Local Delicious

Interested in exploring local food producers at their own locations? Yes, but where to begin, you might be thinking.

Why not start with a Circle Farm Tour? What is that? A Circle Farm Tour is basically a road map that directs you to a variety of specialty farm-gate vendors, open air markets, charming eateries, heritage sites, fairs, and other special events. In the Greater Vancouver area, there’s a brochure and map for each participating community – six in total.

Simply go to the Circle Farm Tour website, download the tour, choose your destinations and go! Abbotsford, Agassiz-Harrison Mills, Chilliwack, Langley, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Mission all participate and all offer unique destinations for every member of the family.

Abbotsford offers such destinations as:

• Birchwood Dairy offering gourmet ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, milk products & Feta cheese
• Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery offers self-guided and guided tours, educational programming, birthday parties, fishing instruction & summer camps
• Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm & Meadery offers a variety of flavoured & natural honeys, as well as beeswax candles, tasty honey comb, soothing ointments & salves, honey soaps, and hand creams

A little closer to Vancouver, Langley offers great locations such as:

• Vista D-Oro, a culinary agri-tourism operation featuring culinary herbs, heirloom tomatoes & orchard fruits grown on the farm, as well as fresh pastries, preserves, local cheeses, hard to source ingredients, kitchen tools & more
• The Fort Wine Co. offers an old fashioned saloon bar to sample a delicious selection of multi award-winning table & dessert fruit wines. Tours are also offered of the state-of-the-art winemaking facilities
• JD Farms features specialty turkeys that are certified free of antibiotics & animal by-products. Visit the farmgate store to sample fresh & smoked sausages & ready-to-eat meals or order a turkey for your next special event.

So, what are you waiting for? Download your adventure today, pack up friends or the family, and enjoy!

In my attempt to purchase organic produce whenever possible, I often come up against two things: produce flown in from Mexico (not exactly environmentally sensitive) or prices that necessitate re-mortgaging the condo to afford it (not tempting). Finding a good-quality, consistent source of organic produce can be a challenge.

I was very interested, therefore, to learn of a new-to-me concept in produce: Community Supported Agriculture. Instead of a small farm only selling their harvest through farmers markets or retail outlets, they divide the harvest into manageable parcels (for example, 60 shares) and pre-sell the parcels to the local community. Harvest shares are often delivered to a pick-up point each week.

Many of these farms are family-owned and several are certified organic. Harvests usually begin in May, run through October (18-20 weeks), and shares are approximately $500-600 for the entire season. Some farms even offer egg shares, as well, for an additional fee.

So, if this concept is as attractive to you as I found it, take a look at the following farms and see if CSA is for you:

Nathan Creek Organic Farm is in Langley and offers many drop off locations throughout Metro Vancouver. The farm expanded last year and now offers 100 shares.

Klippers Organics Farm is in the Okanagan but offers four pick up locations around Vancouver. This is the farm’s first year with a CSA program.

UBC Farm also offers organic produce and is entering its fifth season. Pick up is at the farm.

While many farmers markets are restricted to local products only, the Minneapolis Farmers Market allows resellers with non-local produce and wares to participate. While it may fly in the face of strict direct farm-to-consumer marketing, the larger overall size and greater number of options at the Minneapolis market draws out many more vendors and attendees than I’ve seen at other markets.

This approach may be behind their success in maintaining both a daily market and a downtown weekly market, with a season that is 26 weeks long. In offering consumers so much choice, the market is more mainstream and therefore more accessible to Joe Public. If I insist on buying oranges, I can also get my locally grown green onions, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and squash right there.

The biggest benefit may be that people who might not think much about eating local do, because it’s there. It’s a bit like hiding finely chopped vegatables in the spaghetti sauce so kids will eat them, unwittingly.

Increased sales, as a result of thoughtful consideration or simple convenience, can only have a positive benefit on the local agricultural economy.