|  This post is courtesy of fellow blogger and farm and food aficionado Tiffany Mayer. She writes in the Niagara Region – check out her blog, Eating Niagara or follow her on Twitter.
Len Troup has been doing something unusual this past week. The Jordan Station tender fruit grower has been farming. It’s a drastic change of pace from the previous weeks, when Troup, chair of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers Marketing Board was spending more time in the political arena than his orchard. Continue reading Saving Ontario’s fruit farms From the Guelph Mercury, Friday April 24, by Lilian Schaer: We must face up to the true costs of the things we consume The annual marking of Earth Day seems a natural choice for many of us to assess our environmental footprint and how we might be able to do more with less. This is something farmers have been doing for many years and, as the recession tightens its grip, many of us are starting to cut back, take stock and make changes — and not just on the environmental front. Continue reading What is it really costing us?  Tough economic times and increased environmental awareness mean we’re seeing things we haven’t seen in decades. Things like the return of the laundry line, the resurgence of the vegetable patch and even the re-appearance of backyard chicken coops.
Municipalities are generally encouraging of anything that promotes environmental awareness and sustainability – but some are drawing the line at raising farm animals in the city. Continue reading Backyard chicken flap I happened to catch TVO’s The Agenda on Monday night as I was flipping through the channels and noticed that it was the final installment of their “on the road” series. This one focused on the innovation economy and was hosted in Waterloo. Normally I wouldn’t really pay much attention to that, but this time was different because I had participated in their show back in January that focused on the agricultural economy. Continue reading TVO’s Agenda focuses on innovation economy The following column I wrote was printed in the Guelph Mercury yesterday. Agriculture proving its worth in today’s economy There’s a lot of worrying and hand-wringing going on in Ontario these days about the economic mess we now find ourselves in – and just as much hand-wringing and worrying about how we’re going to pull ourselves back out. But the answer could be right in front of us: farming. Continue reading Farming – solution to economic woes?  Agriculture is the engine that can bring Ontario’s economy back to a healthy life – and there’s more to farming than just food.
So says the National Post in an article published last week – which I happen to be quoted in, but that’s not really the point of this post (had to just slip a little shame-less self promotion in there…). Continue reading An engine for economic health Today marked an important milestone in Canada – and it probably went unnoticed by most of us. February 12 is 2009′s Food Freedom Day, the day when Canadians have earned enough money to pay for their year’s grocery bill.
Continue reading The milestone unnoticed | |
