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posted on October 9, 2004

Commentary On Feature In Now Magazine

The October 7, 2004 issue of Now Magazine contained article entitled "Organic Toronto: Farmers Markets Keep It Fresh" featuring the Dufferin Grove Framers Market under "Dufferin Delectables". We appreciate the attention and recognition, but wish to state for the record an error and an omission.

The error of fact is that we have NOT, as NOW magazine says, been running a market for "nearly ten years." This November 7 it will be TWO years. The pioneer of park organic markets in Toronto is Elizabeth Harris, who just went ahead and began the Riverdale market four years ago. We are just following in her footsteps. If it hadn't been for all Elizabeth's very considerable leg work finding the farmers and showing everybody that it could be done, our market wouldn't have happened. She's our hero.

Omission: the reason, I imagine, why Stonehenge Farms (and our park oven bread) are not listed in the NOW article is that the article focuses exclusively on certified organic. For reasons of cost, Ute Zell feeds the birds, the goats, the boars and the lambs conventional feed during the time of year when they can't graze outside. We use certified flour, oil,etc. but we have never had the bake ovens certified (and with community use we're not sure we could).

The consideration that finds no place in the article is "local." If you buy food at our market because you don't want to poison your body with what you eat, then perhaps it doesn't matter whether the organic food was grown on California organic mega-farms and trucked across the continent as long as it carries the certified stamp.

But if you also want to know the farmer who grew/raised what you eat, if you want to cut down on oil use, if you want to eat chickens that had a decent life, if you want people to be able to make a living on a human-scale farm, the question becomes a little more nuanced.

Comments welcome -- we'll post them on the web site: www.dufferinpark.ca/market

Jutta

P.s. it is, nevertheless, flattering to have our park market be called "Dufferin Delectables"

From the author:

From: Steven Davey
To: Jutta Mason
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 2:16 PM
Subject: Re: NOW organic article, error

Thanks for your input!


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