Ottawa farmers hope demand for locally produced foods will continue to grow.
The City of Ottawa is urging residents to spend $10 a week on locally cultivated produce and meats, in a campaign aimed at promoting personal and environmental health, as well as the regional economy.
The $10 Local Food Challenge, being promoted throughout September and October, is meant to build awareness of Savour Ottawa.
Savour Ottawa, a web service by the community group Just Food, helps direct people toward eateries that cook with locally grown foods.
The participant who pledges the most money toward local foods during the contest period will be awarded a $50 gift certificate for any restaurant on the Savour Ottawa website.
The reason behind the initiative, says Derrick Moodie, Ottawa’s rural affairs officer, is that “it keeps food dollars within the local economy, it also has obvious environmental impact – no trucking produce across the country – and it helps preserve farming heritage in the area.”
Heather Hossie, program manager of Savour Ottawa, notes that “the average Canadian farmer is about 54 years old – a lot will be retiring soon, so we need to support their industry now. It’s kind of like how we have family doctors, or dentists… some think we should have family farmers.”
Although local foods are not necessarily organically grown, the two concepts often go hand in hand among restaurateurs willing to pay a premium for what they see as a healthier choice.
Conventional farms often use chemical pesticides to maintain their crops, then harvest them before their prime, and use ethylene gas to ripen them en route to market.
According to Justine Craig, retail manager of The Red Apron, a Centretown meal delivery service, industrial methods make for a less appetizing product.
“Tomatoes, for example, are more nutritious when left to ripen on the vine in the sun,” says Craig, whose business is located at 564 Gladstone Ave. “They’re also more flavourful.”
Rob Wallbridge operates Songberry Organic Farm in Bristol, Que., and services the Centretown area.
Although he says that dealing purely locally and only in organic foods is costlier and more labour-intensive than working by conventional methods, he figures the benefits to both environmental and personal health outweigh the drawbacks.
“We implement various measures to ensure crop safety,” he says. “We rotate, use cover crops, companion planting, hand-picking, use covers and netting to keep bugs away, and only as a last resort use natural pesticides.” Wallbridge says he has lost more crops to bad weather than he has to pests.
Since he isn’t taking aggressive measures against the natural world, Wallbridge says, “You wander out into our fields and you’ll find it full of frogs and snakes and other wildlife, which you won’t see at most conventional farms.”
Buying local also means customers must take seasonal availability into account.
Most crops don’t grow during winter, except in greenhouses, which can themselves be detrimental to the environment. However there are certain local foods available year-round, such as meats, cheeses, eggs and other similar fare.
Hossie is also quick to point out that the $10 Local Food Challenge isn’t meant to convert participants completely to local food purchases.
“We’re not going to put the supermarkets out of business,” she says.
“Certainly people spend more than $10 a week on groceries,” says Moodie. “We’re just asking them to direct a part of their food dollars to local growers.”