Archive of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood Columns

To see my 2009 columns, go to


www.ndgfreepress.com

Fair Trade Starts Here, There and Everywhere!

This blog was originally published in 2009

Congratulations are in order for Wakefield/La Peche, which recently became Quebec’s first “Fair Trade” municipality. They, along with Wolfville, Nova Scotia who made the shift last April, are the first Canadian municipalities to join the locally-generated movement to apply principles of fair trade to public institutions.

The Fairtrade Town Campaign began in Garstang England in 2001. Initiated by a local Oxfam group, they began with simply promoting the public and private purchasing of certified fair trade goods in the town. The group took their experiences and created the Fairtrade Town Goals and Action Guide to encourage other municipalities to follow their example.

In the five years since the movement started, over 209 British towns have been awarded Fair trade Town status. Today there are fair trade towns in over ten countries.

According to the Fairtrade Foundation, a UK-based fair trade licensing organization, five goals must be met in order to become a fair trade town:

1. The town council must pass a resolution supporting fair trade, and serve fair trade coffee and tea at its meetings and in offices and canteens,

2. A range of fair trade products must be readily available in the area’s shops and served in local cafés and catering establishments (targets are set in relation to the population),

3. Fair trade products must be used by a number of local work places (estate agents, hairdressers, etc) and community organizations (churches, schools, etc). There is also talk about expanding the use of fair trade products into the town governments as well,

4. Attract media coverage and popular support for the campaign,

5. A local fair trade steering group must be convened to ensure continued commitment to Fair Trade Town status.

Canadian certification includes a sixth goal, according to Transfair: The promotion of other ethical and sustainable initiatives within the community.

While these are not the most rigorous standards, they are a strong step towards adopting fair trade principles across all public and private institutions, regardless of size.

I applaud any gains we can make in applying the principles of fair trade to towns and cities. In fact, municipalities and all levels of government should be held to the "fair trade" standards of paying good wages, keeping the workplace secure and free from harassment, and setting standards to guarantee the quality and accessibility of employment, goods and services.

While our public sector may seem to over-regulated and over-burdened, it is in a strong position to demonstrate fair trade principles to society as a whole. As fair wages, working conditions, and purchasing practices are adopted across the board, it will make the economy more transparent to buyers and sellers, as they can more fully comprehend the struggle to maintain and improve the quality of life here and abroad. The premium that taxpayers pay to have a more just and equitable public sector is easier to bear when we know that the money is being put to a good use: fair trade.

So let's buy fair trade products, and encourage our cities and towns to do so as well, but let's push further and enshrine the principles of fair trade at all levels of our society. Respecting the value of others increases our value as well.

Links:

Information about Wakefield/La Peche:

www.fairtrade-wakefield-equitable.info or www.transfair.ca

Information about wolfville, NS:

http://www.rimq.qc.ca/news_detail.asp?ID=65830

The Fairtrade Foundation:

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved_fairtrade_towns.htm

Fair trade town information:

http://www.mediaterre.org/amerique-nord/ actu,20070608183841.html

The Eco-Over-Under : Are we making the greenest choices, or gambling with the environment?

This blog was originally published in 2009 - All environmentally-minded folks are on the lookout for ways to help slow global warming and employ the three R's in as many parts of their lives as possible. Unfortunately, in the environment as in life, things can be more complex than we originally think. Are choices like buying local or reusable products always the most ecological option? Where is the point where it's better for the environment to reuse an item like a plastic container versus a disposable one? Like in gambling, what is the eco "over-under"? When my kids' school announced an eco-lunch campaign, I was expecting, and received, information about using reusable plastic containers instead of cling wrap and sandwich bags, and a thermos or plastic bottle instead of juice boxes. I accepted that these were good ideas for reducing waste and global warming. My wife, on the other hand, has a tendency to examine all aspects of a question. "Is it really more ecologically sound to pack a lunch this way?" She asked. "Of course" I replied. "How come?" she asked, and I had to tell her, as I so often do, "I don't know." On the surface, it just seems obvious that reusable is better for the planet than disposable. But why?
I read an article in the February 25th edition of The New Yorker called "Big Foot: The Complexities of Going Green ." In it journalist Michael Specter discusses the hotly contested terrain of measuring carbon emissions. First Specter suggests that all forms of carbon consumption in our lives, like food, transportation, clothes, housing, and so on, should be given equal importance. For example, the average North American feels good about recycling, but is she equally willing to forego air travel?
Specter looks at the "localvore" movement (also known as the "hundred mile diet," where participants choose to consume only locally-produced foods) and asserts that assuming this practice is automatically more energy efficient than shipped produce is simply naïve. Local product A, grown slowly down the street on nutritionally depleted soil, with low crop yields, picked by hand, can leave a larger carbon footprint than imported product B, grown quickly overseas on densely cultivated lots, with high yields, picked efficiently by machine, he argues.
Consuming locally is beneficial, he believes, but not with all crops and not under all circumstances. For example, one study found that due to the difference in carbon use between transportation by sea (barge) and land (truck), a New York wine drinker is "greener" by consuming imported French wine than California varieties.
So in the end how do we measure the environmental impact-the eco-over-under-of reusable products versus disposable ones? Ask Pablo , a blog about "making sustainability metrics fun," calculated that a coffee or tea drinker using a stainless steel mug will have to reuse it 327 times before it has less of an environmental impact than a disposable Styrofoam cup. For years I have used a reusable steel coffee mug, and have broken, lost and replaced it a few times. Of the four mugs I have gone through over the years, I might be close to breaking even, but the whole exercise has got me thinking about other so-called "green" solutions.
If you pack your lunch with reusable containers, how many uses will it take to equal the environmental impact of using cling wrap, snack and sandwich bags? The calculation would need to take into account the energy used in manufacture and shipping of the containers, the amount of water and energy used for cleaning the reusable containers, the land-use of its place in the landfill site (where both disposable and reusable plastic eventually end up), and the number of times each container is actually used.
The point at which reusable containers really become more environmentally friendly is an elusive figure, but it would be interesting to know if it was five, fifty, or five hundred uses. While the reduction of disposable packaging in landfills is a laudable end in itself, like so many things in life, there's more to the footprint than the brand of shoe. While it's never an environmental gamble to reuse an item you already possess, buying new semi-reusable products might be a bet not worth taking. I welcome new, skeptical research that calculates to eco-over for all of our necessities, with the hope of truly living the slogan, "Think locally, Act globally."

—Roger

Compost Conundrum: Who is responsible for our organic waste?

This blog was originally published in 2009. Recent changes in the CDN/NDG Borough’s Community compost program have reawakened a long running debate within the environmental community: Is it better to have individual backyard bins, and small community bins for those without a back yard, or is it better to integrate composting into the borough’s own waste management strategy?

The Borough began the community-composting program after a pilot project by Action Communiterre and ValoEco to set up and use three-bin composters at or near collective gardens was attempted. The original project and Borough follow-up was based on the idea that local residents would contribute to and manage the composters themselves, and share the finished compost either in a collective garden or at individual homes.

The pilot ran smoothly, and the Borough wanted to replicate the program in more neighborhoods, eventually putting two three-bin composters in each of the six (now five) electoral districts, and paying the local Eco-Quartier offices a small fee to maintain and supervise the bins.

So far so good, until rats were discovered in one of the community bins last summer, then in several of the bins last fall and winter.

While getting rid of the rats is simple (remove the compost from the bin, verify that residents are not putting bread, meat, or other rodent-friendly foods into the bins, then keep the compost moist after that. To ensure that rats do not re-enter, add wire mesh to the bottom of the bins, or place on a platform of cinderblocks to keep pests away), there is time and expertise needed to completely remove rodents and keep them away.

The Borough’s solution has been to empty and close the composters, and reopen them only if residents live in large apartment buildings, sign up, have their own key to the composters, and regularly assist in the upkeep and maintenance of the bins. These extra limitations on participation are discouraging people who want to compost, but don't want to invest too much time and attention to the task.

The integration of curbside compost (also called “organics”) collection into the waste management plans of municipalities large and small has been going on for over ten years. Mid-size cities like Halifax and Peterborough and large ones like Toronto all collect compostable materials along with recyclables and garbage.

When the contract for garbage pick-up and disposal came up for renewal last year, Cote-St-Luc decided to opt out and develop its own waste management strategy , including curbside organics collection. Starting as a pilot project this year, the town hopes to have a "three-stream" (recyclables, organics, and garbage) collection up and running in the next year or so.

The benefits are many: big reductions in the solid waste stream, reduced greenhouse gasses, and nutrient-rich compost for municipal and individual use. Curbside collection can also handle materials that community bins can’t like bread, dairy products and even meat. However, as local experience has shown, the larger the group involved in organics collection, the more contaminated the compost becomes and the less likely you are to get any of it (without paying, that is).

There have been calls from individuals and groups to keep supporting individual composting and local community bins. There is no question that in the short term individual and community composting are the only game in town.

What would you prefer: The borough taking over composting, or more support for individual and collective composting? Whichever choice we make, we will need to put it on the Borough's agenda, and like Cote-St-Luc, keep plugging away until it becomes a reality.

— Roger

Links:

General Composting Intormation: http://www.compost.org/
Community Composting: http://www.ecojm.cam.org/ndetail.php?id=6

Bio Fuels: Earth-Saver or Farmageddon?

This blog was originally published in 2009 - Bio Fuels are all over the news these days. Farmers are falling over each other to plant corn for ethanol plants, the Federal government is investing in the industry as part of its environmental strategy, institutions from public transit to delivery companies are looking at biodesiel conversion, and the auto industry is pinning its hopes on the promise of biofuels. While there are some positive short-term benefits of biofuels, notable reducing our consumption of petroleum, the current hype is an environmentally conscious smoke screen which blocks us from seeing the real problem: there is no sustainable solution to our car and gas transportation culture.
(www.energyfarms.net)A recent study by the Parliamentary Information and Research Service said that as an energy policy, biofuels are "disappointing" due to the sheer volume of biofuel necessary to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Environmentally, we would need to replace 10 percent of all fossil fuels used with biofuels to obtain a meager one percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The study also observes that the impact on our agricultural system would be acute. Industrial agriculture would see a small increase in the price of corn and canola (the two most widely used ingredients or "feedstock" for ethanol production), but the pressures of increasing yields and putting more marginal lands into production will limit the benefits to farmers, and stress already delicate farmlands. Once you factor in the energy (mostly fossil fuels) needed to fertilize, plant, grow, harvest, process, and transport the feedstock and refined fuel, the "savings" in GHG emissions over the same quantity of traditional fuels varies from 60-80 percent. To say that encouraging ethanol production is a progressive step toward taking care of the environment is disappointing, to say the least.
But before we stockpile food and build the underground bunker in the backyard, all the news is not bleak. Some biofuels are better than others, particularly biodiesel and cellulose-based ethanol. In the case of biodiesel, environmental and energy benefits come in two forms, lower feedstock and production costs, and the reuse of used food oils and other old "waste" oils" doubles the efficiency of the production of biodiesel. For cellulose-based ethanol, the feedstock is made up of agricultural residues, straw and wood chips. In fact, Ottawa-based Iogen, has built a trial plant to convert this biomass into cellulose-based ethanol for several years. Unfortunately, the Conservative-minority government's biofuel "strategy" is to encourage the expansion of industrial corn production and ethanol processing in (of all places) oil-rich Alberta. At least they have a strategy for fuels, because they don't have one for transportation. It is up to us to pressure our local and federal officials to decentralize and deindustrialize the production of biofuels to spread the economic and environmental benefits of alternative energy. In the meantime, we can build our own transportation strategy from below: walk, bike, or use public transportation.

Links

Amis de la terre
Biofuels - An Energy, Environmental or Agricultural Policy? (Parliament Library)
Bio-carburants. Vers la famine dans le tier monde?

Corn can't solve our problems (Washington Post)

Climate Change (Independent)

Life in the Slow Food Lane: Artisanal food production in Quebec

This blog was originally published in 2009

Slow Food Quebec recently held a conference about the ins and outs of artisanal food production in Quebec. More a chance to meet and exchange with other producers than a stuffy academic gathering, the event touched on a number of themes of importance:

At what level of production does a producer stop being an "artisan?"
What are the links between local, authentic food production and restaurants?
And how and what is distinctive about indigenous food producers and their products?
Slow Food Quebec was founded in 2001 to, in the words of Slow Food International, "protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenization of modern fast food and life," and "promotes gastronomic culture, develops taste education, conserves agricultural biodiversity and protects traditional foods at risk of extinction."
Simultaneously resisting the fads of no-fat everything and over-processed superfoods from the global farm lab, the idea of Slow Food is one whose time has come in Quebec. And we are in a position to lead North America in de-industrializing food production.
Sure, our agribusiness is guilty of some of the worst excesses of industrial agriculture. We've got massive farms consisting of one type of plant or animal, and we produce food that is bland and unhealthy right along side the other massive monocroppers that aren't concerned with the health and wellbeing of the environment, people and animals that surround them.
So how can artisanal production move us forward?
The emerging consensus is that there are a couple of essential factors needed to produce artisanal foods. The first is that most if not all of the processing and transformation of food must be done by hand, and that the core ingredients must be either made on-site or at least locally sourced. All recipes and additives must be the authentic, original work of the artisans.
At the Slow Food conference, farmers from the Gaspé spoke about the production and marketing of their food, and of the creative ways artisanal producers earn a living income from their work. For example, eliminating built-in government and market subsidies to agribusiness would help de-industrialize food production and re-energize health, taste, and the ecology of agriculture, and make it possible for artisanal producers to sustain their operations.

While artisanal products cost more, they are the newest and some say the best example of fair trade: the producers get to make their livelihood and consumers get unique, delicious, and healthy foods that are locally produced and sustainable. A recent article in La Presse observed that Quebecers spend more money on food than the North American average, and are more strongly inclined to support artisanal producers for staple fruits and vegetables as well as for processed foods. Quebec restaurants and food media also promote and support artisanal production.
The distinctiveness of Quebec foods is increasingly being recognized across Canada and around the world. By putting a premium on the sensuality of the food experience as well as the environmental, political and economic benefits of artisanal food production, a whole new food politics is being promoted in Quebec. In our production and marketing of local artisanal food we have a good start, but there is still a long way to go.
—Roger

Links:

Slow Food Québec
The Slow Down Events
Slow Food
Sexy farmers and the end of organic (Toronto Star)
Localvore UK