Take a sip of that coffee, stir in a little sugar and imagine living without either coffee or sugar. They are two of the things that would disappear off tables if Victorians decided to live on nothing but locally grown food.
And think about the flip side. If other countries also went local, where would Canadian farmers sell their crops?
A new study by the Conference Board of sa国际传媒鈥檚 Centre for Food in sa国际传媒 looks at sa国际传媒鈥檚 food trade and suggests that freer trade in food would be better for us and better for the rest of the world. At a time when some people advocate the hundred-mile diet, the board says in many ways it makes more sense for each part of the world to grow the crops best suited to its climate and geography 鈥� and then trade with each other.
鈥淲ithout [trade], Canadian production of things like canola, wheat, lentils, soybeans, and red meat would be much lower; our access to fresh fruits and vegetables year-round would be limited; and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find things like coffee and sugar in our supermarkets,鈥� wrote Kristelle Audet, the report鈥檚 author.
The top 10 Canadian farm exports brought in almost $20 billion in 2010. Canadians on their own aren鈥檛 going to eat the $4.5 billion worth of wheat or the $5.5 billion worth of canola and canola oil that were exported that year.
Eating local is good for farmers, shoppers and the community, but it is not the complete solution to the food-policy puzzle.
