Food and Farming Canada » food

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 [...]

Bringing local farmers and food buyers together

Lilian — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:57:01 +0000

Growing mesclun mix

As an unabashed advocate for local food and farming, I was thrilled to see that here in Guelph we have an officially recognized local food champion in our midst.

Leslie Carson, of St. Joseph’s Health Centre, was honoured in the 2011 Local Food Champions Report, part of a series of initiatives by the Friends [...]

The farm labour side of local food

Lilian — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:46:30 +0000

Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak announced this spring that, if elected, he’d make convicted provincial prisoners work to clean up Ontario’s highways.

According to a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a variation on this theme was recently launched in Georgia, where teams of probationers are working on fruit and vegetable farms.

Many farm workers there don’t have legal [...]

As cows live and eat

Lilian — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:59:02 +0000

Here’s the third in a series of guest posts I’ve been writing for the Canadian Beef Blog.

Last month, I described some of the different cattle breeds and how to tell the difference between a dairy cow (one that gives milk) and a beef cow (one that is raised for meat).

Now we’re going to take a quick [...]

Getting local food into our public institutions

Lilian — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:54:33 +0000

The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation and the Greenbelt Fund are spearheading the grants and two other initiatives in an effort to connect Ontario’s farmers with public institutions like daycares, schools, hospitals, universities and long term care facilities.

Ontariofresh.ca, a new business to business website is being launched this fall to link buyers and sellers of Ontario [...]

New cluster promotes Ontario food and farming

Lilian — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:53:51 +0000

Southwestern Ontario’s burgeoning agri-food sector received a boost earlier this month with the launch of the Ontario Food Cluster.

My alma mater, University of Guelph, along with the City of Guelph and others are partners in this new initiative designed to attract more foreign investment and creating more businesses in our agri-food sector.

In addition to being home [...]

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, [...]

A difference in 10 minutes a day

Lilian — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:50:33 +0000

Farmers – are you frustrated by people who don’t understand what you do on your farm? Do you wish more consumers knew how food was produced or more politicians had a sense of the realities of farming? Many of us in agriculture have had these sentiments at some time and often feel helpless to do anything [...]