Food and Farming Canada » government

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 [...]

Reducing energy use on the farm

Lilian — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:08:16 +0000

Farms are, for the most part, pretty large energy users. Barns housing livestock, the use of sophisticated feeding or milking technology or climate control and water recycling systems in greenhouses – all require energy to keep going. So it’s no surprise, with energy costs on the rise, that many farmers are looking for ways to reduce [...]

Decision to cut food research makes no sense

Lilian — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:03:31 +0000

Most of us will agree that food – and the farming the brings us that food – are pretty essential to our quality of life. In fact, it’s one of the basic underpinnings of an orderly society. As we can see in other places around the globe not as fortunate as we are, hunger and high [...]

Healthy Ontario farms will help us as supplies decline

Lilian — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:10:02 +0000

The crystal ball says we live in the best place in the world. Personally, I’ve long been convinced of it, having lived in this area for most of my life, but this is the opinion of a bio-economy expert who spoke at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre recently.

His perspective was a bit different from mine, [...]

Local food movement needs local processing

Lilian — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:25:18 +0000

Ontario’s farmers and food processors suffered another setback recently when the J.M. Smucker Company announced it was moving its Bick’s pickling operations from the Ontario towns of Dunnville and Delhi to south of the border.

This is just the latest in a seemingly ongoing string of food processing plant closures in recent years. Not only do these [...]

Measuring agriculture’s economic footprint in Ontario

Lilian — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:34:47 +0000

Farming affects the daily lives of all Ontarians – what we eat, where we live and what we do to earn a living.

Now, a newly released report spells out in stark detail the economic impact of the agricultural sector as well as the punishing effects of long term farm income losses on the Ontario economy.

The results [...]

Thermal blanket helps lower greenhouse energy costs

Lilian — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:26:54 +0000

Farmers are looking at many different solutions for dealing with rising energy costs. For one greenhouse grower, the answer lies with a new technology, a thermal blanket installation, which is expected to lower his energy costs by about one-third.

Gerard Schouwenaar of Orchard Park Growers, a St. Catharines-area flower producer, retrofitted a 30,000 sq ft greenhouse in [...]

Farmers take safe pesticide application seriously

Lilian — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:00:40 +0000

Sometimes I wonder whether we’re actually hard-wired to be instantly attracted to bad news and shocking revelations. I see negativity often dominating our 24-hour news cycle, leaving the less sensational but equally important good news to fall by the wayside.

More and more people are now writing and reporting about food, farming, science and the environment. These [...]

Weighing in on wind energy

Lilian — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:52:22 +0000

Wind farming is blowing up controversy in many parts of Ontario these days.

On the one hand, it is being promoted as a green alternative to traditional energy sources that we desperately need to lessen our dependence on less environmentally-friendly supplies we have been relying on to date. It is also credited with bringing good jobs [...]

Ontario’s Salad Bowl – at a Cineplex near you!

Lilian — Sun, 23 May 2010 02:21:21 +0000

My husband and I went to the movies on Friday night – and during the ever longer pre-movie showcase of commercials and ads, I was quite pleasantly surprised to see one featuring the Holland Marsh and Ontario farmer Jason Verkaik.

Verkaik owns Carron Farms near Bradford, where he grows a wide variety of vegetables, although specializes in [...]