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Richard Florida, the guru of the Creative Class, speaks at length about the 3 T’s: technology, talent and tolerance.
He speaks of creative minds that thrive in a creative climate of new technology and in places that can validate their identities as creative people. He says people in the new creative class look for high-quality amenities in regions with additional experiences.
Farming and farmers have not been traditionally looked upon as a creative culture in any region, at least not in the last 100 years. If anything, in the ‘burbs’ of the technological world, the honorific of farmer more often was used in a derogatory way, denoting substandard knowledge and the inability to move much past a certain station in life.
Move to present time, Yukon.
Speaking of real food, people live in a bubble here, subsisting predominantly on box store food trucked from thousands of miles away up tortuous highways, mid-winter, through spring washouts and sold at unsustainable prices.
How can anyone possibly justify a dollar a head for romaine lettuce mid February? That price doesn’t even cover the cost of the plastic bag and printing, let alone the labour to grow the lettuce or the fuel to ship it here from California.
The reason it can be done is because corporations base their marketing on huge volumes with minimal input and cheap labour costs. The company will survive with the tight margins and subsidies. And the shareholders with have their percentage return on investment, but will the workers survive with any quality of life?
We need to educate ourselves on the reality of unsustainable food systems.
When we sell food from farms, here in the Yukon, we ask a price that is closer to the real cost of production. We’ve created the Fireweed Community Market to provide a consistent marketplace for consumers to come and support us.
The Farm Products Guide is given away free at the Yukon Made Store in the Frank Slim building at Shipyards Park. The guide describes every farm with products for sale in the Yukon as well as farm-related organizations and services.
There is new interest in the formation of a year-round co-op relying on the collaboration of many groups who together will drive a new food system. There is a study underway to help find solutions to meat processing in the territory and the availability of locally produced meat.
We’re fortunate we don’t have large agribusinesses here. There is no economy of scale because there is a small enough market to be captured without factory farms. All it takes is creative thinking and patience or, as Richard Florida says, “technology, talent and tolerance.”
We have sufficient talent and tolerance, and with it we utilize appropriate technology. We have the amenities here for creative minds with access to excellent live theatre and music, art, glorious wilderness and some of the most-extreme sports activities anyone could want to enjoy.
The farmers here are a part of a very creative class, more so than perhaps any region in mainstream farming in Canada.
We raise pristine, quality vegetables in less than 100 days; we grow high-quality feed for our animals and when we have people come out to help us process our poultry, for the freezer, they thank us for the experience.
Even though the organic sector here is small, we make an impact.
We sat at the table and worked to develop the new Canadian Organic Regulations recognized around the world. The Yukon is part of Slow Food, Canadian Organic Growers, Food Secure Canada, Organic Federation of Canada, Peoples Food Policy Project and the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.
We have an amazingly creative group supporting the growth of a food system here.
Technology from the 70s and the green revolution was the downfall of farmers around the world. Despite the promise of increased production, lowered costs and high profits through mono-cropping, irrigation and chemical fertilizers, those who survived the debt and crop failures were the multinational agribusinesses.
The same promises are made today with the gene revolution with similar results of farm devastation from debt load and no increase in production or profit except for those same multinational companies.
In the Yukon, more and more people are moving to sustainable farming practices and a natural rotation of animals and plants, rejuvenating and building the soil and producing incredible food.
Our customers are proud to know us, and tell their friends about “our farmer” taking pride in the connection. Being a farmer here isn’t about expensive technology; it is about using learned methods from within the Yukon and sharing with like-minded people.
Farmers here do not have to deal with quota systems or seed companies trying to sell their latest technology. It will be a while before we can produce enough food for more than a small percentage of the population, on a regular basis, but an ever-increasing number of people are interested in growing their own food in their own garden.
Food security here is an issue and people are beginning to feel the need to support a local food system. We have a food bank now that needs everyone’s support, and we have garden landscapers who will help you to design and grow your own food with less cost and twice the enjoyment.
Richard Florida is an intelligent, creative person and I think he’d agree that the people who farm sustainably are very much members of the creative class. Here in the Yukon, we do it our own way within our own community of friends.
Talk to me about real food.
Tom Rudge farms with his wife, Simone, at Aurora Mountain Farm, one of several certified organic farms in the Yukon.
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