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So it was a good day this past Saturday when I discovered a little piece of cheese heaven – Upper Canada Cheese Company. The tiny artisan creamery is located in the village of Jordan Station in Niagara Region and their claim to fame is a line of spectacular cheeses made from the milk of Guernsey cows. Continue reading Niagara’s golden cheese 
Now this in itself was cool as I had never seen one of these set ups before, even though they are starting to become more in Ontario. But what really tweaked my interest, as a self-professed social media and new technology geek, was that some of Chris’ cows have their own Twitter accounts and are merrily tweeting away as they go about their daily lives! Continue reading Cows that moo…and tweet! The Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) has long been a popular program but when the annual cost-share funding for 2009 was fully allocated in just over two months, program representatives were both surprised and pleased at the demand. One of the things driving the uptake of cost-share is the awareness that is developed through the EFP process. Since the launch of the third edition of the EFP in 2005, more than 11,000 farm businesses have attended workshops, developed EFP action plans and had them deemed appropriate through peer review. The results are a more environmentally informed sector, eligible to apply for cost-share funding to support environmental improvements on farms. Continue reading Farmers’ environmental commitment evident in program funding demand Here’s a great blog post about modern agriculture and bridging the gap between farmers and consumers. It’s written by Australian journalist Pip Courtney of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the Aussie equivalent of the CBC here in Canada), whom I had the opportunity to meet while attending the International Federation of Agriculture Journalists (IFAJ) congress in Texas earlier this year.
So much so, it seems, that they’ll produce more milk, say researchers in Britain. A study by a research team at Newcastle University has found that cows with names will produce up to 500 pints more milk than those without names. Continue reading What’s in a name? More milk!
Several farmers and farm managers that we’ve met on our journey so far have talked to us about a general decrease in agriculture in Slovakia since 1989. Much of that has to do with strengthening efficiencies, boosting production and evolving to a free market system from the old style of collective farming run by the state. |   | ||||
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I am absolutely in love with cheese. Maybe even more so than with chocolate, although that can be debatable depending on the day.
Many people today have to avoid milk and dairy products in their diets because of allergies or intolerances. But luckily for them, there is an alternative – and one that is becoming increasingly popular and increasingly available in Ontario. 
Names are important to cows.