We are just past Local Food week, so here's an idea: let's make it local food week again. Every week.
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You probably wouldn't get much argument from local farmers and a lot of people who buy from local farmers like the idea.
In fact there is talk going around the concession roads of Ontario that now would be an ideal time for farmers to start growing more fruits and veggies, what with prices peaking because of that dry spell in California.
And yes, I know it's not as easy as scattering a few pea seeds on the ground to get into the veggie business.
It takes time and you need a business plan.
Meet Theresa VanDamme she and her husband started a strawberry direct sales operation because they thought the popularity of local food was on an upswing.
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The lesson would seem to be to take advantage of your assets, work with your customers and stick to the plan.
Now here's a lesson on the importance of local food and possible the importance of stressing the importance of local food.
Meet Kelly Deline: Along with other family members she owns a pickle grading station. They bring in cucumbers in season, grade them and ship them off to other places, like the United States to be made into pickles.
At one time those pickles were pickled in Ontario, but that's another story.
Today Deline and her relatives have their own line of pickles, and as she explains the situation, it just sort of happened.
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People liked the product enough, they started selling them, and people are buying them.
OK it's a much smaller segment of the pickle industry than Ontario used to have, but it's here. It's providing a product for an Ontario food producer to make on their behalf, more cash flow for the area retailers that carry their product, and perhaps a sense of pride for the workers they hire for the summer.
We would hope it is also profitable, or has the potential to soon be profitable.
So a few pickles here, a few strawberries there. Not a bad start for a couple of families.
Is it enough to replace the mounds of food that Ontario brings in from California? Certainly not.
But put the power of Ontario agriculture, that is to say put the innovative intelligence of Ontario farmers to work, you never know what is likely to happen.
