The real SUPER market

Imagine with me a group of people from your community gathering together on municipal land inside the city you live. They gather together and share stories from their lives with one another all while growing nutrient dense food that is sustainably grown. These people then harvest that food and stock local markets and groceries stores providing the residence of that community with sustainably grown food with nearly zero carbon footprint.

Sound too good to be true? That is exactly what 15 dedicated members from our Stratford community volunteer their time to do every year. This group is called the The Local Urban Famers.

Our team goal is to grow nutrient dense food for our community and provide it to the residence of Stratford for an accessible price. Pictured above are three of our dedicated volunteers tending our booth at the Stratford Sunday Market. All of the produce we offer is grown on our farm using regenerative practices to ensure soil health and therefore you health.

Plenty of folks walk into so called “supermarkets” everyday and collectively purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars in food. We would love to see a shift in where people shop.

In Stratford we have many locally growers i.e. Pfennings Organics, Loco Fields, McIntosh Farms, Organic Oasis, the list goes on. Each one of these farms works very hard to deliver a premium product to local consumers. Often “supermarkets” undercut these hard working folks making each year more difficult for the local farmer.

Why is it so important to support local farms? For starters these are the people that make up our community. Voting with your dollar and supporting the local economy helps support the economic infrastructure of our town. Further, local food is much more sustainable.

Most produce you find in the large grocery stores comes from California, Mexico, or some other far off destination. Take a look for yourself next time you pick up some produce at a supermarket. Those little stickers tell you where the product originated. Purchasing Ontario grown food lessens your carbon footprint. That decision, should you choose to make it, makes you an active participant in mitigating climate change. You are now a part of the solution.

Today you’d have to eat several apples a day to keep the proverbial doctor away

While these first two points may be obvious, the third is a little more sneaky. Did you know that the nutrient density in our food is diminishing with each passing year? David R. Montgomery and Anne Bikle, recent released a fascinating book that explores the loss of nutrient density in the modern diet. That book is called, “What your food ate: how to heal our land and reclaim our health.” In the opening pages they share this insight, “over the past century our food has lost mineral elements we need in trace amounts, like copper, zinc,[…] calcium and magnesium. Today you’d have to eat several apples a day to keep the proverbial doctor away (Montgomery, Bikle. xii).”

This nutrient deficiency all boils down to how we treat our soil. Our soil is what our food eats.

Through years of mechanical tillage, pesticide and herbicide use, poor land management has lead to a serious decline in the health of your soil and therefore our food’s diet. The local growers mentioned above work hard to maintain soil health and nutrient density in their food. You are getting way more carrot when you purchase from farms like Loco Fields, Pfennings, or our The Local Community Farm.

If supporting your local economy, reducing your carbon footprint, and being healthier is important to you please support your local growers when you shop. Let’s be honest local farmer’s markets are the real SUPER markets.

Cheers,

Lucas, Farm/Garden Educator for The Local Community Food Centre