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Somewhere in Ottawa, a shopping cart is being steered through a cavernous supermarket. Like a scene from a sci-fi horror flick, the soulless aisles brim with microwaveable frankenfood and flavourless produce. Mindless pop tunes drone hypnotically in the background. Antiseptic fumes waft from the floor. “Didyafindeverythinyouwerelookinfor?” chime the cashiers. “Anddidyaneedabagtoday?” Neon yellow signs trumpet, “Our prices will surely never ever be beat!”
Somewhere else in Ottawa, a folk singer is serenading a crowd. Farmers display baskets of freshly picked produce. Sheep’s milk yogurt is sold here, alongside honey and wild boar meat. These farmers know where their food comes from, how it was sown and grown. Of course, farmers’ market prices will “surely always forever be beat” by supermarkets, but wedged within that price differential lie stirring exploits and a profound debate.
Chantal Gillet is the Joan of Arc of sheep farming, with visions of yogurt and ice-cream dancing in her head. After working as a structural steel estimator, a bout of cancer prompted her to question her diet. In 2010, for her birthday, while other people her age vacillated between soaking at a spa or vacationing in Cancun, Chantal bought herself a dairy cow along with milking equipment. She decided to tackle the sheep milk business in part because it was unusual. “I like to be different,” she says.
Gillet visited sheep farms in Europe, then spent six months puzzling over yogurt-making recipes before selling her first batch at a health food store. In the end, she succeeded beyond her imagination. Bridgehead became one of Gillet’s biggest customers.
Chantal Gillet visited sheep farms in Europe, then spent six months puzzling over yogurt-making recipes before selling her first batch at a health food store.
I visit Gillet’s farm, La Bergerie Des Sables, in Curran, an hour’s drive east of Ottawa. The farm is postcard perfect, with plump sheep munching grass and hay on an idyllic summer day. Gillet hands me a cup of her yogurt. It turns out to be the best damned yogurt I have tasted in my life: smooth and fresh, with just enough butteriness to vault me into the heavens.
Given the broad range of farming enterprises that could fall under the labels of sustainable or ethical, it’s hard to precisely gauge the impact that these notions are having on consumers. However, according to a recent report from the Retail Council of Canada, more than half of Canadians now buy organic foods weekly. Advocates say it’s an issue of trust, of knowing that local hands are producing the food we’re eating.
An hour’s drive west of Ottawa, near the hills of Packenham, Scott Sigurdson and Marisa Buccione are busy tending to rows of onions, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, bok choy, lettuce and fruit trees on their farm, Indian Creek Orchard Gardens. Sigurdson was a magazine publisher and graphic designer who enjoyed fancy cars and the comforts of city life before embracing a rural one; Buccione worked with Alzheimer’s patients.
The turning point for the pair was a road trip to California. “Where’s the food going to come from when California runs out of water?” Sigurdson wondered. “It occurred to me, there’s gonna be food shortages. What can I do to mitigate that?” Sigurdson and Buccione launched their vegetable farm — they are both vegans — based on innovative sustainable farming practices, such as intensive water reusage, layering of multiple plant species to thwart pests, nutrient-dense compost tea and an eco-friendly farmhouse that looks like a centrefold from an architect’s magazine, featuring triple-glazed windows, underground air conduits and a temperature-moderating foundational slab.
Scott Sigurdsson and Marisa Buccione have been running their organic farm, Indian Creek Orchard Gardens, since 2015.
Sigurdson says sustainable farming is by far the most creative endeavour he has ever undertaken. Just figuring out how to keep the plants healthy without pesticide use was a monumental task. A year after starting their farm, Sigurdson and Buccione sold out their year’s allotment of CSA (community-supported agriculture) food shares in a mere week. As Sigurdson observes, their customers are not just buying vegetables; they’re buying a vision of sustainable living.
Marisa Buccione.
I’m standing in the midst of thousands of flying honeybees. The beekeeper has pulled out a rack from a hive and is probing for the queen. The workers buzz in apparent annoyance. Neither of us are wearing protective suits.
“Do these bees sting?” I ask.
“Not on nice days… but there are occasional jerks. Just like with humans.”
Brian Lacey tends honeybees on his land in Vars and on several other properties scattered around the region. Like a young Socrates, bearded and thoughtful, he points out a paradox: Honeybee operators derive much income from working with large agricultural operations where the bees are exposed to deadly pesticides, and hence colonies must be regularly replenished with imports of new queens from abroad.
Brian Lacey has discovered there is money to be made from supplying starter beehives to urban hobbyists and farmers.
A graduate from the University of Guelph’s Ecology program and former bee inspector, Lacey decided he would not compromise his principles by importing foreign queen bees in his own business, though losses over a winter can be devastating, cutting the population of a hive by more than half.
Besides selling honey under the whimsical label of “Blue Shoes Honey” at farmers’ markets, he also discovered last year that there is considerable income to be made from supplying starter beehives to urban hobbyists and farmers, part of a growing interest and awareness of the ecological role of bees, and also of the worldwide depletions in bee populations in recent decades.
Lacey donates 10 per cent of his profits toward efforts to maintain wild pollinators. I purchase a jar of buckwheat honey for my son, knowing he will delight in spreading it on his morning toast, but also that I have invested in one of the most conscientious farmers in the Ottawa region.
For sustainably and ethically raised meat, there may be no better place to turn than Kiefro Wild Boar Farm in Clarence-Rockland. I first met Gerry Oleynik and his wild boars a few years ago while doing research for a book on the history of the human diet. After back problems forced Oleynik to abandon his landscaping day job, he hacked a farm out of raw forest and started to raise wild boar to support his family. The adult males and females roam in spacious enclosures, and the younger ones are raised in a nursery, for their own safety. The reward, for all of this labour, is extraordinarily flavourful meat. Once I started eating Oleynik’s wild boar, I never wanted to eat supermarket pork again, which I think tastes like particle board in comparison to their wild kin.
The boars are raised in a humane manner, in a spacious setting.
Oleynik’s customers become fanatical about buying his meat, but he admits he faces a struggle in selling the virtues of wild boar to a public that was raised on “pork, beef and chicken.”
As I leave the boar farm with a package of boar meat safely tucked away in the car, bidding adieu to Oleynik, his wife Sophie, and their rambunctious son, Kiefer, I wonder to myself what transformations await Kiefro Wild Boar Farm over the next few years.
A revolution across Ottawa is taking place, a shift from buying food in supermarkets to buying food from small farmers, which is good news for Oleynik and other local farmers; but supermarket food will always be cheaper, produced in ways that are less kind to the environment and often to our bodies.
As Chantal Gillet said to me, “Instead of asking why local food is so expensive, we should be asking: why is supermarket food so cheap?”
The question is: how many of us non-farmers are willing to back our convictions with our wallets?
Gerry Oleynik and his wife Sophie Lalande raise wild boars on their farm. Their son Kiefer Oleynik is seen helping them out.
查看原文...
Somewhere else in Ottawa, a folk singer is serenading a crowd. Farmers display baskets of freshly picked produce. Sheep’s milk yogurt is sold here, alongside honey and wild boar meat. These farmers know where their food comes from, how it was sown and grown. Of course, farmers’ market prices will “surely always forever be beat” by supermarkets, but wedged within that price differential lie stirring exploits and a profound debate.
Chantal Gillet is the Joan of Arc of sheep farming, with visions of yogurt and ice-cream dancing in her head. After working as a structural steel estimator, a bout of cancer prompted her to question her diet. In 2010, for her birthday, while other people her age vacillated between soaking at a spa or vacationing in Cancun, Chantal bought herself a dairy cow along with milking equipment. She decided to tackle the sheep milk business in part because it was unusual. “I like to be different,” she says.
Gillet visited sheep farms in Europe, then spent six months puzzling over yogurt-making recipes before selling her first batch at a health food store. In the end, she succeeded beyond her imagination. Bridgehead became one of Gillet’s biggest customers.
Chantal Gillet visited sheep farms in Europe, then spent six months puzzling over yogurt-making recipes before selling her first batch at a health food store.
I visit Gillet’s farm, La Bergerie Des Sables, in Curran, an hour’s drive east of Ottawa. The farm is postcard perfect, with plump sheep munching grass and hay on an idyllic summer day. Gillet hands me a cup of her yogurt. It turns out to be the best damned yogurt I have tasted in my life: smooth and fresh, with just enough butteriness to vault me into the heavens.
•
Given the broad range of farming enterprises that could fall under the labels of sustainable or ethical, it’s hard to precisely gauge the impact that these notions are having on consumers. However, according to a recent report from the Retail Council of Canada, more than half of Canadians now buy organic foods weekly. Advocates say it’s an issue of trust, of knowing that local hands are producing the food we’re eating.
An hour’s drive west of Ottawa, near the hills of Packenham, Scott Sigurdson and Marisa Buccione are busy tending to rows of onions, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, bok choy, lettuce and fruit trees on their farm, Indian Creek Orchard Gardens. Sigurdson was a magazine publisher and graphic designer who enjoyed fancy cars and the comforts of city life before embracing a rural one; Buccione worked with Alzheimer’s patients.
The turning point for the pair was a road trip to California. “Where’s the food going to come from when California runs out of water?” Sigurdson wondered. “It occurred to me, there’s gonna be food shortages. What can I do to mitigate that?” Sigurdson and Buccione launched their vegetable farm — they are both vegans — based on innovative sustainable farming practices, such as intensive water reusage, layering of multiple plant species to thwart pests, nutrient-dense compost tea and an eco-friendly farmhouse that looks like a centrefold from an architect’s magazine, featuring triple-glazed windows, underground air conduits and a temperature-moderating foundational slab.
Scott Sigurdsson and Marisa Buccione have been running their organic farm, Indian Creek Orchard Gardens, since 2015.
Sigurdson says sustainable farming is by far the most creative endeavour he has ever undertaken. Just figuring out how to keep the plants healthy without pesticide use was a monumental task. A year after starting their farm, Sigurdson and Buccione sold out their year’s allotment of CSA (community-supported agriculture) food shares in a mere week. As Sigurdson observes, their customers are not just buying vegetables; they’re buying a vision of sustainable living.
Marisa Buccione.
•
I’m standing in the midst of thousands of flying honeybees. The beekeeper has pulled out a rack from a hive and is probing for the queen. The workers buzz in apparent annoyance. Neither of us are wearing protective suits.
“Do these bees sting?” I ask.
“Not on nice days… but there are occasional jerks. Just like with humans.”
Brian Lacey tends honeybees on his land in Vars and on several other properties scattered around the region. Like a young Socrates, bearded and thoughtful, he points out a paradox: Honeybee operators derive much income from working with large agricultural operations where the bees are exposed to deadly pesticides, and hence colonies must be regularly replenished with imports of new queens from abroad.
Brian Lacey has discovered there is money to be made from supplying starter beehives to urban hobbyists and farmers.
A graduate from the University of Guelph’s Ecology program and former bee inspector, Lacey decided he would not compromise his principles by importing foreign queen bees in his own business, though losses over a winter can be devastating, cutting the population of a hive by more than half.
Besides selling honey under the whimsical label of “Blue Shoes Honey” at farmers’ markets, he also discovered last year that there is considerable income to be made from supplying starter beehives to urban hobbyists and farmers, part of a growing interest and awareness of the ecological role of bees, and also of the worldwide depletions in bee populations in recent decades.
Lacey donates 10 per cent of his profits toward efforts to maintain wild pollinators. I purchase a jar of buckwheat honey for my son, knowing he will delight in spreading it on his morning toast, but also that I have invested in one of the most conscientious farmers in the Ottawa region.
•
For sustainably and ethically raised meat, there may be no better place to turn than Kiefro Wild Boar Farm in Clarence-Rockland. I first met Gerry Oleynik and his wild boars a few years ago while doing research for a book on the history of the human diet. After back problems forced Oleynik to abandon his landscaping day job, he hacked a farm out of raw forest and started to raise wild boar to support his family. The adult males and females roam in spacious enclosures, and the younger ones are raised in a nursery, for their own safety. The reward, for all of this labour, is extraordinarily flavourful meat. Once I started eating Oleynik’s wild boar, I never wanted to eat supermarket pork again, which I think tastes like particle board in comparison to their wild kin.
The boars are raised in a humane manner, in a spacious setting.
Oleynik’s customers become fanatical about buying his meat, but he admits he faces a struggle in selling the virtues of wild boar to a public that was raised on “pork, beef and chicken.”
•
As I leave the boar farm with a package of boar meat safely tucked away in the car, bidding adieu to Oleynik, his wife Sophie, and their rambunctious son, Kiefer, I wonder to myself what transformations await Kiefro Wild Boar Farm over the next few years.
A revolution across Ottawa is taking place, a shift from buying food in supermarkets to buying food from small farmers, which is good news for Oleynik and other local farmers; but supermarket food will always be cheaper, produced in ways that are less kind to the environment and often to our bodies.
As Chantal Gillet said to me, “Instead of asking why local food is so expensive, we should be asking: why is supermarket food so cheap?”
The question is: how many of us non-farmers are willing to back our convictions with our wallets?
Gerry Oleynik and his wife Sophie Lalande raise wild boars on their farm. Their son Kiefer Oleynik is seen helping them out.
查看原文...
