SINCE 1999
This project is our attempt to create a scalable database driven website that will help support small farms.
There are many things that should be concerning everyone more in our society. One of the main concerns, of our present situation is the climate change / over energy use / over population / declining fossil fuel conundrum.
Some people despair about what is to come while others ignore or deny the science, and too few are actively trying to find solutions to change the course that our throw away, low value based economics is leading us. We would like to create change in the way people purchase and treat their everyday consumerism.
This project is to help encourage shoppers to source more of their foods locally. Why? you say! Well our society has been built on the "low cost, throw away" mentality. We believe this is the heart of the reason why we find ourselves in this global position. Buy cheap, use once, and throw away. This does fuel a high growth economy but is it sustainable? I think not.
Farms have changed drastically over the past century. At the turn of the century farms were everywhere. Most everyone had an Aunt, Uncle or Grandpa, someone living and working on a farm. These small farms existed and operated to provide a small income for the family on the farm but they also provided food for their family, Friends and neighbors. They were committed to operating with sustainable practices to provide healthy, flavourful foods.
For most people the connection with the farms has been broken, some for over a generation. This disconnection has created a drastic reduction in the respect that the bulk of our society shows towards their food. This lack of respect has some of our citizens throwing out almost a third of the edible portion of their groceries. Inflation has effected many things over the past few decades but up until just recently our food has remained at very similar prices than in the seventies. What has changed is our food quality which has decreased dramatically.
Farms are no longer operated by families but are now being operated by huge corporations where their bottom line is profit and not their community's health. These huge companies are protected through increased government legislation that makes it less and less profitable for small farms to operate while subsidies and quota systems seem to only drive out the small operators.
If most of our food sources depend on huge companies and global distribution systems then what happens when things start to change? What happens with economic downturns? Massive animal farms are also much more vulnerable to being wiped out by viruses or disease.
This project was created to help reconnect our community with the farms. Through this reconnection there will hopefully be an increase in the respect we show our food. Meat production at the scale it is at now is an environmental disaster but sit in the Fast Food joint and watch person after person throw out half a burger. This is so disrespectful to the animals that lived to provide these valuable proteins. And look here "They're just fucking animals" is not a suitable rebuttal. The amount of energy that is required to grow industrial scale meat is crazy. When you eat a chicken do you eat it all? Boil the carcass, pick the bones? You should.
Anyways, There is a rant. So stop throwing out food, respect your food, eat less meat but pay twice as much from a local farm.
Our hopes are that farmers will register with this website and post their produce available on line. Then potential shoppers will be able to use the service to search for locally grown produce.