Produisez-les vous-même!

Dans cet article, l’auteur Geordie Ouchterlony explique que la consommation d’aliments biologiques d’origine biorégionale vous garantie leur valeur nutritive optimale, tout en assurant une demande énergétique minimale pour la production de ces aliments et leur livraison à domicile.

Il ajoute que la nourriture est plus fraîche à l’arrivée, qu’elle est meilleure pour votre santé et, que cela fait en sorte que les fermiers plus consciencieux quant à l’environnement puissent recevoir une compensation adéquate pour leur dur labeur. Il nous parle de l’importance d’appuyer l’alimentation biorégionale et de faire face à l’enjeu de la biotechnologie.

Il explique également comment les compagnies veulent maintenant que les fermiers abandonnent des milliers d’années d’évolution génétique en échange pour des stocks qui sont prétendument des "équivalents substantiels" mais qui créent une plus grande dépendance envers ces mêmes corporations.

Geordie conclut l’article en nous introduisant à "Home Grown Organic Foods", une entreprise des Maritimes qui s’intéresse à toutes ces questions.

"Eating
bio-regionally
produced
organic food
guarantees
that you are
receiving
optimal nutrient
value from your
food, while
ensuring that
minimal energy
inputs are
expended, both
to grow the
food as well as
to deliver it to
your door."

Grow your Own!

Geordie Ouchterlony
Home Grown Organic Foods
June 2001

ome Grown Organic Foods (HGOF) is a locally owned small business which recognizes the value of organically grown fruits and vegetables and is dedicated to providing health conscious, environmentally conscious, socially conscious and politically conscious consumers with a sustainable alternative to conglomerate, profit-driven agriculture and food distribution. We offer an efficient and cost-effective home delivery service of fresh organic food to consumers within the greater Halifax Regional Municipality.

(photo: Geordie Ouchterlony)

The long-term goal of this business is to develop a system to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from growers to consumers and back to the growers in such a way that people from all over the world can learn through this exchange of information. We hope to educate as many people as possible about growing their own food, using the latest organic growing techniques. The immediate plan is to expand the organic food market here in Halifax and the Maritimes, concentrating mainly on bio-regional staple crops that are consumed on a regular basis. Presently, local, organic food sales make up less than 5% of the food industry sales in the Atlantic Region. HGOF aspires to assist in increasing this percentage.

Eating bio-regionally produced organic food guarantees that you are receiving optimal nutrient value from your food, while ensuring that minimal energy inputs are expended, both to grow the food as well as to deliver it to your door. Produce shipped from a far away farm is often harvested before the fruiting body or edible part of the plant has matured, when the plant has not yet completed its amino acid, enzyme, or spiritual growth. HGOF’s food box produce may reach our patron’s tables within days of being harvested, when fruit and vegetables are the most fresh, nutritious and tasty. This ensures that environmentally conscious farmers in your community receive a decent wage for the tremendous amount of hard work they do.

For centuries, farmers have selected, saved and shared harvests of seeds, choosing only those plants which have expressed traits most adapted to the regional climate and conditions. One of the latest, blatantly destructive biotech innovations involves growing massive crops that produce sterile seeds. Such corporate control tactics are usually validated by their public image departments under the guise of the need for more productive varieties to feed an increasing population. The scary part is that these companies want farmers to discard 1000’s of years of genetic evolution in exchange for stock that is supposedly ‘substantially equivalent’, even though much of it has been genetically altered not to reproduce at all, thus creating more dependence on the corporations. Committing to supporting local organic farmers is the most effective tactic we as consumers and individuals of free will can use to diffuse the mechanisms of corporate control of plant and human life. Sharing knowledge and opinions, as our ancestors did their seeds, is also all-important in cultivating a unified movement towards more organic lifestyles–each one teach one.

Besides the dependence on fossil fuels for the transportation of produce over long distances, long-range transport of food powers the gears of the genetic modification engine. Genetic engineering transformations, such as the ‘Flavr Savr’ tomato in 1994, promised a vine ripened fruit with a tougher skin to protect from bruising. Calgene, Flavr Savr’s father company, validated this innovation only in the context of need for long-range transportation of tomatoes. Home Grown Organic Foods wishes to abolish the assumption that any society requires transfer trucks, mass marketing schemes or laboratory disfigurations to supply its people with ample and fresh produce. How does such prolific change happen? We believe the change happens at home where people can taste and understand the wholesome nature of locally grown organic food and begin to learn about food production with access to pertinent information. HGOF provides its patrons with a newsletter every week containing information on sustainable farming, urban gardening, healthy cooking techniques and local events.

============================= A Delivery in Progress! ============================ (photo: Geordie Ouchterlony)

HGOF is situated in the heart of Halifax, Nova Scotia, only a few blocks from the commons, in a century old barn that was once a safe haven for horses at a time in our history when the commons was used for grazing. Now, this barn has become the home base for all of our patrons. It is used primarily to store and retail all of the items that we have available for home delivery. We have also just recently built a large composter on-site, along with a number of raised garden beds. With these additions, we will be proceeding to demonstrate how effective organic gardening methods can be; and furthermore, how inexpensive they are for the home gardener.

HGOF differs from most agri-food businesses in that major decisions are based on social and environmental considerations over and above profit incentives. These decisions are made in the interest of establishing a truly sustainable business enterprise that will support and promote the well being of healthy, clean, hard working, well balanced communities world wide. Our passion for health, community, and good food are the factors that motivate everyone at Home Grown Organic Foods. Eventually, we plan to establish our own market garden combined with a country restaurant and a traveler’s lodge to further promote the magnificence of organically grown food. This initiative is in response to the lack of consideration that existing big businesses are showing towards the community, our health and the environment.

The alternatives to destructive agricultural practices are as close as the urban gardens that surge with perennial force in our burgeoning cities. HGOF takes advantage of all opportunities to work with local like-minded businesses in our region--to share ideas and grow together. We like to think that each food box we deliver is another seed cast towards thinking globally and acting locally.

HGOF is dedicated towards promoting environmental awareness in addition to healthy living alternatives. For more information about HGOF, visit our website at www.hgof.ns.ca  or contact Geordie Ouchterlony at orders@hgof.ns.ca.