Local vs Organic and Defining Sustainablity: COG Conference Part III

The topic of my last entry on the Canadian Organic Grower’s Conference is the idea of buying local versus buying organic. The main idea is that you shouldn’t have to pick between the two and that sound food choices should be made on sustainability.

The state of current food choices is a direct result of financial concerns becoming paramount about 50 years ago. Today, issues such as ecological balance, chemicals and GMO are taking precedence. I will start with the naysayers who suggest that the idea that “food miles” should be a factor in making food choices because of the environmental benefits may actually be a fallacy. This was reasoned as follows by Laura Telford, the COG Executive Director. In general, food accounts for 16-17% of energy expenditure in society. Of this, 20% is production (pesticides, fertilizers, basically all the inputs), 10% is transportation and another 25% is end point storage and prep (i.e. your fridge and cooking). The argument goes that it would be worthwhile focusing on refrigeration or the inputs before tackling the transportation. Another point she made was that local does not necessarily mean sustainable. However, she pointed out that it is very important for Canada to have food sovereignty because of the issues that happened with imports just after 9/11.

So what does sustainable mean? The people from Local Food Plus did a good job of this. Local Food Plus is an NPO that encourages buying local. Their argument is that with urban sprawl, we are losing precious farmland and we need to support local farmers. Sustainable operations should be:

1. Local 2. Financially viable 3. Have ecological integrity (i.e. organic) 4. Socially responsible 5. Respectful of other species

What was really interesting is that the University of Toronto is one of its biggest supporters, with 15% of food available on campus being LFP. You might see some of these labels and signs on campus.

Overall, what I took home from this was that it is good to buy local, but not crucial. If you want organic bananas from Chile, there isn’t a huge concern about the distance they have traveled. On the other hand, why buy pesticide ridden garlic from China when you can buy amazing, fresh, organic garlic from right here in Ontario. What matters most is how sustainable the methods used in the production of the food are.

Ensuring Organic Integrity: COG Conference Part II

Here’s the second entry on the Canadian Organic Growers conference and it deals with the break out session on ensuring organic integrity

So everybody knows that most organic produce and meats come with a sticker ensuring us that it’s organic. However, the stickers can vary and often times consumers second guess these labels when they are all different. This is about to change because in December 2008, there will be a common organic label in Canada that will be enforced.

I knew that the certification process was complex. How complex though, I had no idea. It has become so complex that it resembles a genome-wide protein-protein interaction map (if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself lucky). It’s multi-layered and consists of many entities. Basically, there are 3 or 4 international accreditation groups that regulate about 24 Canadian certification agencies. The certification process is all based on the Precautionary Principle and the certifiers actually visit the farms, usually once a year, to ensure guidelines are being met.

What wasn’t clear (and several people tried to ask this question) was how much extra does the certification process add to the farmers’ expenses and how much of this is passed on to the consumer? This entire process is also tedious for the farmers because as per the certification agencies: “If it isn’t written down, then it didn’t happen.” So farmers are literally taking notes about which animals are moved, where the produce moves to and from, all day. Often times it’s thought, because of this process, organic farms have to have many more layers of check points than conventional farms.

It’s kind of funny because the conventional food, that 98% of us eat, doesn’t seem to be put through the same vigorous safety and health standards. But then again, that’s why some of us are willing to pay more for organic products.

Canadian Organic Growers Conference Part I

I attended the Organic Growers Conference today in Toronto. There were quite a few highlights (and lowlights) so I’ll blog about it in parts.

The conference was held at the U of T conference centre, the old Colony Hotel on Chestnut St. which is now a student residence. The day started out with a lowlight, unfortunately. A Native performer opened up the conference with a 20 minute yodeling and drum session that was music interlaced with screaming and discussions of spirit guides. I initially thought “Oh no! What did I sign up for?” Luckily, this was then end of the hokeyness.

The keynote speaker was Helge Hellberg, a German transplanted to sunny California. He’s the executive director of Marin Organic. It’s a non-profit trying to make Marin County the first all organic county in the U.S. Just north of San Francisco, he painted a picture of well-to-do organic farmers, praised by their communities and a toxin-free environment. One interesting story dealt with how Prince Charles is an organic proponent and how he visited the County on a visit. Although he was mostly full of himself, I think that the work that his company is doing shows that organic farming can be sustainable, and that includes financially.

The rest of the day was filled with “Break Out” sessions, some of which were very interesting, and I’ll cover those later. I must point out though that everything food-wise was of course organic. We got a “doggy bag” with yummy organic food to sample. The tea and coffee were great. The lunch was very good and I enjoyed a multiple helping of organic braised beef…