In the E-News this month...
COG News
 COG AGM
Canada
Produce driving Canadian organic sales: USDA report
Organic items thrive in Quebec
Scene-stealing squirrel crashes Banff tourist photo
Standards & Equivalency
What does organic mean?
Research
Organic food not healthier, says FSA
Specific pesticide directly linked to Parkinson's Disease
Opinion
Organic is more than small potatoes
You say tomato, I say agricultural disaster
Biotechnology
Quick, quiet genetic corn approval questioned
Global Snapshots
Organic farming sprouts in Beijing
India: Organic growth for organic farming
Coming Events
|
COG News 
|
COG AGM
Canadian Organic Growers held its national annual general meeting in Almonte, ON August 6th. We are pleased to announce the 2009 board of directors. The board of directors will elect officers at the next board meeting on September 2nd.
Arnold Taylor, Prairie representative
Carrie Watson, Interim Ontario representative
Roxanne Beavers, Atlantic representative
Janine Gibson, Past President
Dan Brisbois
Lorraine Beaudette
Gavin Dandy
Genevieve Grossenbacher
Sheila Hamilton
Vivian Vilich
The proposed changes to COG's by-laws and membership fees were both approved by the membership. Stay tuned for more on when the new membership fees will come into effect.
COG's auditor presented the organization's financial statements, which are available at www.cog.ca, and the members appointed the same auditors for 2009. |
|
|
|
Canada
|
Produce driving Canadian organic sales: USDA report
Full story: FruitNet.com
| According to a new USDA GAIN report, the retail value of organic food in the Canadian market is driven primarily by the sales of organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Canada's organic market is growing at 15-20 per cent per year, the USDA said, with the main categories of organic food sales in supermarkets comprising fresh fruits and vegetables at 41 per cent, beverages at 17 per cent and prepared foods at 14 per cent. Packaged organic foods make up much of the remainder of organic sales in Canada, and although data are not available for the other sales channels, it is estimated that they have a much higher proportion of fruits and vegetables. Up to 80 per cent of organic fresh produce consumed in Canada is imported, the USDA said. |
|
Organic items thrive in Quebec
Full story: The Packer
| Though the recession has affected sales of organic produce in Quebec, large local growers continue to increase organic acreage to meet the demand. "Organic companies are thriving," said Anthony Fantin, vice president of Veg Pro International, Sherrington, Quebec, which is working toward growing organically. "But from visiting stores and talking to produce managers, it looks like demand is only great in areas that haven't been hard hit by the economy." Robert Beauregard, director of negotiations for Montreal-based Metro supermarkets, said he's seeing a definite slowdown in organic sales in Quebec after several years of growth. "The hard-core organic customer isn't a problem," he said, "it's the soft customer who wants to eat healthier and try organics but finds the cost prohibitive in this economy." |
|
Scene-stealing squirrel crashes Banff tourist photo
Full story: CBC.ca
| A cheeky squirrel in Alberta's Banff National Park has gone viral after stealing the spotlight in a tourist's photo. Melissa Brandts, who was visiting from Minnesota, had set up her camera on a tripod to capture her and her husband, Jackson, in front of picturesque Lake Minnewanka in May. "We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot!" she wrote. The ground squirrel became the focus of the picture as the couple faded into the background. In less than a week, the Crasher Squirrel, as it's become known, has stormed the internet. Photoshop enthusiasts have added the furry scene-stealer to family portraits, famous paintings, and even to the top of the Queen's hat with a pile of nuts. |
|
|
|
Standards & Equivalency
|
The latest standards amendments are winding their way through the CGSB process and hopefully will become law before the end of 2009. For a synopsis of the key changes, check out the article in the summer issue of the Canadian Organic Grower. There is talk of another CGSB technical committee meeting next fall.
Now that the equivalency agreement with the U.S. has been negotiated, the Canada Organic Office at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is turning its attention to the European Union - another big trading partner. So far, both countries have developed lists of critical variances - the first step in negotiating a bilateral agreement.
|
|
What does organic mean?
Full story: Welland Tribune
| Since June 30, a new organic logo bearing the words "Canada Organic" has been appearing on store shelves. The Canada Organic label is for products certified in accordance with new national standards that were put in place last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In short, only food products made up of 95 per cent organic content can be certified and be labeled "organic" in the supermarket. This latest in the line of logos and standards are all to the benefit of consumers and businesses, said Michael Armstrong, a Brock University business professor who teaches courses on quality and operations management. "The national Canadian standard finally lays out, 'This is what it means to call something organic food if you're selling something within Canada,' " Armstrong said. So while the consensus might be that spraying synthetic chemical pesticides on produce is the antithesis of organic, the jury might be out on natural pesticides and the shades of grey start sprouting like weeds in an organic garden. Canada Organic, though, is a common definition of how good you have to be to be organic, Armstrong said. For farmers, he said, it means a level - pesticide-free - playing field. |
|
| Welland Tribune - 07/27/09 |
|
|
Research
|
Organic food not healthier, says FSA
Full story: The Guardian (UK)
| Organic food is no healthier and provides no significant nutritional benefit compared with conventionally produced food, according to a new, independent study funded by the Food Standards Agency. But its conclusions have been called into question by experts and organic food campaigners. The report looked at evidence published over the past 50 years of the different nutrient levels found in crops and livestock from both types of farming and also at the health benefits of eating organic food. The findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, contradict previous work that has found organically grown food to be nutritionally superior. Organic food campaigners criticised the study for failing to consider fertiliser and pesticide residues in food. They expressed disappointment at its "limited" nature, saying that without long-term studies it did not provide a clear answer on whether eating organic food has health benefits. A leading food academic went further, saying he found the conclusions "selective in the extreme." |
|
| The Guardian (UK) - 07/29/09 |
Specific pesticide directly linked to Parkinson's Disease
Full story: NaturalNews.com
| According to the National Parkinson Foundation, about 1.5 million Americans currently have Parkinson's Disease (PD). Another 60,000 or so people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with the motor system disorder in 2009. Research is pointing more and more to a "smoking gun" behind Parkinson's. It appears PD doesn't just strike at random. Instead, it is most likely triggered by chemicals in the environment that are literally toxic to the human brain. Now a new study has zeroed in on one specific suspect - a pesticide called B-hexachlorocyclohexane (B-HCH). Used widely in the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s in agriculture, the chemical was also found until fairly recently in the insecticide lindane, used as a treatment to kill fleas and ticks on pets and lice in humans. Even if you've never treated a dog or cat with lindane or worked in agriculture, the odds are you've still been exposed to the toxin. Banned in the l970s, B-HCH is a dangerous contaminant that won't go away - it is still found as a contaminant in water and soil. |
|
| NaturalNews.com - 08/14/09 |
|
|
Opinion
|
Organic is more than small potatoes
Full story: Telegraph (UK)
| Forget, for a moment, the impassioned debate over the healthiness of organic food that has been raging merrily since the Food Standards Agency published its controversial report. There is a much more important issue to consider, one that has hardly figured in the argument. Can organic farming do much to feed an increasingly hungry world? Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture. Organic farming, meanwhile, has come a long way since the days when it was dismissed as "muck and magic," with the development of increasingly sophisticated techniques. Even more important, going organic almost always boosts the incomes of small Third World farmers, because they no longer have to buy expensive chemicals. Going organic will also pay long-term dividends, for it builds up soil where conventional farming often depletes it, and stores more water in the ground in what will be an increasingly thirsty world. |
|
| Telegraph (UK) - 08/07/09 |
You say tomato, I say agricultural disaster
Full story: New York Times
| We wait all year for warmer weather and longer days. Once we get them, it seems new problems for farmers rise to the surface every week: overnight temperatures plunging close to freezing, early disease, aphid attacks. Another day, another problem.
The latest trouble is the explosion of late blight, a plant disease that attacks potatoes and tomatoes. Late blight appears innocent enough at first - a few brown spots here, some lesions there - but it spreads fast. But this year is turning out to be different - quite different, according to farmers and plant scientists. For one thing, the disease appeared much earlier than usual. Late blight usually comes, well, late in the growing season, as fungal spores spread from plant to plant. So its early arrival caught just about everyone off guard. And then there's the perniciousness of the 2009 blight. The pace of the disease (it covered the Northeast in just a few days) and its strength (topical copper sprays, a convenient organic preventive, have been much less effective than in past years) have shocked even hardened farmers. |
|
| New York Times - 08/08/09 |
|
|
Biotechnology
|
Quick, quiet genetic corn approval questioned
Full story: Montreal Gazette
| The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has quietly approved a new genetically engineered corn with eight different insect- and weed-fighting traits, but farmer and environmental groups in Canada say the approval was rushed and environmental risks ignored. Developed through a research agreement between Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, SmartStax corn is unique in that it "stacks" eight different genetically engineered traits that will allow corn to tolerate certain weed- and insect-killing products made by the two companies. Each of the eight traits has been individually approved by the CFIA, but opponents are concerned there might be unintended consequences when the traits are combined. "You'd think that a combination of eight GE traits would trigger an environmental assessment, but the CFIA has (provided) no public record of their evaluation," said the co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network. |
|
| Montreal Gazette - 07/25/09 |
|
|
Global Snapshots
|
Organic farming sprouts in Beijing
Full story: MSNBC
| In China, a growing appreciation for organic food isn't simply because of the perceived nutritional benefits; consumers have turned to organic food as a means of ensuring some measure of health and safety. After all, this is a country where the challenges of maintaining food safety are regularly in the newspaper headlines, not to mention the myriad reports of food being tampered with in local Chinese markets. This year the Chinese government has taken numerous steps in an attempt to improve food safety. Chief among these is the country's first food safety law, which went into effect on June 1, enacting tough penalties against producers of tainted food and consolidating oversight in one cabinet-level agency. And more recently, officials established a database keeping track of food manufacturers who have issued recalls in the past. Still, consumers in Beijing are taking matters into their own hands. In fact, just as it has in the U.S. and other western countries, community supported agriculture - buying locally grown produce directly from farmers - has begun to grow in popularity in the capital. [Video included in full story.] |
|
India: Organic growth for organic farming
Full story: The Times of India
| The National Centre for Organic Farming, an undertaking of the ministry of agriculture, plans to take the total cultivated area under organic crops to 15 million hectares by 2010, making it a little over 1 per cent of the total area under the plough in India. The three major organic crops remain tea, honey and cotton, while growing medicinal plants is a new emerging area, said the centre's director Dr A. K. Yadav. The organic farming sector fared well despite the economic slowdown by clocking a substantial growth of 12 per cent Yadav said. He added that though the average growth tally remained at 18 per cent, the performance was much better than other sectors. |
|
| The Times of India - 08/04/09 |
|
| Coming Events
|
To stay current on organic happenings between e-newsletters, check out COG's online calendar.
Bowmanville Community Organic Garden - Grow Your Own Organic Fruit & Vegetables
Bowmanville, ON
The Canadian Organic Growers, Durham Gardeners, would like to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to take part in the Bowmanville Community Organic Garden (BCOG). Founded several years ago through the hard work of COG members, the garden provides space for organizations and individuals who would like to explore nature through the art of gardening.
For more information, call Vincent Powers at 905-263-9907 or Peggy Clark at 905-623-5278.
|
August 23, 2009
Wicklow Way Farm - Tomato Festival
11:00am-4:00pm - Wicklow Way Farm, Colborne, ON
Wicklow Way Farm grows over 150 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. On Sunday August 23rd we'll be celebrating the start of the tomato season with a culinary tourism event called Celebrate Tomatoes! We'll be tasting as many of the 150+ varieties that are ripe at that time and we will be joined by half a dozen local restaurants that will be preparing samples with our produce. The tomato tastings are free and there is a nominal charge for the samples. Directions to the farm can be found on the website.
Website: www.WicklowWay.ca
|
August 25-28, 2009
First International IFOAM Conference on Organic Animal and Plant Breeding - BREEDING DIVERSITY
Sante Fe, NM, USA
Visit the IFOAM website for more information.
Website: IFOAM
|
August 29, 2009
COG Perth-Waterloo-Wellington's Seed Saving Garden Tours
10:00am and 1:00pm
Bring a bundle of envelopes and join us on a seed saving walk through our heritage flower and vegetable gardens. You will learn about pollination and how to save seeds for a wide variety of ornamentals and vegetables. Take seed home with you. Save Seed and Save the Future! Contact us at the email below for more information.
Email: cogpww@sympatico.ca
|
September 13, 2009
Feast of Fields Ottawa
12:00-4:00pm, Vincent Massey Park, Ottawa, ON
Presented by Canadian Organic Growers - Ottawa Chapter. The theme for Feast of Fields Ottawa 2009 is Community Shared Agriculture (CSA). 25 local organic farmers team up with top area chefs to highlight the best of the harvest (vegetables and meat).
Ticket prices:
Adults: $40 in advance / $50 at the gate.
Youth: $25 in advance / $30 at the gate.
Tickets will be available online beginning July 1st and at various local businesses August 1st.
For more information visit the website below or contact Michele Green at 613-244-4000 or email.
Website: Feast of Fields
Email: Michele Green
|
October 4, 2009
Seeds of Diversity AGM
1:30pm - YWCA, 1355 Rene Levesque Blvd., Montreal, QC
Guest speaker, Frederic Sauriol from Union Paysanne.
|
|
|
|
Note:
|
Whenever possible, stories are linked to the original source. Some sites may require registration, and/or not archive the stories. All links were active at the time of publication.
Articles reprinted in this newsletter are not necessarily endorsed by Canadian Organic Growers.
|
|
This newsletter is produced by Canadian Organic Growers.
If you would like to be removed from this list, please send an email to laura@cog.ca.
Please feel free to redistribute all or part of this newsletter.
| Prepared by: |
|
|
|
|
