +0000

We’re almost a month into the new year and some of us have already lost sight of the lofty exercise and weight loss goals we set for ourselves on Jan.1.

We all start the year with good intentions — overflowing parking lots at most gyms during the first few weeks of January will attest to that — [...]