Minutes for Growers of Organic Food
In Attendance:
Tom, Joanne, Rolland, Mary, Michael King, Simone, Cain, Jan, Alex,
Regrets: Brian, Garret and Heidi, Leslie, Anarchy Farm, Jonathan, Mathias, Jodi
Crewe, The Leras and Linda Bonnefoy.
Meeting was called to order at 1:30 pm . The minutes
of the last meeting were unavailable but a correction was needed on the Legume
report, the minutes should have read “The final analysis will be done when the
project is complete”.
Correspondence:
COG survey was sent , filled out by the executive and returned to COG.
Bev Grey passed on a message that a farm worker is looking for a stay in the
Friend of Ruth and Andy, Candace Thompson of
Speakers:
Tanis Davey presented her thoughts on a forager project.
Many farmers and gardeners are busy tending to their projects and do not have
time to market their products to all the different outlets. Likewise consumers
have a need for some of this overabundance of vegetables that are available but
difficult to always access. A go between for these two would be a forager. The
idea/project is based upon organic, local, sustainable production.
A survey of potential consumers and producers needs to be done followed by a
pilot project. The survey would identify the wants and needs of both producers
and consumers. The pilot project would try to initiate dialogue and then
commerce between the two groups.
Good examples include Food Link in Ontario http://www.foodlink-waterlooregion.ca/
and Local Food Plus also in Ontario http://www.localflavourplus.ca/
There was excellent discussion and support of this initiative with many ideas
passed on to Tanis. The next step will be to approach the Agriculture branch
and identify a potential source of funding for the project. Members offered to
help with the proposal and also support of the project. The Fireweed Community
Market was mentioned as a good connection.
*Note* subsequent to the meeting,
Reports:
Financial:
Year end financial is complete. There is approximately $900 remaining in
the budget which can be used for a project(s).
COG:
Nothing to report
APF:
Sheila was unable to attend the meeting.
Tom sent an email to Tony in regard to member comments about the committee
which is being looked at to discuss the multi use facility being proposed. The
email contained suggestions that there needs to be an equal representation on
the committee from stakeholder groups and that members are brought forward from
the general membership of these groups and not executive board members. Tony
had responded that this idea will be brought forward to the next Ag Industry
Advisory Committee(AIAC) meeting.
Discussion was in favor of this approach. If this
didn't pass muster with the AIAC it was suggested that we don't participate
with the committee. Cain suggested that we look into attending and bringing up
a market location as a possibility. Other ideas were mentioned and the
motivation for this whole project was questioned because to date no one has
seen the project details or reasoning behind it. Cain briefly outlined the initiative
stating that in order to obtain property for agriculture projects, Minister
Lang wanted some justification. The feasibility study was done by YAA which
resulted in a multi use facility idea.
Rolland mentioned some past history that included vegetable
storage and a red and white meat abattoir. For a variety of reasons nothing has
succeeded to date.
OFC:
Claire could not attend the meeting but forwarded a report.
The GoOFY/OFC outreach project to facilitate
territorial organic sector
development: GoOFY's application for $5000 was
accepted. The
application stated we wanted to reach out to all aspects of the organic
industry that is present in the
of GoOFY. To achieve this, we proposed to:
1) Study the situation and find out exactly how many
potential members
there are in the Yukon
2) Approach them with a package that explains the benefits of
being a
member of GoOFY
3) Within that package, include what is required of
producers/retailers/processors, once the Canadian Organic Regulation comes
into effect in December, 2008. Even though an enterprise is not certified,
they still need to follow the regulation and standard.
GoOFY needs to fill out the OFC conditional funding
agreement and a Project
Description which lays out in detail what exactly we
will do with the $5000.
Contact Claire with any questions or ideas cdesmarais@northwestel.net
Tom will contact Claire and work with her on this.
Old Business:
306.1 Legume study. Cain has the final report about done for 2007. He was
concerned about the project and it's direction and
changes imposed since its inception. Numerous suggestions put forward from
Karen Digby (previous technician) need to be
addressed. Cain feels that a project manager needs to be firmly identified
because much of what has been done and changed was done by Karen from
suggestions by Matt Ball and not the project manager.
We need to identify the value within the project before we commit to large sums
of funding.
It was suggested and approved that a meeting be held in the near future to iron
out these issues. Matt Brian, Cain and Joanne should arrange this.
406.3 Infarmation articles. Nothing
on the table at this time.
906.1 Brian's corner. Nothing on the table at this time.
907.1 Poultry Processors. Cain will gather information from processors to be
included on webspace describing efforts made so far
and what is happening summer '08
907.6 Yukon Agricultural Products Guide. It needs to be wrapped up printed and
online by March 31 for the funding. Work is well underway and the web page is
off to AAFC for aproval.
1007.3 Wildwood Festival . As a continuing reminder, It will be on Aug 3 for 1 day. There will be a link connecting
this to the Yukonfood website
1107.3 Conferences. Brian has submitted a proposal for 10 people to attend the
COABC conference
1207.1 Farm apprenticeships. Joanne has applied through Goodwork
1207.3 GE Free Petition. Tom mentioned that the first phase of a GE Free Yukon
strategy session was held and that there is strong support for an ongoing
initiative involving many sectors At this point the long term strategy will
cover a three year period with numerous short term goals. The Strategic plan
will be concluded beginning of March and undertakings concerning GoOFY will be brought forward. Cain asked that YAA board be
kept informed because their are individuals that are
interested. Tom agreed to forward relevant information.
1207.5 Michael King was asked if the name of his organic
processing inspector could be forwarded to GoOFY so
that PACs could be made aware. Certified organic
growers will need to have another inspection soon and Claire will not be
available for some farms this season due to repetitive certifications.
New Business:
108.1 Farm gate sale clarification. It was made clear that this option is only
viable through a willingness of governmental departments to allow it. This is
mostly done because of a lack of inspected facilities for meat processing. It
was pointed out that if any processing facility was brought on stream like the
multi use facility farm gate sales might be past history. Throughout the rest
of
108.2 Organic Feed synopsis. Tom reported that everyone
responded favorably to the idea of using
organic feed or using organic vit-min premix and
protein supplement with local grain. There were no comments received regarding
using conventional feed. It was suggested that in order to obtain the best
prices for feed and delivery all growers pool their requests. Joanne will
contact Sunworks and In Season for availability and
Leslie Peters for possible connections for transport. Tom will communicate with
the Yukon Grain farm that anyone wanting to arrange feed from him will do so
independently.
108.3 Chapter review. A questionnaire will be sent to members to review how we
feel our chapter is doing and if there are options or ideas to improve our
position or mandate. All thoughts and ideas will be entertained.
108.4 Sourcing organic amendments. Please email Joanne if anyone has an
interest in sourcing some amendments for their gardens/fields.
108.5 YAA Environment/Farming workshop. People that are interested in attending
this should contact Rick Tone at the YAA as soon as possible.
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned shortly after 4pm with a motion from Tom.
Next Meeting:
To Be Announced.