Local Delicious

I’m sitting here stunned upon reading in this week’s WestEnder that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has targeted a local micro-retailer and seized $20,000 worth of goods because the food doesn’t meet their French labeling standards. A few weeks back Home Grow-In was targeted by the agency whose two inspectors spent 6 hours combing through the store’s inventory.

There is so much wrong with this picture (additional coverage), I’m not sure where to begin:

1. Let me get this straight. Is it now retailers’ responsibility to be up-to-date on all CFIA labeling criteria when selecting from thousands of products they might carry in their stores? Funny, I thought it was the CFIA’s job to ensure producers met food safety labeling criteria.
2. Officially, the focus of the investigation isn’t the store, it’s the producers. Hmmm, that’s odd. Then why did the inspectors not stop by the producer’s facilities instead of nailing one of many small, local retailers and seizing goods the retailer already paid for but now cannot sell?
3. Wow, way to slam small business and cut if off at the knees. A loss like that can kill a business where cash flow is critical. Not only does the business suffer, so do the employees and their families when they can’t get paid. Great ripple effect if you want more people and businesses in financial dire straits.
4. Oh, and the producers of the pulled products?  Many are registered with the CFIA and believed their labels met all requirements — they also haven’t been contacted by the CFIA since the raid to let them know otherwise.
5. Funnily enough, imported goods on shelves all over the city which are also not bilingually labeled are not generating investigations of such fervor.
6. Then there’s the selective enforcement. What about the chain grocery stores down the street where the exact same non-bilingually labeled products are also sold? Why have they not been investigated?

Want to take some tangible action? Put your money where your mouth is and support local micro food producers and the retailers who provide a critical link in helping ensure quality local products are readily available to consumers.

As for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, they are here for our protection, and we need and want them to do a good job. It’s just a good idea to ensure they are playing by rules that are as fair for the little guy as they are for the big guys.

Whoa Nellie! Only 2 weeks left…

You have a mere 2 weeks to submit your best farming/gardening photos in the Home Grown! Photo Contest hosted by FarmFolk/CityFolk Society and the Museum of Vancouver. Your entry gives you a chance to win the grand prize of $500 worth of BC Farmers Markets products, your photo included in the upcoming Home Grown! art exhibition, as well as tickets to the Opening Party.

The Home Grown! exhibition opens August 26, 2010 and  features international award-winning photographer Brian Harris. (Thankfully, you won’t be competing with him. Instead, contest winning photos will be judged separately and may be exhibited alongside his.)

For the past 3 years  Brian Harris has focused his camera on local sustainable farming and Vancouver’s urban agriculture scene. The 40 images on display at the Home Grown! exhibition  will portray local farms, farmers and urban growers with Brian’s characteristic hopeful and intimate cultural style of portraiture.

Learn more about the contest, check out the photos submitted thus far (not many so you still have a chance!) and enter today. Then be sure to attend the Home Grown! exhibition and be inspired by what many local farmers, urban growers and locavores are doing to return our society to a more sustainable and healthy relationship with our earth and food.

I spent a little time in my community garden this weekend prepping the soil, turning under the rye I planted last fall to fix some nitrogen, blending in a bit of mushroom and some rich, equine manure, and a little weeding.

Later, I chatted with one of the other gardeners, discussing what we thought we could get to grow this year. (As newbie gardeners both, we  know it’s not necessarily what you plant!)

The last thing on our minds was tropical fruit. I mean, even experienced farmers wouldn’t waste time on plants that don’t naturally grow here. Would they?

Well, apparently yes.

Bob Duncan in North Saanich is doing just that, and having great success at that. I’ve often thought that having a 100% local diet is impossible because there are just too many things that have become staples in my diet that would need to be supplemented from around the globe, lemons being one. Looks like Bob has that all under control. See the  story in the Globe & Mail.

With over 300 tree types to choose from, the 100% 100 mile diet just got a little more likely:

• 200 apple tree varieties
• Over 80 other fruit trees, including: pears, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, figs, grapes, kiwi, quince and medlar (I don’t even know what that is)
• Over 30 citrus varieties
• Over 15 varieties of hardy sub-tropicals, including: pomegranates, persimmons, loquats, feijoa, jujubes, and olives

Now, if he can figure out a way to grow coffee and the occasional banana, we’re all set.

Hey gang, drinking beer just got a whole lot more local, thanks to the newly revived BC hops growing industry and partnerships with local breweries.

“Sixty years ago, the sight of workers harvesting hops in the fall was commonplace in BC, especially in the Fraser Valley, where as many as 4,000 seasonal labourers were needed to pick more than 1,600 acres that were under cultivation when the industry peaked in the late 1940s.

But today on the Saanich Peninsula, a dozen years after a prolonged price slump drove the province’s once-thriving hops industry to extinction, a fresh crop of locally grown hops is an exceedingly rare commodity.

Phillips is one of a growing number of BC microbrewers who, driven by record-high prices and unstable supplies in recent years, are seeking partnerships with local farmers to grow the essential beer-making herb on contract.”

Read the rest of the article at Granville Magazine Online.

Rocky Mountain Flatbread is hosting three share-the-proceeds events with Farm Folk/City Folk on February 2, 9 and 16, 2010. Rocky Mountain Flatbread has long been a supporter of eating local — they source much of the ingredients for their menu from local farmers.

Fund raise painlessly while you enjoy local and delicious eats.

I seem to be a magnet for dumb advertising these days.

Stating the not-so-obvious

But wait. Maybe it’s not so obvious to state the obvious anymore. A couple of summers ago my sister moved onto a farm just outside of town, taking her two young children with her (…which just seemed like a good idea).

Anyway, my sister was thrilled to have the space and grew a huge garden full of produce. One day that first summer she said to my neice, about four years old at the time, “Look honey, these carrots came from our garden.” My niece looked at her in that way only a four-going-on-14 year old can, and said patiently, “Mom. Carrots don’t come from the garden. They come from the store.” My sister was horrified!

So began a concerted educational program which included having the kids plant seeds and water them, assisting with harvest, and providing tours to all their visiting friends to show them where lunch was coming from.

If my four year old niece didn’t know where carrots come from, maybe we can’t take for granted that consumers will check to see if there actually are any grapes in their grape juice, or oranges in their orange juice.