| As printed in the Guelph Mercury, June 25 2009: With the advent of summer, local food is on everyone’s lips — and increasingly also in their shopping baskets. It certainly is the trend of the moment, and one farmers are embracing wholeheartedly. So are communities that are launching farmers markets, new stores that are focusing on selling local products, and media who are profiling farmers and stores. But what does “local” mean? From a specific region? Grown in Ontario? Product of Canada? Or simply from within a 100-mile radius, like the now infamous diet of the same name?
Continue reading “Local food” is a term that may grow  The federal government has developed a series of suggestions for Canadians to be more environmentally conscious.
The tips – listed on a website called Take Action for the Environment – cover a variety of areas, but some of them, in my opinion, come directly from agriculture and represent things that farmers have been doing for years. For example: Continue reading Take action for the environment – by learning from farmers  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  Farming – should we be focusing on food, feed, fuel or fibre?
That’s a question many are grappling with these days as agriculture spreads into areas beyond traditional production of food for people and feed for animals. Can we do it all? How can we do it sustainably? On a global scale, yet locally? Continue reading Food, feed, fuel or fibre?  In parts of Ontario this year, Easter was marked not by the Easter bunny – but instead with an appearance by the Easter Egg Farmer.
Bruce Weber, an egg farmer from the Elmira ON area, took to the road this month to promote eggs and egg farming just in time for the egg-focused Easter holiday. Continue reading Ontario’s travelling Easter Egg Farmer The following column I wrote was published in the Guelph Mercury yesterday. We were sitting on the deck with the dog as I was musing about the topic of this month’s column. My husband jokingly suggested I write about the relationship between man and his dog. I laughed it off — what did that have to do with food, farming and farmers? Not much, but as I thought about it some more I did start to see some parallels between the strength of that relationship and the one between farmers and their land. Continue reading Spring, farmers and the lure of the land  One of the criticisms often lobbed at the ethanol industry is that using corn for fuel means there is less available for food. But a new research investment by the government of Canada aims to change that.
Continue reading Fed dollars for ethanol research
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