[getsmart-l] Fw: [Discover Local Food] Stimulating the appetite for local food

[John O'Gorman]

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From: Discover Local Food 
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Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:07 AM
Subject: [Discover Local Food] Stimulating the appetite for local food


Stimulating the appetite for local food
 

March 3, 2008

Niagara Falls Review - Niagara Falls,Ontario,Canada

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=925722

Consider it a gentle shove into locavore life, compliments of the National Farmers Union. 

In November, members of the farm organization's Ontario chapter decided it was time to stimulate even more appetites for local food. They came up with a resolution they hope will reduce food kilometres and increase business for farmers, all the while putting more green into consumers' pockets for greening their diet. 

The NFU wants community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares to become tax deductible. 

"Anything that encourages people to support local farmers and eat local food is a good thing and sometimes people need that extra push," said Caitlyn Hall, who sits on the NFU youth advisory council and helped pass the resolution. 

Consumers who are part of a CSA essentially buy shares in a local farm. They make a commitment to buy produce from the farmer for a certain period of time, say for the summer, and the farmer plants accordingly. 

Hall started her own CSA on borrowed farmland north of Guelph last year, selling 20 shares to start. She plans to grow her operation to 60 this year. 

Joining a CSA is one way to reduce those pesky food kilometres that are becoming as common for some to count as calories. 

Given the average food item travels 2,500 kilometres from farm to plate, spewing greenhouse gasses during the journey, getting people to put more local food on their fork has been touted as one way to go green. 

In 2005, Waterloo Region's public health department studied the kilometres traveled by 58 of the most common foods eaten there - a place with a population size similar to Niagara. It found the imported versions of those foods - blueberries, broccoli, yogurt, garlic, apple juice and milk, for example - travelled an average 4,497 kilometres each, releasing 51,709 tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere en route. 

But all of those items could be produced on farms in southwestern Ontario, the report said, reducing food miles 18-fold and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 49,485 tonnes. That's the equivalent of taking 16,191 cars off the road. 

That's incentive enough for some people to buy local, but there are others might be deterred because produce from close to home can come affixed with a premium price tag.

Although consumers are paying for safe food whose origins they know, greening the planet by slashing food kilometres and helping a local farmer, eating local can take a bite out of one's wallet. It can make cheaper imports in the grocery store seem more appetizing. 

Making shares in a CSA tax deductible, though, might draw people on a budget to a local diet, Hall explained. 

"It could make it more status quo," Hall said. 

That's what's happening in Wisconsin, where health insurance companies are offering clients rebates between $100 and $200 a year for joining a CSA, which also typically offers organic produce. 

The response has been overwhelming, with some insurance companies needing two months just to process all the program registrants they've been getting. 

Farmers are also seeing shares in their CSAs - and their profits - grow, with some selling as many as 1,200 shares a year, Hall said. 

Here in Niagara, Linda Crago, an organic heirloom vegetable grower from Wainfleet who operates the only CSA in the region, applauds any effort to make local eating the norm. 

But she's not as convinced as Hall a tax deduction for joining a CSA will be enough to make more people hungry for local food. 

If anything, it may just be a case of feeding the converted. 

"I think people interested in supporting CSAs aren't really concerned about a tax break. I've had people say they would gladly pay more," Crago said. "Most people interested in a CSA are environmentally savvy and politically aware and know about where their food comes from." 

Still, a tax break may get prospective locavores out to the farm where conversations about the other benefits of a local diet are bound to start, Hall said. 

"Regardless of how (customers) come to me, I like to carry on the education ... about organic food, that it's become a big business," she said. 

"But there are implications beyond certification that make local food important, and it's good to support local farmers."

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