by SUSAN MANN
The Ontario government will be asking agricultural stakeholders and the general public in the spring and summer for their thoughts on what goals should be set to ensure people have more access to local foods.
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will be consulting in the spring/summer with interested organizations to develop the goals. It will then post them online for public comment, Christina Crowley-Arklie, press secretary to Ontario Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal, says by email. She didn’t say when that online posting would occur.
“Goals established under the Local Food Act are aspirational in nature. They provide sector proponents with a common reference point to assist in aligning their efforts,” she says.
On Feb. 16, the government signaled it would be working on “increased access to local food” as its next area of focus under the Local Food Act, according to a statement on the Ontario agriculture ministry website. Passed in 2013, the Act supports the ministry’s local food strategy, which aims to promote Ontario foods and beverages and “make them more available in markets, schools, cafeterias, grocery stores and restaurants throughout Ontario,” the statement says.
Crowley-Arklie says “access starts with food being identifiable and widely available throughout a range of distribution channels.”
The main objective of increasing access to local food “is to advance Ontario’s local food strategy, which aspires to have more Ontario consumers enjoying local food more often and in more places,” Crowley-Arklie says.
The development of goals to increase access to local food is in addition to work the ministry has already done as part of its local food strategy to help boost access. For example, the Local Food Fund, a three-year program with up to $10 million annually in funding, supported innovative local food projects that marketed and promoted local food, and strengthened regional and local food networks. It was launched in 2013 and is now completed and no longer accepting applications.
During the spring/summer consultations “it’s expected that local food proponents will bring forward additional incentives to move forward on local food access,” she says.
It’s unlikely there will be any funding accompanying the new local food access goals when they’re implemented. Crowley-Arklie says a number of programs and organizations already provide funding for local food projects, including the Greenbelt Fund’s Local Food Investment Fund and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Leal will be releasing the second annual Local Food Report in June. The Act stipulates the agriculture minister must prepare an annual report highlighting the progress the ministry has made on local food activities. BF
Comments
Two nearby family-owned and operated grocery stores reveal the contradiction of and essential weaknesses of local food. One store, in Clinton, sells a 1 kg container of "No-name" Canadian honey for a regular price of $10 while the other store, in Blyth, sells a 1 kg container of honey produced at an apiary in nearby Wingham for a regular price of $13. The second grocery store in Clinton doesn't sell honey in 1 kg containers at all, and when it did, sold honey from an apiary in Hensall at prices well-in-excess of what the store charged for non-local honey.
It's like this:
(A) both products are Canadian honey - I didn't see any mention on the no-name container that what's inside is a blend of Canadian and imported honey.
(B) buying an extremely-local food product is costing Blyth consumers 30% more than Clinton consumers pay for the identical product, even though both are produced in Canada and, therefore, satisfy some constraint imposed on the definition of "local" food.
Even though I am at risk of being accused of "cherry-picking" because I picked an isolated example of how local foods can screw the consumer, it is, I suggest, an important example because after all, one container of Canadian honey is, or should be, exactly the same as every other container of Canadian honey.
It's time for local food to come down from its "ivory tower" and realize that the reality of the supermarket doesn't jibe with what local food advocates promote.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
"No name" and branded honey.
Retailers can choose different prices for each.
Consumers can choose to buy or not.
To a great extent, the term "branded honey" is as much an oxymoron as "branded milk" - they're both, as is maple syrup and even gasoline, commodities and, as such, there is not, nor can there be, any product differentiation whatsoever.
The same nonsense is currently unfolding in the French's/Heinz kerfluffle with Loblaws pointing out that if people truly do want Canadian catsup, their house brand is made from entirely Canadian tomatoes and is a better buy than the French brand - and really, other than some salt and/or spices, what's the difference between any of them? The "value for money" mantra of local food is, in this case, being lost in some sort of pedantic and puerile "so-there" gesture directed at Heinz.
The point being studiously avoided by the above poster is that if local food provides as much financial dis-incentive to consumers as this example of local honey, government and the agricultural industry's promotion of local food is doomed to failure.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
According to an article on page A18 of yesterday's Globe and Mail:
(A) Loblaw's own President's Choice ketchup is made in Winona, ON, albeit with California tomatoes
(B) the French company is American and even though it buys Ontario tomatoes, French's ketchup is bottled in Ohio for sale to consumers in Canada.
(C) Heinz commands some 85% of the Canadian ketchup market and also commands a price premium over other brands, meaning that French's faces a stiff uphill battle once the immediacy of the "so-there" fad against Heinz abates.
So, who best represents "local" in the ketchup war - a Canadian company importing tomatoes and bottling ketchup here, or a US company buying tomatoes here and bottling the ketchup in the US?
Furthermore, even though the honey example is a drop-dead simple demonstration of what can and does go wrong with local food, does the average consumer, and/or especially the government, understand enough about local food when, for example, it comes to ketchup (or anything else) to act, or even think logically?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
The original consumer backlash against Loblaws was for dropping a Canadian sourced product (tomatoes).One would assume that the Heinz plant closure was still on consumers minds, the Pesidents choice issue was brought in later by the media.
As for the inconsistency in honey prices, the real question would be what if their was an imported (clearly marked) brand of honey sitting on the same shelf that was cheaper than the Ontario honey, would consumers choose it instead? From what l have read on survey after survey of Canadian consumers the answer would be an unequivocal NO!
Rather than take my word for it, Syvain Charlebois, a professor at the University of Guelph was thusly quoted in Saturday's Globe and Mail article - "How consumers feel and what they actually do are two very different things."
The truth is, of course, to be found on the grocery shelf - if consumers weren't prepared to buy foreign products that are cheaper than domestic ones, the foreign products wouldn't continue to get shelf space. For example, in my local store, Indian gherkin pickles are about half the price of US produced Bicks gherkins and have been for years. There just simply aren't any Canadian gherkins on offer - the choice is US or Indian.
Therefore, the in-store reality is that unequivocally YES!, Canadian consumers are prepared to choose pickles from India over North American pickles, thereby reducing to rubble:
(A) the credibility of surveys of Canadian consumers expressing a desire for domestic and/or local food products.
(B) the credibility of the local food movement itself.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Post new comment