Food and Farming Canada » sustainability

Local food made easy

Lilian — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:00:42 +0000

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 [...]

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 [...]

Monforte’s local cheese renaissance

Lilian — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:10:17 +0000

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 [...]

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 [...]

What you probably didn’t know is happening on our farms

Lilian — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:06:01 +0000

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 [...]

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, [...]

Protecting the environment – one farm at a time

Lilian — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:58:21 +0000

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 [...]

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 [...]

Retailer supports sustainable farming

Lilian — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:27:37 +0000

Cows grazing on hillside pastures are a stereotypical – if often true – image of Switzerland. The Swiss are proud of their mountains and their pristine Alpine countryside. They’re also pretty serious about promoting homegrown food products.

One of the country’s leading supermarket chains, Co-op, sells a line of branded Swiss food products – milk, yogurts, meats, [...]