1.3 Food Futures
Brendan Grant of Sleepy G Farm
-Vote for the world you want to live in. If we really had the will to feed ourselves, it is a lot more possible than you might think. Thunder Bay district has a lot more agricultural potential.
- I think we are going to see some pretty awesome farms of the future that are going to be able to produce food for the masses while having a very minimal impact on the land.
-I'd like to see a regional food system actually be developed in a concerted and funded and directed way. I think it needs to start at the Regional level. We need to quit complaining and make it happen ourselves & set the example.
- the name Thunder Bay is a bit of a misnomer. It is about as stable a place you could get.
-There is no more important job in the world than farming simply by virtue of the fact that there is no basic human need than eating.
-I am cynical about the international commodification of food because it only devalues it. That is wrong! It is destructive to our relationship with food. That is why our relationship to food in North America as a society is so poor as a society: we don't value food.
- It's not about what you eat, what's more important is how it was made. Food is the most impactful purchase we make. And its the one we make the most often. When you purchase food, that's a vote you're casting for the world you want to live in. Nothing is more connected to the land than food.
- I know what we charge for our food and I know what it costs in the grocery store: there's almost no difference. There's no excuse not to buy local: you are feeding your family with a lower carbon footprint, you are developing a relationship with someone who has some accountability for providing you that food.
-Cows are an amazing species. There are few others in a the world that can take a plant material that is otherwise not digestible (even cellulose!) and in concert with the microbes in their digestive system are able to extract nutrients out of feed stuff that shouldn't sustain anyone!
-One teaspoon of really organic living soil has about five billion microbes. In a teaspoon of soil! It's mind blowing.
-The myth I would like to bust is that a plant based diet is the answer to the climate crisis. It's not so simple. It's not so much about what you eat, it's about how that food is being produced. Cattle are one of the most important tools that farmers have, and only farmers have, to fight climate change. Cattle are these amazing creatures who, if they are managed properly, can have a net positive effect on climate change by grazing off grass, stimulating growth. Plants need C02 to grow, so when the cow comes across, takes a nip off of the plant & then they're moved off of that plant, the plant recovers, captures sunlight, breaths in the CO2 that goes down into its root system and is locked into the soil. This is how you can take carbon out of the atmosphere through farming. And only farming has that ability. GMOs kill everything in the soil except the genetically altered food being harvested, organic practices build soil biodiversity. How the food was produced - that is the questions people (if they care) really need to start thinking about with their food purchases.
