Editor :
I would like to give two thumbs up for everyone involved in the local food revival.
Thank you to The Ground Breakers Cooperative, the Beyond the Market initiative, the B.V. Farmers Market and to all the people who support them.
You’re all contributing to a very important service in our community.
This revival is counteracting the reckless direction of our nation’s food production system, that’s been taking over the industry for more than 40 years.
Most of the food we eat is produced hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres away from where we live.
This is of course due to huge government subsidies, cheap labour and lack of regulation in foreign countries.
It’s bad enough that the lawn mower I use has to be made in China or Mexico because we can’t make them near as cheaply as they can over there.
But we must not let the same thing keep happening to our food.
If, for whatever reason, the cargo ship and or the delivery trucks were unable to deliver to this somewhat remote region we probably wouldn’t notice the inconvenience of not being able to repair or buy a lawn mower after six months because after the first week we would be trying very hard to deal with the catastrophe of not having enough food to nourish the 15,000 or so people who call our region home.
Also, for those of us who don’t believe the delivery trucks could ever stop coming, well it’s happened before and could just as easily happen again.
Ask some of your grandparents, God bless them.
Many of them remember all to well, except back then they were much more self-reliant then we are now.
Not only will being able to feed ourselves bring me more peace-of-mind but it would also give us a much healthier food system and contribute to our local economy.
Jeffery Stone
Smithers
