Archive for September, 2009
Community, Events, Local
Urban Food Production Educational Event
An event organized and hosted by the environmental committee of the Unitarian Church of Calgary…
If you are interested in a role in urban food production, please join us on Sunday, September 20th from 4 to 7 pm at the Unitarian Church of Calgary 1st and 16th Ave NW to learn about extending your gardening results through freezing, canning and/or storing your crops. Ms. Linda Whitworth, home economist, will be our featured speaker. AND, enjoy with us a “150 km Supper” featuring Voyageur Stew, Borscht and a Saskatoon berry dessert.
Reservations are required by email to: garden.harfest@gmail.com OR by calling Gorham at 403-286-1794. Bring your family for a good time and supper. The cost is $5 per person plus a non-perishable food item to be donated to the Calgary Food Bank.
Thanks to the Community Spirits Grant Program of the Alberta Government for assistance in funding the event.
Slow Food Calgary
Okotoks Pumpkin and Scarecrow Festival
Press Release: September 15, 2009 (Okotoks)
Savour the beauty and magic of fall in the country by heading out to Okotoks this fall. Between September 26 and October 10, tour the town to view and vote on the unique “scarecrows for charity” as local businesses, teams and individuals are entering their unique scarecrows (for a $10 fee) into the contest. All proceeds from the entry fees will be donated to the winner’s charity of choice.
Take in a day of fall family fun at Kayben Farms, just outside Okotoks – Saturday September 26, October 3 and 10. The fun kicks off on September 26 at 9 am with a pancake breakfast put on by, and in support of, the Foothills Country Hospice Society. Says Allan Herchek, executive director: “We’re thankful for their interest in, and support of, the Hospice. We participated in the event last year and have decided to expand our involvement.
Continue reading this article …
Slow Food Calgary
In Defense of Buying and Eating Local
The August 31 Calgary Herald column (‘These beets? I don’t buy em – literally’) by Karin Klassen – whom I personally know as a smart and thoughtful woman — begs rebuttal. Ms. Klassen is right when she cites “the tourist attraction they call a farmer’s market”. She names no names, but I can only assume that she refers to the Calgary Farmers Market in Garrison Woods. I am not defending it: I too deplore its current state – for a farmers market, farmers are pretty thin on the ground; of nearly 100 vendors, fewer than 20% are Alberta growers. I hope that the new location next year will be more affordable for all concerned, with more growers at the table. Maybe she should ask the farmers why those beets cost more than the commercial ones at the supermarket. I suspect the response would be that the high rents the vendors must pay adds to what the beets must earn at the market. It takes a lot of beets to make a living.
Lucky for her, Ms. Klassen has other options is she wants affordable food. She can buy seeds and plant pots, a plot or a greenhouse next spring. That will cost less money, teach her kids how to feed themselves from the ground up, and giver her a better understanding of the hard work that growing is. Alternatively, she can go to one of the other half-dozen other farmers’ markets in the city, or to one of the 87 that are scattered across Alberta. Or she can go to the source and buy direct from the farmer: at a u-pick farm or as a subscriber to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). As a CSA member, she pays money up front – about $500 – for 20 weeis’ worth of harvest, or $25 per week for her share of the harvest.
If she is serious about cutting food costs, she can eat less meat in favour of more lentils and beans. If she wants to eat mass-produced chicken or beef, she certainly can. But maybe a scan of recurring newspaper headlines will remind her of the risks inherent in large-scale food production and processing of animals and produce. (As a by the by: Alberta needs more small-scale abbatoirs; and Alberta needs small farms where animals are necessary parts of the cycle, and not causes of waste management problems.) She could take her film crew out to Brooks to observe a large-scale slaughterhouse firsthand. Then I can connect her with a small outfit that is respectful of the animals they kill and cut on our behalf. A dead duck is more than just a dead duck: animals deserve respect in life and death, even more so if we are going to eat them.
But that does not address the real issue at the heart of Ms. Klassen’s letter: the value and meaning of food. Of course food has always been a commodity–there have always been markets, and growers, and buyers. But it strips away the dignity of eating, the dignity of farming, and the role of food in our lives, when we are willing to consider ‘grinding down’ its price. Food is at the heart of culture. As we eat together, so we make a society and a community. As we choose to spend our money, so we show what we most value. I wonder why we decry food’s cost but we don’t blink at the high costs of cars, movies, spas, clothing or entertainment. Those hockey Flames, for instance. Ms. Klassen cannot grind down the ticket vendor when she buys a pair of seats on the blue line.
Ms. Klassen says it is not her job to keep farmers in business, and wonders why local doesn’t equal cheaper.
There is nothing specious about the fact that food is not cheap to raise in Alberta. Labour costs more than in Third World countries. Heat and transport cost more. Land is astronomical. In Canada, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent census, only 230,000 Canadians are farmers, and operating farms in Alberta have dropped to fewer than 50,000. Why should we support a local farmer? Without support for farmers now that farmland will be sold and developed, and our choices will disappear. I don’t like that option. That’s why I buy local.
Ms. Klassen can have cheap Walmart food if she wants her kids to pay the price. The price is longterm: if we don’t support farmers NOW, we won’t have them in ten or twenty years. By then, oil will be a trickle. It will be much more costly to ship tasteless Chinese melons that are grown under unverifiable conditions and arrive without any food value, freshness or flavour left in them.
Those foods from far way are in all likelihood grown with genetically modified seeds that do little for taste and lots for durability, in order to withstand machine harvests and a long road trip. Factory farms produce few varieties of crops. Our gene pool of plants has plummeted since the onset of factory farming. What happens if those few commercial strains of melon are infected or wiped out? I am not interested in consuming engineered food that is not what Mother Nature intended it to be.
You can bet that the farmer who grew those cheap melons received the equivalent of only a few pennies for them. It is not the legit paisanos I have issues with — it’s the big companies who make a fortune off their backs, and the oil it gulps to get those foods from there to here. The money Ms. Klassen hands over to a farmer at the market or at the farmgate – or via small independent stores – goes into the farmer’s pocket, not into the many bulging pockets of middlemen and distributors and wholesalers and brokers and shippers. What makes matters worse is that farmers who sell into the big commodity pools get ten cents of your food dollar. Make a workable family budget with that, Ms. Klassen!
dee Hobsbawn-Smith is a chef, author, poet, advocate and educator, and president of Slow Food Calgary.
Slow Food Calgary
Farm Fundraiser – Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm
A month ago, a hail storm tore through Kris Vester’s Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm, destroying a large percent of his crop and damaging his home. Kris Vester is a big-hearted and passionate human being who is deeply committed to the calling of farming.
He attended Terra Madre 2008 as part of the Alberta contingent of growers. Now it is time for his community to support him as he has fed and supported us for many years.On Friday September 18 at Crescent Heights Community Centre, the culinary community is gathering in a fundraiser to ease the financial burden of such a major loss.
When: Friday September 18, 2009
Where: Crescent Heights Community Centre
Musical Entertainment: Stephen Van Kampen (and his solo beija flor), Matt Master solo, Jay Crocker (and band Ghost Keeper)
Tickets may be purchased at: The Coup, 924B – 17 Ave SW / 403-541-1041 OR at SunnySide Market 338-10 St. NW / 403-270-7477
Tickets are $20 in advance $25 at the door.
There will be door prizes and a silent art auction of donations from local artists and writers.
See you there!