I hope you enjoy this "swan song" --  my last piece of writing for Ontario Nature.
Best wishes to all smart communities advocates,
Linda Pim
lindareanpim@rogers.com

In praise of the sustainable salad

by Linda Pim

(An abridged version of this commentary will appear in the Autumn 2006 edition of ON Nature, the quarterly magazine of Ontario Nature.)

It used to be that when I ate a salad in winter, it was a long-distance affair.  I munched on the "3,000-mile salad" consisting of organic loose-leaf California lettuce that, according to American writer James Kunstler, will soon disappear from our plates thanks to the depleting supply and increasing price of fossil fuels.  But last year, Orangeville's whole foods store began offering the 10-mile salad - mixed organic baby greens grown under glass just down the highway.  Naturally, given the choice, I buy the beautiful local greens.

I have been eating my way through advocacy of food localism for decades.  The only fruit I eat from October to May is Ontario apples, then our rich array of seasonal fruit in sequence over the summer.  I select Ontario brie and cheddar, and have found organic Ontario canned tomatoes and juice.  Local is the top priority, so if faced with a choice between an organic import and local conventionally grown produce, I choose the latter.  If both local options are available, organic wins out.

Ontarians are beginning to embrace the regional meal.  This is a meal of "slow food."  As consumers, we do our health a favour by eating this food that is fresher and tastier.  We reduce our ecological footprints by not trucking or airlifting broccoli across the continent, saving fuel and improving air quality.  We support Ontario agriculture, which needs us if it is to reinvent itself as a local food supplier after decades unsustainably oriented to exports and driven by non-renewable energy.  We foster domestic food security and food self-sufficiency in an increasingly dangerous world, at the same time helping Ontario shed its role as a net importer of food.  We contribute to global justice by reducing our demand for tropical cash crops from land that could feed needy local people there instead.

Agri-food research tells us that consumers consider the value of food when choosing what to buy - a broader notion than merely price.  A 2004 Ipsos-Reid poll found that for only 15 percent of Canadian consumers is price the most important factor when choosing food to eat at home.  In a revealing contrast, quality and nutrition rank higher than price for a total of 55 percent of those polled.  In any case, food does not take a big bite out of our wallets:  The percentage of Canadians' disposable income spent on food eaten at home dropped from 18 percent in 1961 to nine percent in 2004 - one of the lowest bites in the world.

It is not surprising then that globally, consumer interest in eating local/regional foods is booming.  Martin Gooch, research associate at the George Morris Centre, an agri-food think-tank in Guelph, notes that the market for regional foods in most western countries is expanding by 60 percent per year.  He also cites a British study which found that 70 percent of consumers there want to buy local foods and 49 percent want to buy more local foods than they do now.  Although there is no comparable Canadian study, both British and American research shows that the main reason people prefer local food is freshness, followed by supporting local farmers and the local economy, knowing how and where the food was produced, environmental protection from fewer "food miles" traveled, availability, and good value for money.  The image of a verdant, beautiful countryside adds to the mix:  Promoting the image of a region has the potential to increase consumers' likelihood of buying regional food, especially if the scene is idyllic.

If so many people want to eat regionally, why is Ontario awash in imports?  Supermarket chains prefer to buy from producers in warmer climates who can supply a given fresh vegetable every month of the year.  The chains buy in massive quantities and favour fewer and larger contracts for imports over many smaller, seasonal contracts with local growers.

It's not only retailers who need to change. As Martin Gooch points out, food producers and suppliers need to understand what the market wants and adjust what they grow or process to meet consumer requirements rather than simply producing the same products as they have for decades and expecting consumers to automatically buy them.  Farmers and consumers can create a closer and more direct relationship such as through farmers' markets and farm-gate sales that can stimulate the local farm economy just as chain stores' buying habits do.

The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) Agricultural Action Plan (February 2005) was developed through the four GTA regional federations of agriculture and the four GTA regional municipalities with the support of the federal and provincial governments and the food industry.  It has numerous action steps for better tapping into multicultural consumer needs and preferences in the megalopolis at near-urban farmers' doorsteps.  There is talk of "nutraceuticals," niche markets, connecting producers with local retailers and restaurants, and promoting on-farm recreational and educational opportunities.

Innovative local food programs abound both in Ontario and abroad.  The U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury's has a "Local First for Fresh" campaign promoting local produce that growers deliver directly to stores, supported by in-store tastings.  Across the European Union is the Protected Food Name Scheme in which each country can pass legislation to protect food names indicating that a product is produced and processed in a specific geographical area using recognized knowledge (such as Wensleydale cheese and Welsh beef in the U.K.).

In Woodbury County, Iowa, two new policies - and Organic Conversion Policy which grants property tax rebates for conversions from conventional to organic farming, and a Local Food Purchase policy, which requires that County departments purchase organic food from within a 100-mile radius - will help provide a local market for farmers who go organic.

Here in Ontario, Foodlink Waterloo Region annually publishes a Buy Local! Buy Fresh! map and consumer guide to finding fresh regional produce at the farm gate.  It has the twin goals of helping farmers market their products and improving consumer access to local food.

Local Flavour Plus (LFP), founded by Lori Stahlbrand, co-author of the 1999 book Real Food for a Change, promotes and facilitates purchase of sustainably produced food by entire institutions, with the University of Toronto its first major client.  In a program of certification for sustainable local food production, farmers working with LFP agree to several conditions that ensure sustainable food systems.  They reduce or eliminate pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (so may or may not be totally organic), conserve soil and water, protect wildlife and biodiversity, provide safe and fair working conditions for farm labourers, provide humane care for livestock, and reduce on-farm energy consumption.

There is so much more to be done - by farmers, food processors, retailers, governments and consumers - to improve local food self-sufficiency.  Elbert van Donkersgoed, executive director of the GTA Agricultural Action Plan and long-time champion of the local food system, says that in addition to farmers' markets as a local food experience and destination rather than simply a place to buy cheap food, supermarkets - which is where most people buy their food - need to create "local as a destination."  Just as supermarkets create displays of organic products, they should give us a local foods section so we don't have to hunt for Ontario products.  And, I'd add, supermarkets, greengrocers  and natural foods stores need to be more attentive to their labeling of province or country of origin on their fresh produce.

The Ontario government's long-established Foodland Ontario labeling program needs to break out of and go beyond fresh products to include Ontario-produced processed foods.  It needs to do more to build consumer awareness of local food through labeling and branding - from Holland Marsh salad vegetables to Norfolk County sweet potatoes.

Foodland Ontario has a pleasant enough logo, but it needs a more in-your-face advertising approach if it is to attract more people to local food.  A British initiative in the Cornwall area promotes "Deliciously Dirty" unwashed potatoes, featuring the tag line "Rub me, don't scrub me."  Vintners of wine made with 100 percent Ontario grapes have recently begun a delightfully edgy advertising campaign:  Newspaper ads have a stark black background and simply state "Do you VQA?" with a web address that takes you to the Vintners Quality Alliance.

The best things about fresh local foods are their beauty, succulence and taste that no import can ever match.  The Mennonite Central Committee's Simply in Season cookbook is a celebration of the fruits of the earth around us. A good set of recipes is one pearl in a string of great ideas for expanding the demand for local food.  What's needed to create a sustainable local food system is political will, a farm sector open to meeting changing consumer demands, a strong commitment by the processing and retailing sectors, and a grassroots movement.  Southern Ontario contains over half of Canada's Class 1 farmland.  We'll save it only through sprawl-busting planning policies and a sustained market for local food.

We do not choose to be self-sufficient in food in Ontario at present, but retaining the capacity to make that choice in the future is a prudent political decision.  If as a society, we do not act to protect Ontario farmers and farmland by eating locally, we will eventually lose the choice of local food production.

But what about the occasional avocado or mandarin orange?  Yes, they can find a place on our salad plates.  And I will likely continue to eat brown rice and drink black tea sometimes. The journey to fully embracing the regional meal begins with a giant first step.  Ontario society has not yet taken that step and it's high time we did.  We can sweat the small stuff later on.

Linda Pim was formerly Ontario Nature's conservation policy analyst.

Some web links

www.foodland.gov.on.ca <http://www.foodland.gov.on.ca>                  Foodland Ontario
www.foodlink.ca <http://www.foodlink.ca>                                Foodlink Waterloo Region
www.foodshare.net <http://www.foodshare.net>                            Foodshare
www.georgemorris.org <http://www.georgemorris.org>                      George Morris Centre
www.rpco.on.ca <http://www.rpco.on.ca>                          GTA Agricultural Action Plan
                                               (Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario)
www.localflavourplus.ca <http://www.localflavourplus.ca>                        Local Flavour Plus
www.spud.ca <http://www.spud.ca>                                        Small Potatoes Urban Delivery
www.slowfood.com <http://www.slowfood.com>                              Slow Food
www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm <http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm>      Toronto Food Policy Council
www.doyouVQA.ca <http://www.doyouVQA.ca>                                Vintners Quality Alliance
 
 

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