Go Green Winnipeg

Canada’s very first National Organic Week will begin on Thanksgiving Day and run until World Food Day on October 16th.

Organizers say we have a lot to celebrate – a vibrant alternative food system, a growing number of ecologically minded consumers and growers and new national Organic Products Regulations which we hope will unite Canadians behind a single national organic logo. Organic Week is organized by the Canada Organic Trade Association, Canadian Organic Growers and others. The week is intended to celebrate all things organic.

You would think that, in an economic downturn, we would see less rather than more. But it turns out our interest in organic products is stronger than ever – even in the US. Organic food, and other organic products, are showing up everywhere. Organic food is no longer the sole domain of health food stores.

And why not? In today’s world, we feel that in many ways we are at the mercy of the big systems supplying our needs. The processes and products often seem to be more oriented toward the good of the systems rather that toward the good of the consumer. We feel the possibility that the foods we eat and the products we surround ourselves with are bringing us health trouble.

Organic products give us some small measure of control over what we might be exposed to.

Our fears and suspicions were given more credence this past May, when the US President’s Cancer Panel produced a ground-breaking, no holds barred 240 page report that has drawn plenty of criticism. (Surprisingly, this three person panel was appointed by President Bush.)

The Panel did not hold anything back.

“The true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated,” said the President’s Cancer Panel. The request to President Obama was “to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

The report slams workplace exposures (workers are allowed much higher exposures to carcinogens than those accepted out in a community), outdated methods of assessing risk, risks to farm-workers, and exposure to carcinogens and radiation in military establishments, among other things.

Some of the recommendations around food were:

- Parents and child care providers should choose foods, house and garden products, play spaces, toys, medicines, and medical tests that will minimize children’s exposure to toxics.

Ideally, both mothers and fathers should avoid exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

- It is preferable to use filtered tap water instead of commercially bottled water.

- Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing … food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers [that would mean organic food] and washing conventionally grown produce to remove residues.

- Exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feedlots can be minimized by eating free-range meat.

This report will most likely lead to changes in the US, but the change will come slowly, since it has to work its way through a maze of bureaucratic systems.

Change at the grassroots level is easier. We can vote with our purchases and life choices.

We are already doing that. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be seeing so many more organic products turning up in stores.

Unfortunately, many of those organic products come from far away. Figuring out how to have an organic 100 mile diet is close to impossible unless you grow your own.

Canada’s organic sector is growing at 15 – 20 per cent per year, but even so, nearly 80 per cent of the organic food we consume in this country comes from somewhere else. That’s a $2 billion domestic market crying out for local suppliers.

The value of that market is now big enough to be interesting, and to attract development funding.

On September 1, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada put $6.5 million toward establishing Canada’s Organic Science Cluster.

The money comes from the “Growing Forward Program.”

It is intended to support growth in the organic sector by strengthening the science behind organic agriculture.

The funding will support research regarding organic fruit, cereal crop breeding, soil fertility, dairy, vegetables, greenhouse production, parasite control, and food processing.

The findings could be useful for conventional producers too, and may improve our food supply systems across the board.

Although this funding is a drop in the bucket compared with the funding that goes into conventional agriculture, it is a significant start.

One of the major criticisms of a push for organic foods is that there is no science to back up the claims that it is better.

No one funds that kind of science.

Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a new attitude toward building that science.

From the Globe and Mail:

Canada’s three largest provinces are forging ahead on a cap-and-trade system to stem global warming emissions, a move made just after a similar plan was abandoned by the U.S. Senate.

The system, set to start in January, 2012, would cap emissions on large industrial facilities in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia in Canada, and in California and New Mexico in the United States.

If implemented, the plan will likely leave the members’ policy at odds with most of the U.S. and the remaining seven provinces in Canada.

The five jurisdictions making the push are part of the Western Climate Initiative, formed in 2007 and led by California. On Tuesday, the initiative provided details of its centrepiece plan in a lengthy outline of the cap-and-trade program. Other group members, such as Utah and Arizona, haven’t committed to the system that some critics call too costly.

Even the early backers of the idea are uncertain. Last month, Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty wouldn’t commit to the 2012 date. B.C. hasn’t made a final decision and wants to make sure it’s not alone if it does join.

“Each jurisdiction is continuously weighing the pros and cons on moving ahead,” said Tim Lesiuk, a B.C. environment department official and the province’s chief negotiator with the Western Climate Initiative.

The biggest blow for cap-and-trade came last Thursday, when the Democrats in the Senate abandoned a bill that included the measure because of intransigent Republican opposition.

The Conservative federal government has long resisted the cap-and-trade idea, suggesting it would only move ahead if the U.S. did. In May, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it would be “difficult if not impossible” to start a system without the U.S.

In the midst of a scorching summer in much of North America, the Senate decision could mark the death knell for cap-and-trade nationally in the U.S. for several years.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade bill last year, but according to forecasts, Republicans are expected to make gains in the House in the November elections – and possibly take majority control. Gains in the Senate are also predicted, though the Democrats are expected to maintain their majority.

Cap-and-trade is designed to reduce global warming emissions by limiting gases industry can pump out. But to provide flexibility and minimize economic costs, businesses have the option to buy credits to cover situations where they exceed caps.