TREPA NEWS: “Local is Better” by Farrah Collette
Sep 28th, 2007 by Brian Hurlburt
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Sorry no audio available
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TREPA, the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association, is a great group dedicated to protecting and enhancing the Tusket River, Yarmouth County, and surrounding areas. To learn more about TREPA, it’s history, goals, and aspirations, visit the TREPA Web Site.
As a member of TREPA I receive the TREPA News and I thought you might appreciate our bringing parts of it to you here.
The current issue of TREPA NEWS is dedicated to the summer students who worked with TREPA during 2007.
Farrah Collette, Meaghan Pitman, Brendon Smith and Nathan Goldring.
They shared office space and ideas and each developed projects of importance to TREPA. All were active in reporting on their assignments and summer’s experiences. What I hope to do is bring you their their reports with some editing for space requirements and clarity; as laid out in the current issue of TREPA News.
The first report I want to bring you, due to the somewhat time sensitive content, is “Local is Better” by Farrah Collette.
I had the opportunity early this summer to meet Farrah at The Shire at a Mentoring in the Outdoors, Leadership Training Program put on by the HeartWood Institute and found her to be a very responsible level headed young woman.
Here’s the report as contained in the TREPA NEWS.
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“Local is Better” by Farrah Collette.
There has been a Farmer’s Market in Yarmouth for the past couple months. Local farmers have been able to go to the market, held outside at the Canadian Tire parking lot on Starrs Road on Saturday mornings, to sell their product. The market has been a success for the farmers and customers. Reactions thus far seem mostly positive. Many farmers have spoken of the profit and publicity they have had with
their participation in the market. The market is a benefit to our community. The market is a great way to generate public awareness and community support in the farming and
agriculture industry. The farmer’s market promotes buying local food. Many people would like to support the local farming industry but are unaware of how to do so. The market is a great way to promote the how and why of buying local.
Buying local has many benefits: it supports the local economy and social ecosystem; helps eliminate the middle-man; the consumer has a greater knowledge of what pesticides and herbicides are used, or where the animal originally came from; it is unlikely that growth hormones have been used; healthier; it reduces food miles; local food production uses less energy, as farmers tend to grow native food, which
requires less power to maintain; and… it tastes better!
Farming is not an easy life, and the local industry is seeing many problems much of which comes along with the establishment of large corporation chain stores. Food production is now depended upon on a global scale.
Fast pace culture wants the world at its fingertips. Yes, exotic foods are a treat, but the problem is when the general public buys food from a foreign source that is available from a local source.
The local economy suffers when food is unnecessarily imported from abroad, or even from another part of
the country, when it is easily available from a more local source.
Food shipped within 24 hours of driving time should not be considered as being local – therefore, the Farmer’s Market is an excellent way to increase local economy.
This year’s Farmer’s Market is held outside, which is wonderful when weather is permitting. Perhaps it
would be a good idea to consider having an indoor location for the market – this would allow more consistency as farmers and customers would not be dependent on the weather.
The Farmer’s Market is an excellent way to enhance community life as it connects people together.
The market is also a great avenue to support local industry and economy – keeping revenue within the community, and is an accessible way for people to support local food.
There is great potential for growth and improvement in the coming years for the Farmer’s Market. It has proven to be an asset to our community this season.
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I thought Farrah did a good job of bringing to light the importance of the Farmers Market and buying local.
Perhaps we’ll touch on these issues in future Blog Posts.
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For YarmouthCounty.com, this has been Brian Hurlburt, and I invite you to Make it a great day!
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
customerservice@yarmouthcounty.com
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