Direct Action

Independent Grocers go Local

- Adam Clare

In Ontario a handful of grocery stores stopped being part of a franchise so they can support local grown food from farmers in their communities. It’s great to see the grocers taking such a bold move and that their customers support them in the decision.

For his part, Peter Knipfel says he’s discovering more about what’s growing locally. At his store, he says grape tomato sales have tripled since the switch to a local producer.
“We are now a group of nine stores that probably have a little bit of buying power to buy larger quantities of local tomatoes, larger quantities of cucumbers from, say, some of the Mennonite farmers that are producing it at Elmira market, for example,” he says.

Mary Copp has shopped at Kropf’s store in Elora for 30 years. She says she noticed the changes immediately. “I think it’s great because we look for local, and you can get it here. You can’t get it at [chain-store rival] Zehrs … well, sometimes you can, but not as much.”

Shopper Linda Tompkins of Chesley agrees, “I don’t want food from some place else when we’ve got food right here. Support our farmers.”

Still, Warriner predicts that while that more consumers are asking for local produce, they will always be the minority. The University of Guelph professor says like organic produce, local will always be a niche market because mass production generally leads to cheaper prices.

Co-op members concede some of their wares are more expensive than those of the competition, but add that on average they are competitive. “We’re not saying we’re the cheapest but we’re certainly not the most expensive either,” says Knipfel.

Kropf adds that the ability to offer locally produced food is ultimately about quality first, price second.

Thanks go to Dan Harrison for the scoop!

Urban Farming for Fun and Profit

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

In the urban centre of Toronto, Sarah Nixon makes a living by growing flowers in other people’s yards and then selling the plants. She is part of a growing trend among sustainable urbanities who are farming in the city.

Nixon’s farm isn’t out near Milton or Orillia. It’s on Indian Rd. and Marion St. – just a few blocks from Roncesvalles in the city’s west end. She grows flowers in back and front yards around Parkdale and then sells them for weddings, office receptions and, perhaps this season, to one Ossington Ave. florist.

What do the landowners get in return?

“They get a free flower garden without lifting a finger,” says Nixon with a smile.

Nixon is part of the new wave of farming, called SPIN – small plot intensive farming – which is growing in cities across North America. Riding on the crest of the local food wave, SPIN is cashing in on a new eager market.

There are some surprising benefits to growing crops in the city, says the movement’s leader, Wally Satzewich.

You can’t turn a tractor in a tiny backyard, so there are fewer expensive start-up investments, for one. Then, there’s the city’s asphalt, which absorbs the sun’s heat and makes us all sweat more on hot summer nights. But, for farmers, it means a longer growing season in the spring and fall. And there is the garden hose.

“All I have to do is turn on the water faucet in the house and there is irrigation,” says Satzewich, who moved from his 20-acre farm outside Saskatoon into the city 10 years ago. “If I had to go back to getting my tractor to a river bank and getting the pump going … When you’ve learned the hard way out in the country you really appreciate the benefits of the city.”

Love Trees

- Adam Clare

Mike sent in a note letting us know that the campers at Camp Wenonah are planting trees to make the world a little better. The trees were donated from the business Love Trees which aims to, obviously, plant more trees.

From Mike:

Each camper, POLARIS, and WCIT is planting a tree at Camp this Period thanks to donations from LoveTrees. Neat little idea – they donated 2000 trees to the Canadian Camping Association

More on Love Trees:

Love Trees is a business built on giving.

  • giving kids a Wish Tree as an educational tool to as many children as we can;
  • giving businesses and individuals a chance to help kids and the planet by purchasing tree planting certificates;
  • giving the planet more trees;
  • giving environmental charities a portion of every sale

    • .

Love Trees manages a powerful and unique educational tree planting program. We sell Wish Tree Certificates to clients worldwide. Love Trees then donates and distributes tree seedlings to schools and kid’s organizations in North America and Africa so kids can have a Wish Tree to plant and make a wish for the planet. It’s a great way to learn about the environment – and help make the world a better place!

1,000 Chinese Youth Educating People About the Environment

- Adam Clare

The United Nations and China have started a program this summer that will employ 1,000 youth to talk about the environment. The youth will teach people how to be more conscious about the environment and what individuals can do to protect it.

Through a new training program called “One Thousand Environment-Friendly Youth Ambassadors Action,” eight Chinese ministries, along with the UNDP, hope to educate 1 million people about the actions they can take to preserve the environment and limit climate change.
The program started last month with training for 1,000 high school and college students in Beijing (north China), Shanghai (east), Xi’an (northwest), Chengdu (southwest) and Guangzhou (south).
Each young ambassador is expected to train another 1,000 people, hence one million people around the nation will be informed of professional environmental knowledge. The program is sponsored by the national Center for Environmental Education and Communication, China Environmental Awareness Program, Ministry of Environmental Protection, UNDP and Johnson Controls.

This Summer Use Social Media for Good

- Adam Clare

Mashable has put together a short collection of five good uses of social media this summer. It’s good to see all these practical uses for social media and hopefully we’ll see some real world changers come out of these initiatives.

People are talking green online. Between the Obama administration’s unwavering focus on environmental initiatives as part of the economic recovery and the upcoming U.N. Conference this December in Copenhagen to revise and strengthen the Kyoto environmental pacts, green conversations are taking place everywhere.

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