Resources & Media
[sh_divider style=”shadow” shwidth=”wide” spacetop=”20px” spacebottom=”20px” totop=”disable” color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.15″]
[sh_headerdouble size=”h4″]Creston CSA Programs[/sh_headerdouble]
[sh_accordion mode=”all”][sh_accord_item title=”R&S Lawrence Farm”]
R&S Lawrence Farm
Offer yearly CSA shares for various grains and legums. Check out the R&S Lawrence Farm Order Form for more information.
[/sh_accord_item][sh_accord_item title=”Cherrybrook Farm”]Offer yearly “Family Cherry Tree” Membership where customers are assigned a tree that they can pick at harvest. [/sh_accord_item][/sh_accordion]
[sh_headerdouble size=”h4″]CVFAC In The News[/sh_headerdouble]
[sh_accordion mode=”single”][sh_accord_item title=”Thought for Food by Gail Southall” open=”false”]
Collection of articles written by Gail Southall in 2008, first published in the Creston Valley Advance.
Click to view the PDFs.
2008-10-02: Food Without Fossil Fuels
2008-08-21: Brave New Community
2008-08-07: This Land is Your Land
2008-07-17: Local Foodies Connecting
2008-07-03: The High Cost of Cheap Food
2008-06-19: Local Diet Beats the Bulge
2008-06-05: Local Fare Creates Compelling Food Story
2008-05-15: Local Diet Wins Ultimate Food Fight
2008-05-01: Local Diet Nourishes Local Economy
2008-04-17: Local Diet: The Way to Go
[/sh_accord_item]
[sh_accord_item title=”Deconstructing Dinner”]Jon Steinman’s Deconstructing Dinner Radio and TV programs, have featured Creston producers on many occasions They have excellent production and in-depth analysis on a wide range of local food issues. To check out Jon’s work visit the Deconstructing Dinner Website Here.[/sh_accord_item]
[/sh_accordion]
[sh_headerdouble size=”h4″]Useful Links[/sh_headerdouble]
[sh_accordion mode=”single”]
[sh_accord_item title=”Creston Valley Links”]
Greenheart Herbal Society
Town of Creston
Creston Valley Chamber
Creston Valley BC
Creston Valley Advance
I Love Creston
Hello BC—Creston
Creston Events
Link 2 Creston
The Weather Network[/sh_accord_item]
[sh_accord_item title=”Kootenay Links”]Kootenay Local Agricultural Society
Growing in the Kootenays
Kootenay Food Strategy Society
Kootenay Organic Food Society
Community Food Matters
Kaslo Food Security[/sh_accord_item]
[sh_accord_item title=”Non-Regional Links”]The 100 Mile Challenge on Food TV
BC Food Systems
Indigenous Food Systems
Powell River Food Security
Skookum Food Cooperative[/sh_accord_item]
[/sh_accordion]
[sh_headerdouble size=”h4″]Other Resources[/sh_headerdouble]
[sh_accordion mode=”single”]
[sh_accord_item title=”Recommended Documentaries”]
Food Inc.
Supersize Me
The Real Dirt on Farmer John
Asparagus: A Stalkumentary
Bullshit
Ethiopia: Feeding the Future
Farmer’s Requiem
The Future of Food
Grow Your Own
Hijacked Future
In Search of Good Food
King Corn
Mouth Revolution
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Shit and Chicks
The Story of Stuff
Surfing the Waste
Tableland
We Feed the World
The World According to Monsanto
[/sh_accord_item][sh_accord_item title=”Recommended Reading”]
100 Mile Diet by Alisa Smith & James MacKinnon
Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith & James MacKinnon
Animal, Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
Carnivore Chic by Susan Bourette
Food Inc: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It edited by Karl Weber
Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben
The End of Food by Thomas Pawlick
From Apples to Oysters by Margaret Webb
The Garden That You Are by Katherine Gordon (Not available through Amazon.Ca)
The Global Food Economy, by Tony Weiss
Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen by Anna Lappe & Bryant Terry
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Stuffed and Starved, by Raj Patel
The Winter Harvest Manual: Farming on the Back Side of the Calendar by Eliot Coleman (Not available through Amazon.Ca)
World Food Security: A History Since 1945 by D. John Shaw
[/sh_accord_item]
[sh_accord_item title=”Maps”]Creston’s 100 Mile Radius
Plant Hardiness Zone
Kootenay Map[/sh_accord_item]
[/sh_accordion]
[sh_accordion mode=”single”][sh_accord_item title=”More About the CVFAC” open=”false”]
Why We Care:
Economic Reasons
1. Every time you buy something from a local producer, you are creating a positive ripple in the local economy. When purchased food is not locally grown, money leaves the community with every transaction. Studies report that dollars spent locally generate up to 4 times their value in economic spinoff.
2. Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. When you buy local, you give those with local open space – orchards, farms and pastures – an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped. Every fruit or vegetable you buy that was grown in a foreign country gives a local farmer one more reason to rip up his orchard and sell his land to a developer, grow bio-fuels instead of food, or sell water instead of potatoes. If you want responsible land development you have a responsibility to support local agriculture.
3. Eating locally-grown food is cheaper. Buying seasonally and in bulk gives you access to the freshest, healthiest, and least expensive food available. Growing your own saves you even more money.
Environmental Reasons
4. Every time you grow, catch, or make something yourself instead of having it shipped from half a world away (or travelling 100 kilometres or more yourself to buy it), you are saving fuel and making a positive environmental impact. Estimates on how far the average food travels from pasture to plate range from 2500 to 4000 kilometres.
5. Small local farms are more likely to grow more interesting varieties, making food more flavorful, protecting biodiversity and preserving a wider agricultural gene pool, an important factor in long-term food security. Diversity is not only good for our palate, it’s good for our planet, too.
6. Small farms are less likely to use intensive chemical pesticides and fertilizers equaling less farm residues staying in the soil or entering the watershed.
7. Purchasing locally-grown food reduces the use of unnecessary packaging.
Physical Reasons
8. Local fruits and vegetables are riper and fresher. Produce you purchase at the farmer’s market, market garden or farmer direct has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but also nutritional value which declines with time.
9. Eating local helps protect you from contamination. Food with less distance to travel from farm to plate has less opportunity to be exposed to harmful toxins.
10. If you are eating locally-grown you are likely eating more fresh fruits and vegetables as this is what’s most widely available locally. Eating more fruits and vegetables and less processed foods is recommended for optimum health and nutrition.
11. Buying local often means you can speak directly to the producer. You have greater opportunity to find out the producer’s pest and weed management styles so you can make informed decisions about the food you eat.
12. Local food just plain tastes better. Ever eaten a tomato picked right off the vine? Enough said.
Social/Cultural Reasons
13. Buying local food keeps you in touch with the seasons. By eating with the seasons, you are eating foods when they are at their peak taste, are the most abundant, and the least expensive.
14. Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story. Whether it’s the meat, the vegetables or the fruit on your table, knowing where your food comes from is a powerful part of enjoying a meal.
15. Local food translates to more variety. When a farmer is producing food that will not travel a long distance, will have a shorter shelf life, and does not have a high-yield demand, s/he is free to try small crops of various fruits and vegetables that would probably never make it to a large supermarket.
[/sh_accord_item][/sh_accordion]