Did anyone read...

[perfecho]

GF, certainly will support NFU on campaign, will look into it more closely in near future.
Just a quick note on roads and trucks....many of our roads were developed when 3 ton trucks were the biggest, as farmers grew, so did the machinery and number of trips. In a large feedlot, there are hundreds of trips of trucks going back and forth....not really what they were meant for.....nor the oilfield traffic. I do hope one day, the local, ethically raised trend, will allow smaller operations to be viable and not put as much stress on infastructure and society.

[coppertop]

in our municipality there are many major
home occupations that include tank truck
businesses, oilfield hauling etc.
Feedlots also must enter into a road use
agreement if it is determined that they
are doing excessive road damage on an
ongoing basis. Regardless of whether
they have a road use agreement with the
county or not the county public works
department directs them on which
roadways to use when they are doing any
major haul, either silage or manure, if
there are several optional routes.

[SimplyCanadian]

Always nice to see a discussion about buying local and getting the farm folk together to serve the local market.
For over thirty years I have watched the industry and industry sectors "try" to educate the consumers! Until the producers learn to get along with each other, market like real professionals and treat the customers like customers they will sadly fall behind the entrenched efforts of the real food retailers in Canada.
I do have to say it would be wonderful wonderful to see local product available and I for one would support that kind of program. In saying that, I'm pretty sure I will not see anything like that in my life time in Canada

[smcgrath76]

GF - did not mean to confuse. I meant
independently minded as a collective type
of statement. A group of producers who
wish to do things a bit differently and
think about things a bit differently than
status quo (independent).
I agree that self reliance is one of our
greatest strengths and possibly our
largest weakness.

[shedrow]

I love the local market idea....But is is pretty hard to do when Walmart and the retailers are lowballing meat to the masses...

[perfecho]

The Walmarts will always have their customers, but more and more, people are concerned about where their food comes from, and rightly so. A certain amount of consumers are willing, however our infrastructure is cumbersome. Even one of our local "major supermarkets" would like to find a way to get on the band wagon.
Local food should be easy to obtain, not just on Thursday Farmer's Market days between 1 and 4.......

[coppertop]

our economic development department has
initiated a project called the 100 K
Kitchen, which will encourage people to
purchase all their food supplies within
100 km from their home.
A directory has been produced with pages
of producers within 100km of our
municipality advertising their farm
grown produce. This fall there are
numerous cooking classes being offered,
each of them will only use produce grown
within 100 km. Several rural
municipalities have contributed to the
project, and it has received quite a bit
of media attention.