Lets All Of Us Make Every Effort To Buy Local And Do What We Can To Support Our Local Farmers

One Way We Can Do It Is By Giving Up The Big Chain Supermarkets –  As Often As We Can – For A Trip To Our Farmers’ Markets

By Doug Draper

People are often asking what they can do as individuals and families to make the world around us a little better.

Some of the homegrown bounty our local food producers have to offer at one of Niagara’s many farmers’ markets – this one in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

There is no one answer, obviously, but spending a little more time supporting the many farmers’ we are still blessed to have producing food locally is no small help. By supporting them through shopping for food at one or more of the many farmers’ markets across our region, we are helping to preserve the livelihood of our local farmers, reducing our dependency on food from other parts of the world, and keeping our money in our region’s economy.

Those were a few of the messages contained in the latest report released this August 30 by the Niagara Community Observatory, a Brock University-based organization that works with partners across the Niagara area to compile research on issues of interest and concern to those who make this region their home.

“Niagara’s farmer markets’ provide an important link to our local agricultural system,” said Doug Hagar, a researcher with the Observatory who worked on the report, during a media briefing at the farmers’ market in downtown St. Catharines. Based on the research the Observatory has done of the interactions of people at local farmers’ markets, they also play an important role in binding communities more closely together – an experience that one might not find as much at a jumbo, chain-owned supermarket.

The report produced by the Observatory, entitled ‘What’s Growing In Niagara? Markets In The Niagara Region’, goes on to report that as much as growing numbers of people from older generations are going to farmers’ markets, younger people are not necessarily getting into a farmers’ market groove. 

Jan Bechard, the marketing and events coordinator for the City of St. Catharines, said one thing the city has been doing to get young people interested in farmers’ markets is to offer schools tours to the market where they have a retired teacher manning a ‘Market Discovery Table’. At that spot children are presented information about where their food – everything from eggs and chicken to corn and tomatoes come from. Bechard said it is hoped that the children will take home there experience at the market to their parents, who may then be more interested to go.

Niagara Community Observatory researcher Doug Hagar outlines findings in farmers’ market report. Photo by Doug Draper

There are several challenges farmers’ markets face in attracting people so accustomed to doing all their food shopping at big supermarkets, according to the Observatory report. 

Among those challenges, says the report, “is the lack of understanding about local food. … Several vendors and market managers noted that many community members do not understand why local food is sometimes more costly than shopping at grocery stores and do not understand about seasonal shopping.”

“Several of the vendors,” continues the report, “said that new customers often come to the market expecting to buy all of their produces just as they have at the supermarket but do not understand that much of that produce (people find in the supermarkets) is shipped in from around the world because it is not in season locally.”

“Vendors also highlighted te need to share with Niagara residents the importance of fair trade products and making purchasing decisions from local farmers at fair prices. Products shipped in from around the world may have been produced with extremely low wages and poor working conditions that local farmers cannot compete with.” 

The above is just a sample of what is available to learn in this important report about what we can all do to support and secure a reliable supply of home-grown food in our region. You can learn more, including obtaining a list and addresses for farmers’ markets in Niagara, Ontario,  by visiting www.brocku.ca/niagara-community-observatory .

For our readers in the Buffalo, New York area, support a fine farmers’ market every Saturday morning in the Elmwood Village off Elmwood Avenue and Bidwell Parkway. While there, enjoy the other great home-owned shops and cafes, and the wonderful old architecture of this city.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. Keep the discussion on buying local going on this site.)