NL - Master's of An Empty Stomach

Last week columnist Russell Wangersky ran an article in the Western Star that pointed to Newfoundland and Labrador’s dire need to ensure the security of its food supply.

This is a topic that has been spoken on by people like Merv Wiseman, and others in the province who are very close to the issue, and although it may seem like an odd topic for Web Talk really it isn’t. The site is dedicated to a bright future for our province so stay with me for a minute or two and you might just learn a thing or two about just how fragile our existence here really is.

The threat to our food supply is not a matter of some perceived terrorist attack, civil war, trade embargo or other political emergency. The threat is much simpler than that.

According to those in the know, we are at the mercy of fuel prices when it comes to the cost of our daily bread and, the scariest part is, if our only connections to the outside world (ferry services, air freight and container shipping) were to be cut off by something as simple as a week or so of very bad weather, the island and remote portions of Labrador would quite simply run out of food. No ifs, ands or buts.

It may sound a bit alarmist to talk about people in Newfoundland and Labrador starving to death but when you consider that we have a matter of days before the shelves are bare, it’s not out of the question.

As things stand today, our food supply (in supermarkets, warehouses, etc.) would by all estimates last a matter of days, not weeks or months. Now that’s a scary thought.

Mr. Wangersky’s article rightly notes that for centuries there was enough food produced here, both livestock and vegetables, to supply the entire population year round. Those days are long gone and nearly all of our food supply is imported from other places in North America or around the world. It’s not that the food can’t be produced here. It was done before and it can be done again, perhaps even more efficiently than in the past. The problem is a lack of will.

With the security of our food supply in such a precarious position and with the province needing a rural boost to the economy it begs the question of why our provincial leadership is not investing in, and promoting the purchase of, locally produced products. It also speaks volumes about us as consumers.

This is something we should all be supporting, from the man and woman in the street to the Premier himself.

Mr. Wangersky points out that, “…for years, with the help of government-funded cold storage centres, the province had been virtually self-sufficient in root crops and cabbage. Potatoes, carrots, beets and turnips… had been grown successfully in the province for generations. But lacking the sexiness of hydroponics and English cucumbers (read Sprung Greenhouse), funding for the cold storage centres, and for the root crop industry in general, were the victims of the double jeopardy of government cost-cutting and product-dumping from other provinces.”

The “product dumping” comment is in reference to supermarkets that tend to stock old, stale, second rate produce on their shelves for us to buy by the bushel. The reason is simple. It’s cost effective. The excess food is not wanted in most regions but here, with no support for local producers, it can be sold at a slightly lower price than fresh, crisp locally produced product, which rarely makes it to the supermarket shelves.

As a result local producers are struggling to survive, with the odds stacked against them, and very few of us ever stop to consider the impact of our willingness to buy a cheaper, second rate product. Most of us don’t even remember what a fresh turnip really tastes like but I can tell you it tastes nothing like the one you’ll find if you go shopping tomorrow.

Another impact of our actions is a higher than needed unemployment rate in rural areas and, as previously mentioned, our food supply is one of the least secure of any developed part of the world.

Yes, buying locally produced products may cost a few pennies more (literally pennies), but look at what those few pennies buy.

Fresh and tasty produce;

A secure food supply;

More employment in rural areas; and

Over time, if local producers are able to grow and expand, their costs will come more in line with imported goods as a result of efficiencies of scale and savings in shipping costs.

Thanks to the cost of fuel, the price of shipping second rate goods into the province is coming ever closer to that of fresh local goods and this trend is likely to continue. Yet that won’t matter in the least, except to your wallet, if the supply chain and infrastructure is not in place and capable of meeting the challenge ahead.

The time is now for all of us to promote, purchase and protect our local food supply. Each of us needs to make sure we tell our grocery chain managers that we prefer fresh local produce, we then need to buy it rather than buying stale imported stock and also we need to convince our government that investing in local producers is paramount to ensuring the stability and cost of our food supply.

We’ll never grow bananas here, but fresh locally produced meat, dairy and vegetables are good for the economy, good for workers and best of all good for our health and our future.

To paraphrase Mr. Wangersky, it’s hard to be the master of your own house when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.