Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to getting locally grown food to consumers, farmers can only do so much. For regional food systems to thrive there needs to be more collaboration among farmers and from many other people along the chain. Troy Strozek and Michelle Schram, owners and operaters of Fresh Roots Farm at Cartwright, just north of […] Read more
How selling local works for these farmers
For smaller farms, local can seem the only option. Now, a decade of real world experience from farmers like Troy Stozek and Michelle Schram points to a better way to do it
Do’s and don’ts of farm direct marketing
Reading Time: 7 minutes The reality for many small farmers is that direct marketing what they raise and grow on their farms is the only way they can see to achieve the margins they need to support themselves and their dreams. “For entry farmers or those who are smaller, they don’t have the economy of scale to rely on […] Read more
Local food system would reap big economic benefits researcher says
B.C. researchers found that the Okanagan could produce two thirds of its own food while maintaining exports
Reading Time: 2 minutes Assuming an average Canadian diet, the Okanagan can currently produce 88 per cent of its dairy needs, Mullinix and colleagues wrote in a report on the study. It can produce 60 per cent of its poultry needs, 34 per cent of its fruit needs (due to fruits eaten that can’t be grown in the region, or are eaten out of season), and small amounts of other food groups like grains, red meat, eggs and oils.
Local food outlook
How far will the local trend actually take today’s ag?
Reading Time: 4 minutes While the pandemic was still raging a year ago, Business Development Bank of Canada added statistical muscle to what so many others were observing all across the country. COVID-19 was great news for local food. In its nation-wide survey, the bank found 21 per cent of Canadians had started buying more local products since the […] Read more
Local heroes
Personality is still essential for a successful local food startup, but quality is soaring too
Reading Time: 6 minutes Born and raised in Wales, Josh Keepfer grew up seeing how connected the local food sector and the farming community can be. What Keepfer saw, he says, was a “deep understanding” on both sides of plate, both for farmer and consumer. Farmers won with a local market that gave them loyal and vocal support. Consumers […] Read more
Changing places
There’s a new kind of farm in Calgary — yes, it’s right in Calgary — and it’s surging ahead with its business plan to make money, be environmentally conscious, and destroy the import market
Reading Time: 11 minutes We’re a long way from hippies in ponchos and bare feet. Urban agriculture has graduated. Today, it’s all about serious professionals who know that growing food is a business before anything else. A way of life? Only if it turns a profit. And there’s something else that’s curious too, especially for operations designed as vertical […] Read more
Toronto’s golden Greenbelt
Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Ontario’s Greenbelt turned 15 this past February, all four of Ontario’s political parties gathered at Queen’s Park to celebrate. According to Michael Young, communications advisor for the Greenbelt Foundation, the event was “a positive and convivial occasion, with a sense that we were all coming together with the shared belief that the Greenbelt must […] Read more
Food in its place
Canada’s top urban-agriculture advocate admits that mostly it isn’t farming. So why does he keep pushing?
Reading Time: 6 minutes “I took it as a compliment,” says Michael Ableman as he recalls being called a “food terrorist” by cooking celebrity Julia Childs. It was a charge she made after he spoke to a group of culinary professionals with a bag of groceries at his side. One by one, he took out the groceries and told […] Read more
Can COVID-19 save community supported agriculture?
Despite all the headlines, consumers have been slow to sign on to community supported agriculture. Now, COVID-19 is giving it fresh life, but farmers will still need a dose of business smarts
Reading Time: 6 minutes Every spring, Graham Sparrow asks the same question: Should I continue offering CSA shares? Sparrow has been selling shares of organic produce through the community supported agriculture (CSA) model since he started Sparrow’s Nest Organics more than 20 years ago. He admits, though, “I’ve always struggled to keep people interested and keep the CSA going.” […] Read more
Teamwork makes the dream work for this group of Alberta farmers
These five Alberta farms have built a co-op that reduces their costs, increases their efficiency, and gets them into markets they otherwise couldn’t tap. The big question is, could it work for you too?
Reading Time: 10 minutes For these five adventurous Alberta farmers, a co-op is more than a way to structure operations. It’s more, too, than the camaraderie and the mutual support they get from working together with the same goal in mind, important though that is. For this group, it’s also about profitability, and about efficiency, and about enhancing their […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
