Meeting Matters for March 2, 2015
Posted by Sue Leach
on Mar 05, 2015
Meeting Matters for March 2, 2015
President Colleen was under the weather this week. Get well soon!
President Elect Punnapa conducted the meeting.
Queen of Spades Draw: Won by Punnapa but the Queen Lives!
Happy Birthday: Paul Kerr on March 4th
Guest Speaker: Simon Ffrench from Cookstown Greens
Simon Ffrench is a long time Simcoe County resident. He and his family own and operate Cookstown Greens. Cookstown Greens is a Certified Organic Farm of 95 acres and they sell to restaurants and markets in Toronto. Organic farming means that they do not use Chemicals, Synthetics or GMO's. Cookstown Greens uses a three year crop rotation. They have 30,00 square feet of green house space and storages for root vegetables. To be Certified Organic every farm should be checked and audited.
The traditional view of organic vegetables, was it did not matter how they looked. This has changed over the years. Marketing and packaging is very important for sales. The cost of producing oragnically grown vegetables in our climate is much higher than in other parts of the world that have longer growing seasons and less need for storage facilities. This is one of the challenges of producing Organic Vegetables in Canada. About 2% of agriculture in Canada is organic but about 25% of food purchased by Canadians is organic. The public drives the demand for organic. A huge challenge for organic farmers and consumers in Canada is the language and information on the packaging. There is a need for the government to have consistent and clear information so that consumers know what they are buying.
Simon suggested that the club consider a visit to their farm to see the operation.
Thank you to Simon for a very informative and interesting presentation.