Nicole Elsasser

It’s a Monday evening and the eBar is packed. Every table is occupied, occasionally by separate parties sharing out of necessity, and all eyes are on Sarah Elton. Elton, a Toronto native, is in Guelph promoting her new book Locovore: From Farmers’ Fields to Rooftop Gardens – How Canadians Are Changing the Way We Eat, a detailed look at different initiatives all over the country attempting to resist the force of the industrial food system. Elton likened her talk at the eBar to preaching to the converted at one point to explain any pessimism in her message. Yet, even she admitted that the local food movement is catching on and Canada is ahead of the curve in many ways.

Elton was careful to balance the good with the bad in her book, highlighting the dangers of our industrial food system while sharing the triumphs— both large and small— of farmers and urban agriculture pioneers across the nation. A point she made very clear, however, was that with more and more people leaving agriculture every year because of a lack of financial security, it’s hard to be a farmer in Canada. But, according to Elton, the local food movement is helping little by little.

“We need to give the farmers a reason to stay and this is happening with the local food movement,” said Elton. “The farmers who are embedded in the local food system are just starting to figure out how to make a living and that doesn’t mean that they’re vacationing in the Bahamas every Christmas but people are starting to find a way to have some fiscal security. By checking out of the industrial food system they are also getting more control over what they do.”

The rise in popularity of the local food movement is difficult to ignore. As Elton explained, “food is hot right now” but that the change to a totally sustainable food system is by no means complete.

“I think that there’s a paradox…the largest growing sector of food in Canada is prepared foods and processed foods,” said Elton. “Is everybody cooking? No. But there is definitely [something]. How many people do you know who just started canning in the last two weeks? I know tons of people. Anecdotally there’s something going on.”

One demographic that has been particularly receptive to the local food movement and the quest for a more hands-on relationship with food is the university student and other likewise young adults.

“Now I’m meeting people who are just finishing university and I say, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ and they say, ‘I want to do urban agriculture,’” said Elton. “What a change in a few short years for something to be really fringe to become mainstream enough that there are enough people who are dreaming of doing urban agriculture. You can’t even get a volunteer job let alone a paid job.”

Kristi Mahy, a recent University of Guelph graduate, has become very involved in the local food movement in Guelph. Mahy has done several agricultural internships throughout the province and now holds workshops at the Guelph Youth Music Centre teaching skills in gardening, preserving and urban foraging among other things. According to Mahy, she has noticed a growing passion for sustainable and local food in her peers and sees it as a reaction to the industrial food many of them have grown up eating.

“My parents grew up in the 50s and 60s and there was this huge bent towards processed foods. I think there’s kind of a backlash from that because people started realizing the kinds of health problems and the disconnection from their food supply that they were experiencing was actually not as satisfying as they thought,” said Mahy. “Sure it only takes five minutes to microwave your dinner but is that really nourishing you properly and are you really connecting to the land through your food? We’re starting to realize that that’s not all we need to properly nourish ourselves…I think that our generation has realized that and are getting sick of the very sterile white breads and packaged foods and realizing that there are alternatives and that we can bring them back.”

Mahy currently lives on a homestead in Guelph that doubles as a growing sustainability initiative. The house, which has been called by the residents as The Onaen Project, is a model for sustainable living in a rental situation. Mahy and her roommates work together on a garden and the keeping of several egg-laying chickens. One of these roommates, Arthur Churchyard, is a U of G student who also doubles as the landlord of the house. Churchyard is also active in the local food movement in Guelph and has worked on a number of other initiatives locally outside of The Onaen Project. Churchyard explained that, by his calculation, the residents of Onaen are able to get about 60 per cent of their food either from their property or grown by someone who lives in the house. This number has grown from 15 per cent the year before. Everything else that is eaten by the residents of Onaen is sourced locally, includes condiments.

As Elton explained, in the industrial food system there are no seasons; asparagus and strawberries are available year round. Seasonality is another important pillar, both of the local food movement and of Onaen.

“The seasonal diet actually teaches you about how nature works,” said Churchyard. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a first priority for a lot of people, but it’s something that really drives me and interests me. Eating seasonally is also fresher which would increase the nutrient content. It tastes way better and if you’re going to be going out and eating seasonally, you’re also going to be sharing a kind of culture with people that involves rituals or times of eating. There’s the asparagus time of year or the strawberry time of year where you go out and you pick some strawberries. It becomes part of your culture as opposed to what you do before you watch TV at night.”

Mahy echoed these sentiments and explained the impact eating in season can have on local farmers.

“It’s really important to eat in season because right now in Ontario and in other parts of Canada we’re starting to lose our local food supply a bit,” said Mahy. “Farmers are going out of business or are finding it financially unsustainable to farm so we really need to support local farmers. Eating in season allows us to support our local growers and contribute to a secure food system locally instead of relying on food being shipped in from elsewhere.”

Talk of seasonality and supporting local farmers raises a subject of much debate dividing even those who are otherwise in agreement on the need for a more sustainable food system: is local actually more sustainable?

According to Elton, it is in many ways.

“It matters where your food is produced but it’s equally important how it’s produced,” said Elton. “The local food system allows you more of an opportunity to find out if your food is sustainably raised. That’s the beauty of the local food system. If the distance between me and the farmer is shorter, I can find out. I have no way of knowing what happens far away unless there’s a third party organization that exists to certify.”

Churchyard agrees with Elton that buying locally is the best way to ensure that the consumer’s definition of what is ethical is the same as the producer.

“Hands down, sure, use the word ‘sustainable,’ I’m happy with that,” said Churchyard. “But what is going to be a good indicator of that? How to do you define sustainable? And if we start narrowing down the different ways to start figuring out whether something’s sustainable or not, then local’s going to win. It’s going to do that because you can actually talk to or interact with and see the farming operation where you’re food comes from…so you can actually tell if that person is following whatever selling points that they’re telling you. So that’s something that you get locally that you wouldn’t get otherwise.”

According to Churchyard, he doesn’t find the ‘food-mile’ criticism (that food shipped in very large quantities from far away may actually produce less carbon emissions than producing small quantities locally) to be a sound argument against buying locally.

“Sustainable actually implies that your food is grown in a way that it could get to you,” said Churchyard. “As far as transportation goes, we don’t have a lot of options for renewable energy so in a sustainable food economy, you’re not going to get a lot of food from far away…The food miles criticism stands on the diet not actually changing that much. So you eat tomatoes in February and you try to get some fish from an aquaculture operation in January and those kinds of things don’t actually address the nature of the kinds of diet that we’re talking about which is seasonal and more community based as opposed to industrially based.”

According Churchyard and Mahy, the level of commitment that they demonstrate in their lives toward eating locally is involved but attainable to the average student. 

“I don’t think that the average student has time to do everything but I think that they can definitely choose which parts of their food preparation they want to be more involved in,” said Mahy. “They don’t have time to grow absolutely everything but maybe they can grow two different vegetables in their backyard…The first place to start would be the Farmer’s Market. It’s a really good place to interact with growers and ask them questions. They’re usually really forthcoming with recipes or ideas for preparation and just different ideas of what you can do with their produce.”

Churchyard suggests inspiring a discussion of local food by making it a social occasion.

“Say you have two or three friends who are interested in [local food]. Say you have none, you can start a potluck where people bring something that has a local ingredient,” said Churchyard. “Then the potluck is oriented around ‘What is the local ingredient that you brought?’ It’s easy because you don’t have to have all local ingredients which can be tough for new people and then it’s also social which gets people out and enjoying it and sort of sharing with each other.”

No matter the way an individual gets started thinking about the local food movement, Elton emphasized the urgent need for a change.

“I’m not suggesting that we need to go back to a time of [the past] and everybody is canning and curing their own meats,” said Elton. “What I’m suggesting is that we’ve lost something and we need to reconnect and go back in certain respects. We need to learn how to cook. We need to cook. We need restaurants to cook. So many restaurants just open a preseason rack of lamb and pop it in the oven and serve it to us as if they’ve made it themselves. At all aspects and all levels of the food chain, people need to get more engaged with food. Thanks to the local food movement and innovations like Slow Food, we are witnessing a cultural shift.”

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