Why community-run food hubs like this one in Kamloops could be key to better food security | iNFOnews infotel.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from infotel.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Kent Fawcett didn’t plan to spend hours each day in the kitchen when he started making hummus. Then his dehydrated hummus business, Local Pulse, took off.
“My bottleneck is how much I can fit into a dehydrator,” said the Kamloops-based entrepreneur. “That’s why I have to go in every single day, to do small batches.”
Yet change is coming to Fawcett’s daily hummus grind.
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The B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries announced funding for four new food hubs last month, including $750,000 to build one in Kamloops. The community-run centres offer commercial space and equipment to small farmers and food processors who can’t afford their own facilities, helping them stay in business and bolstering local food security.
In the German markets they studied, a steak would cost 146 per cent more if it reflected its true environmental footprint, while dairy prices would skyrocket by 91 per cent. There were also minimal differences between organic and industrial agricultural systems, researchers noted. Canada, a country with a similar food system, would likely show similar results. Cattle, sheep and goat production currently takes up roughly two-thirds of the planet’s agricultural land and makes up about half of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2019 report by the World Resources Institute. Abra Brynne, executive director of the Central Kootenay Food Policy Council, says people paying too little for meat is a problem and not just because of the environmental impact.
Cloe Logan, Local Journalism Initiative
FILE PHOTO December 28, 2020 - 9:00 PM Meat is expensive but we’re still paying far less for it than the cost of its environmental impact, according to a recently released study. The paper, written by a German team, examined the ecological costs of meat, dairy and vegetable production in organic and industrial agricultural systems. Researchers then used that data to determine how much each food group would cost if its price accounted for its environmental impact. In the German markets they studied, a steak would cost 146 per cent more if it reflected its true environmental footprint, while dairy prices would skyrocket by 91 per cent. There were also minimal differences between organic and industrial agricultural systems, researchers noted. Canada, a country with a similar food system, would likely show similar results.
Meat is expensive but we’re still paying far less for it than the cost of its environmental impact, according to a study released this week.
The paper, written by a German team, examined the ecological costs of meat, dairy and vegetable production in organic and industrial agricultural systems. Researchers then used that data to determine how much each food group would cost if its price accounted for its environmental impact.
In the German markets they studied, a steak would cost 146 per cent more if it reflected its true environmental footprint, while dairy prices would skyrocket by 91 per cent. There were also minimal differences between organic and industrial agricultural systems, researchers noted. Canada, a country with a similar food system, would likely show similar results.