It’s still difficult to buy locally grown food in Saskatchewan, despite the province’s reputation as one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.
About 93 percent of the vegetables and fruits consumed in Saskatchewan are imported. Organizers of the First Saskatchewan Food Summit held March 2-3 in Saskatoon, hope to lower that number and boost local consumption of food produced in province.
“The main, overarching goal was to develop an integrated vision to start to develop a sustainable food economy,” said Karen Tanino, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Saskatchewan.
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“Canada and our province do not have a comprehensive food policy. I think that’s really critical to setting the stage.”
Tanino is a member of the organizing committee for the summit, which also includes representatives from Saskatchewan Agriculture, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), Industry Development Tourism Saskatchewan, Heifer International and other organizations.
She said the event was designed to include diverse representation from producer groups, government, retailers, educators, the corporate sector and the health system.
Mary Buhr, dean of agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan spoke about promoting the use of locally produced foods, as well as the opportunities and responsibilities involved with moving the Canadian food industry forward, provincially and internationally.
“We need to be so much more effective. We need to be paying so much more attention and we need to be owning agriculture in this country,” she said.
“If we philosophically believe in efficient production of high quality food or high quality products from renewable resources, then we need to be living that. We need to be talking to our kids about that and we need to be telling our kids that this is a valuable thing that we should be doing. And we need to be doing it ourselves,” she said.
A key ingredient to expanding the consumption of local food is to tell consumers where their food is coming from.
“We need to be insisting that where we shop for foods tells us where the foods come from,” Buhr said.
“There’s nothing wrong in my mind (with) bringing in food from outside but we need to know that so that if there’s local apples and apples from B.C., and there’s apples from California, we need to be able to make the choice.”
“That’s where the value is. It’s in making a thoughtful choice and literally talking to our kids as to why we’re doing it this way.”
Buhr said labelling is a key issue. Consumers will often go with the
cheapest food available. If price is the only information displayed on packaging, then consumers have no other information on which to base a decision, she said. There’s also a need to examine the barriers that limit access to local food.
In addition to keynote speakers, the summit included breakout sessions designed to identify common issues, solicit innovative ideas and look for solutions.
“This is the first step and we’re not going to solve all the problems in two days but we have to start somewhere,” Tanino said.
“How else do we go forward?”
