What Eating Local Means for Us - Part 1

.........to everything ...there is a season, turn, turn, turn and a time to every purpose.........

I heard someone on the radio say something about the new Canada food Guide that really bugged me. Canadians were going to have to rely more on imported food in order to follow it. The idea was probably conceived by a meat or dairy lobbyist. Sadly, most Canadians will take that statement on face value as a reality that cannot be avoided.

What a capitulation! It completely disregards how our ancestors ate, and ignores the data; they didn't suffer from half the diseases we do today!

I live in Calgary, probably the toughest place to grow food in Canada. Due to climate change, our plant hardiness zone was re-designated in 2016 from 3b to 4a, based on an increase in average temperature. What those numbers don't reveal is the extremes we continue to face here:

• Quick thaw-and-freeze-again cycles due to warm, dry and intermittent winds called Chinooks
• Hot dry days followed by cool summer nights that slow down growth
• Crop-destroying hail that can happen with little warning at the height of our growing season.

It makes Calgarians bitter and envious at times, but it also steels our resolve to beat nature into submission. It's not enough to really, really want that juicy tomato! Determined gardeners finally learn by trial and error to invest in shelters to get the damn thing to ripen on the vine.

This is all well and good for people with the time and space to grow what they will eat half the year at best. In the summer and fall, we all have a much broader choice in where to get our produce. The biggest problem I face in August is what to do with all the zucchinis my friends give me. The real issue that needs addressing is where can urban populations access produce the rest of the time?

The good news is consumer demand has created niche markets that small growers and enterprising re-sellers are beginning to fill. There are several successful distribution hub models already around and I want to explore all of them at some point, but I will begin part 2 with the one I am most familiar with.