Farmers urge Ontarians to eat Ontario food and help protect agribusiness

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Concerns about the future of a healthy domestic food supply mean that Ontario’s farming community is launching a pilot program in the new year to better connect those who grow food in this province with those who consume it.

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“We are connected through food, we are connected through land, whether we live in the city or in rural areas,” said farmer Peggy Brekveld, president of Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) . “We want you to imagine things that grow (on Ontario farmland) in generations, not just years.”

Source Local, an OFA partnership with Farm and Food Care Ontario , hopes to inspire greater public support for household foods and agriculture with a series of programs and projects that will include everything from Breakfast on the Farm events and farm market support initiatives to offering media training sessions for farmers to better communicate what What do they do.

“It is important to me that the next generation knows where their food comes from. It’s about food safety, ”said Lesley Labbe of Our agricultural organics east of Cottam in Kingsville.

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Labbe has long viewed education as an important agricultural tool, offering advice on locally sourced food every Saturday to consumers visiting the downtown farmers market, where it has held a stall since its inception. He interrupts his busy days in the fields to chat with passersby who stop along the shoulder at his County Road 34 location, and he even launched a pilot “farm school” for children last season.

Last May, OFA sounded the alarm about the disappearance of farmland, stating that the province was losing 175 acres of farmland to urban sprawl every day – the equivalent of 135 football fields of rural farmland. of Ontario that is paved or developed every 24 hours.

“We are connected through the land.” Farmer Lesley Labbe washes freshly harvested Brussels sprouts at “Our Farm Organics” near Cottam on December 10, 2021. Photo by Dan Janisse /The Windsor Star

The global pandemic has highlighted the food we eat and the importance of where it comes from, Brekveld said. “With COVID, there has been an increase in interest in local food,” he said.

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Part of that focus was the result of shortages on store shelves and questions about long supply chains that can be disrupted with shipping and border disruptions as a result of natural or health emergencies.

“Once COVID hit, people started freaking out,” Labbe said. People have flocked to his farm and its products since the pandemic, and sales have quadrupled as a result, he said. “We saw people like never before, and they weren’t as interested in organic food as they were in local food.”

One part, Brekveld said, was people who heeded the call for “local support” during a period of business closure, while another part was consumers interested in food that had not been handled or transported as much. For others, he said, it was a good excuse to get out of the house during COVID-19, take a walk and explore local farms and available household foods.

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A curious chicken inspects the latest outdoor harvest in progress at “Our Farm Organics” on December 10, 2021. Free-roaming poultry provide eggs and meat for Kingsville's agribusiness.
A curious chicken inspects the latest outdoor harvest in progress at “Our Farm Organics” on December 10, 2021. Free-roaming poultry provide eggs and meat for Kingsville’s agribusiness. Photo by Dan Janisse /The Windsor Star

Farmers “love what they do,” Brekveld said, but are generally so focused on what they do, from long hours growing food and running their agribusinesses, to raising families, that “we don’t always have the opportunity to communicate as much as possible. we should.

“Farmers take care of the land and their animals with all their hearts. Sometimes people who don’t work on the land don’t understand why and how we do what we do. “

The Source Local pilot in 2022 will provide more opportunities for the public to ask questions about agriculture in Ontario, he said.

Labbe said the city Downtown Farmers Market and the 225 households linked to its diversified farm through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) account for approximately 90 percent of Our Farm Organics’ income. She was in the field on December 10, harvesting stalks of Brussels sprouts and other late-season fresh greens for the last date of the season at the downtown market the next day. She said that on the 60-acre farm that she and her husband, a third-generation farmer, Tom (they have five children, ages 16 to 36), grow up to 50 “different things,” from vegetables to fruits. to herbs, eggs and meat.

Concerned about the public’s general lack of agricultural knowledge, Labbe helped launch a pilot “agricultural school” this year with about 20 children between the ages of eight and 12. It was the “worldly things” that the students were most interested in, he said, like researching the soil and harvesting carrots.

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“It’s important to me that the next generation knows where their food comes from.” Lesley Labbe prepares Brussels sprouts for the next day’s market. Photo by Dan Janisse /The Windsor Star

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Reference-windsorstar.com

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