|  New food service marketing program expands markets for Ontario foods
If you build it, they will come. That’s the thinking behind a new marketing program being used by Gordon Food Service (GFS), Ontario’s largest family-owned food service distributor – expanding and promoting their offering of Ontario food products by making it easy for their customers to identify and buy local food. Earlier this year, the company was the recipient of a grant from the Broader Public Sector Investment Fund, a partnership between the Greenbelt Fund and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) that aims to increase the amount of Ontario foods purchased through municipal, school, university and hospital food service settings. Continue reading Local food made easy  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. Continue reading Apples – organic or conventional?  Montforte cheese sampler The story of Ruth Klahsen and her dairy are well-known in Ontario’s local food world. Montforte Dairy has a loyal – and growing – following of fans devoted to the agricultural values it espouses and the cheeses it produces. So devoted, in fact, that they have raised about half a million dollars as members of a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) project to help Montforte find a new home when an expired lease on its previous location in Millbank left the dairy suddenly homeless. I had the chance to visit Montforte’s brand new facility in Stratford earlier this month as part of a food writer tour in Perth County and listen to Ruth talk about her business and her passion for making truly outstanding cheese. Oh, and sample some of the delicious cheeses too. They were rich in flavour and a real pleasure to taste…but back to the story of the dairy. Continue reading Monforte’s local cheese renaissance  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 energy conservation and energy generation on farms in the Greenbelt,” says Katie Gibb, a project manager with Agviro who worked on the report. “Through conservation measures and generation projects, Greenbelt farmers are able to off-set enough power sufficient for almost 2,000 Ontario homes every year.”
Continue reading Greenbelt farmers saving energy, survey shows  Here’s a piece I wrote as a guest post for the Canadian Beef Blog.
Every day is Earth Day on the farm. This slogan has long been used by folks in agriculture to highlight how farming benefits the environment. The good news stories don’t get told is a common complaint I hear from the farmers and farm groups I work with. And that’s usually true. It’s the bad actors that make the headlines and get the column space – manure spills, pesticide overuse and water contamination feed the sensationalism machine much more voraciously than a wetland preserved, an erosion control implemented or a strip of trees planted. I’m not going to pretend that the bad things don’t happen. They unfortunately do, but luckily, they are the exception rather than the norm. Continue reading What you probably didn’t know is happening on our farms  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, though. While my ideas of why this is a great place to live are shaped by family, friends and lifestyle, his were focused on societal fundamentals, such as oil, water and food. John P. Oliver says our conventional supplies of oil, food and water will be surpassed by global demand by 2050. Continue reading Healthy Ontario farms will help us as supplies decline  Folks in food and farming talk a lot about all the things farmers do to protect the environment – but often in somewhat general terms.
Here’s a real life example in Terry, a farmer and business owner from the Stouffville area. I interviewed him this past summer for an article that I was writing and his story, to me, shows how relatively little things farmers are doing on their farms benefits all of society in the long run. In Terry’s case, it was a protective liner he installed in a fertilizer storage to ensure a beautiful pond on his property stays beautiful – and clean. Continue reading Protecting the environment – one farm at a time | |
