Greenhouse Cucumbers and a Goat Dairy Farm

May 31, 2013 at 12:56 pm Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was lucky to be included on a Farm Media Tour sponsored by Farm & Food Care Ontario. Always a well organized day, this annual tour gives food writers an insight into where our food actually originates. This year’s tour featured two very different types of farming…a huge greenhouse venture in Flamborough and a goat farm in Caledon. Beverly Greenhouses Ltd. concentrates on 22 acres of seedless English cucumbers with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability. The relatively new Escarpment’s Edge Dairy goat farm milks 300 goats with 300 kids born this spring alone. These two very different large-scale ventures had one thing in common….a farm that had been in the same family for generations, something that is not very usual these days.

Before the delicious lunch held at the Halton Region Museum, guest speaker Dr. Schwarcz from McGill University in Montreal reassured us that biotech products are safe and in fact, beneficial to Canadians in making our food more affordable. The general public needs to be more informed about the safe use of pesticides and the breeding of plants to improve quality, increase yields and reduce undesirable characteristics in crops. There is much unfounded fear generated from a lack of knowledge in these areas. This is the type of information food writers can convey to the public, proving that the day’s outing lived up to Farm & Food Care Ontario’s motto…Awareness, Appreciation, Information.