January 2009
January 2009
Winter is a great time to learn more about local food and farming, and world food issues, too. If you’re in the mood to curl up with a good book, check out Slow Food Toronto’s thought-provoking reading list. Or, come and join us at the Guelph Organic Conference:
The New Face of Farmers’ Markets - Open Forum
Hosted by: Toronto Farmers’ Market Network
Saturday, January 24,12:00 noon - 1.30 p.m.
Guelph Organic Conference & Expo, University of Guelph
McNaughton Building, Room 118
With concerns growing around disease, climate change, food safety, GMOs, loss of farmland, farmers’ income and struggling local economies, farmers’ markets offer communities numerous opportunities to address these issues. When consumers buy direct from local farmers who employ sustainable methods, they’re ensuring a future for farm families, fostering markets for new farmers and allowing them to make a viable living. A strong consumer education component and many special activities are also part of the “new” farmers’ market, and help bridge the gap between “where we are’’ and “where we need to be”. But farmers’ markets also face many hurdles such as lack of funding for staff, advertising, and signage, inadequate access to water and hydro, and government policies that often apply to markets yet don’t address their needs because the policies themselves were not created with markets in mind.
This will be a free forum open to all farmers’ market organizers, farmers, producers, and anyone interested in farmers’ markets on the topic of what’s working, what’s not, and what’s needed in our region’s farmers’ markets, which are still very much works in progress.
Are we building the consumer base as quickly as the number of markets? Is the trip into town worth it for enough farmers? Where do we need to go from here?
The discussion will be moderated by Project Co-ordinator for The Hamilton Eat Local Project, Karen Burson, founder of Bread & Roses Organic Cafe and Slow Food Hamilton.While the time allotted is brief, we’ll get things going with a couple of short, prepared statements, one by an “educated consumer”, Pamela Cuthbert, Slow Food advocate, journalist and market shopper, and the other by Sarah Bakker, a young Black Angus beef producer from Field Sparrow Farms, who has participated in a number of markets in the area.
We hope this will be just a start, to get people sharing ideas and concerns that can help us move forward, and that it will also encourage people to connect with market managers at the display table in the Lower Lobby on Saturday and Sunday.
About the Guelph Conference: Celebrating its 28th year, the four-day event includes international speakers, seminars and introductory workshops on frontline topics including GMOs, organic production and certification, food in a changing climate, eco-villages, earth buildings, farmland protection and food security. From producer to eater, the workshops offer something for everyone.
PLUS an Organic Expo and Tasting Fair with 160+ exhibitors on Saturday and Sunday, free to the public. This is your opportunity to sample and purchase a plethora of organic, fair trade products and meet the makers, movers and shakers and discover how to make some positive changes in your life.
Enjoying the pleasures of winter indoors? Well, chop up some delicious Ontario root vegetables to roast or put a pot of soup on the back burner, open some pickles, make some applesauce…the comfort foods of the season are a special treat.