EATING GREEN (CONT)

With farmers squeezed by low prices and high costs, half of the farm families had one or both partners working off the farm to make ends meet, though farming is more than a full-time job. As a result, farmers are leaving their profession in droves: in 1991 there were 390,000 Canadians in farming but by 2006 there were only 327,000. In 1991, there were 78,000 young farmers taking over from their parents, in 2006 only 30,000. If the trend continues, who will be left to grow the food?

We need a national food policy that relies on the family farm to produce local supplies.

School boards should purchase food for their lunch programs from local farmers, just as St. Lawrence College in Kingston is doing. Queen's University should follow this example.

Agriculture Canada should encourage farmers' markets. Where possible, individual consumers should buy direct from the farmer. Regulations should be eased to accommodate the 100-mile diet.

Most of all we need an alliance between the city and the farm. Earth Day was celebrated last week with marches and park cleanups. A month earlier, Earth Hour saw hundreds of thousands of Torontonians turning off the lights. These are welcome symbols but we need daily action.

One way is to follow Wendell Berry's advice and "eat responsibly." When we purchase food we should ask: "Where does it come from? How was it made? What chemicals were used? Methods of slaughter?"

Denmark is experimenting with a barcode that can tell consumers about the history of the produce as well as the price. We need the same here.

Industrial agriculture has brought us mad-cow disease, soil erosion, pollution by toxic chemicals, depletion of aquifers, animal abuse, and long-distance transportation of food stuffs. This model must be transformed into sustainable agriculture.
The local food movement is a start. Every day could be Earth Day if we started to eat responsibly.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyrightowner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.