Food Down the Road

Good morning everyone,

I'm not personally acquainted with Aric McBay or any of the others involved with Food Down the Road, but I'm absolutely inspired by the interesting and useful articles that fill their most recent issue.

The Food Down the Road newspaper is a publication of National Farmers Union Local 316, in their own words "your connection to local food in Kingston and countryside."

I was lucky enough to be given a copy of the printed edition - way down here in London - by Karen Eatwell, executive secretary of the Ontario NFU and co-partner, with her husband Peter Duenk, of Duenk (organic) Farms. (http://eatwellfoodsatduenkfarm.blogspot.com/

I won't mind if you skip the rest of this blog entry to go straight to the on-line version of Food Down the Road. The brilliant people involved actually had a flash mob of 100 people show up at the Kingston Farmers' Market on June 4, mingling and reading the latest edition of the newspaper. (www.fooddowntheroad.ca)

The lead item is titled Food Sovereignty. Aric McBay, its author, says that "At its core, the idea of food sovereignty is simple: communities should have a say in where and how their food is grown." McBay explains that all of us are affected by how food is grown or travels through our community: we all eat. The choices we make may add to a local, vital food system or may contribute to destruction of land and loss of jobs half way across the world. How do we make food choices that maintain jobs in our local community, contribute to children's health, heal soil, reduce fossil fuel use, and ensure that local varieties of food - usually the tastiest -continue to be grown? It's a wide ranging article and McBay puts it all together.

Among the other items:

Karen Holmes on Meeting the Challenges of Local Food

Greg Williams on Food and Oil

and a directory directory of local food growers and stores for Kingston and area

... two articles about children and healthy eating ... an item about seed saving and .... www.fooddowntheroad.ca

In case you're still reading on this page .... best regards,

Why's Woman