Think globally when it comes to food production

Editor:
As a local food producer and farmer I found the Climate Action Challenge: What’s on your plate? got off to a very good start as an interesting article about some very important issues facing all of us. Sherri Jackson made excellent points in the first four paragraphs of her article. The August 7 challenge is great. It is in the next three weeks that the wheels fall off the food truck.
August 14: There is no scientific proof supporting organic food is better for you, in fact the science says there is no nutritional difference between organic food and conventional food production systems. Organic farming practices are the adoption of 1940s – 1950s farming methods. That was fine back then when the world’s population was 2.2 billion people however now the world population is 7.8 billion. Who’s going to tell all those low income people in the world they are going to starve to death? There has been great strides made in reducing the most severe poverty in the world with 1.9 billion people in 1990 living on less than $2 a day to being 750 million in 2015.
So perhaps August 21 week challenge should be try to feed yourself for $2 a day. You better not start your day with a double-double coffee because you only have a few cents left to buy some gum to chew on for the rest of the day. Perhaps as a family project calculate your own daily food budget and then think of those 750 million born in a place without our opportunities. We need to use our advancements in science and technology to improve our productivity in the food system. Canadian farmers are world leaders and don’t have to take a backseat to anyone in the world. We have adopted the latest advancements in methods and technology because we have had to in order survive in a world market with very little help from our federal government.
August 28: This week should be deleted because there is nothing in the reasons for going vegetarian on the list that has any scientific support. A plant based diet which requires more crop land use to provide the daily global protein requirement is not possible. Meat protein, particularly beef, is a very sustainable source of protein. Canada’s agricultural land is 40 per cent grazing land and the cows eat grass turning it into high quality meat protein. Humans can’t eat grass and the grass land shouldn’t be used as crop land as our experience of plowing the prairies in the 30s was a disaster. Farmers not only feed cities we feed the world and we understand that responsibility and take it very seriously.
John Miller,
Creemore.