Ian McCormick is one of the new generation of Canadian farmers.  Thanks to programs like FarmStart and CRAFT (Canadian Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), new farmers — young people and folks who often didn’t grow up farming — are trying their hand at small-scale production.  FarmStart helps develop a new generation of farmers by leasing […] More »

I haven’t had a reaction to animal rights as vivid as I did this weekend since I converted to vegetarianism on my 13th birthday. My family has never really done steak, so for my 13th birthday I asked if we could go to a steak house as a rare treat (no pun intended).  My parents […] More »

Last fall, a local Ontario organic apple and pear farmer in my area let our community come and harvest apples for free.  A whole bundle of folks trekked out to the orchard, loaded kids in wagons and wheelbarrows,  and chose our implements of choice – ladders, milk crates, long sticks with burlap bags on the […] More »

This month marked the inaugural Urban Agriculture Summit in Toronto featuring Will Allen as keynote speaker, author of the Good Food Revolution and founder of Growing Power, Inc. On his website he says, “My vision is to have this world where everyone has access to good food … my work is to help to make […] More »

Well, it’s nearly August and Margaret Wente’s abrasive views notwithstanding, I am still standing by my local Community Shared Agriculture program in this raging drought. (If you’re looking for a fight, check out her column from earlier this month where she says, “[locavorism is] the most wasteful, inefficient way to feed the human race you […] More »

It’s grounding to read about permaculture from my garden, which was, as my neighbours don’t hesitate to tell me, once a “prize winning garden” until the former owner let it “naturalize.” Naturalize here is not said with an optimistic smile but rather a raised eyebrow in the direction of the golden rod and wild grape […] More »

On June 9, protesters gathered outside of Nunavut grocery stores and on Parliament Hill to decry Canada’s shoddy food security situation, highlighted in last month’s scathing UN report.  At the helm of the June protests is Leesee Papatsie from Iqaluit. Papatsie started the facebook page Feeding My Family, which now boasts 21,500 members. The page […] More »

UN condemns Canada’s lack of food security. If I’d pursued political cartooning instead of sociology, I would be sketching a picture of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney with his mouth full of cheap imported bananas. He’d have one hand over the mouth of UN rapporteur Olivier De Schutter, and the other  distributing food aid “to starving […] More »

Are we only interested in ourselves? The recent uproar over the provocative (dare I say titillating) May 2012 Time magazine cover on attachment parenting has got me thinking again about local food. The old joke among lactating mothers is that breast milk is the most local you can get. The other thing about the article […] More »

A ploughman’s lunch and a local craft brew in Antigonish, N.S., and you already paid the bill—two years ago. The community shared/supported agriculture (CSA) model has been around since the 1990s in Canada.  In case you’re not familiar with it, the idea is that consumers pay for their season’s produce up front, in the early […] More »