For this blog post, I got a really good opportunity perform something unconventional (in regard to college assignments). I had to visit a farmers market and got to talk to the farmers that were selling their products. Before the assignment brief, I learnt that there are so many farmers market across the city of Toronto, which I did not even know about before. There are farmers markets throughout the week except for Friday.
St. Lawrence Farmers Market
This was a random visit as I was just passing by the area. It was not my idea to go inside with the intention of keeping the assignment in mind. This farmers market is located just behind the St. Lawrence market and is operational every Saturday. The first thing to notice during this season are the variety of pumpkins and squashes that are sold on the entrance of the premises.
I did not spend much time inside of this place as I was getting late for something else, but I did get to chat with a lady at the counter of Chocosoltraders. They have a variety of products, all related to chocolate. They import cocoa beans from many different countries in South America. Along with their own range of chocolate products, they are also known to sell their cocoa beans to different places. One thing I learnt was that they are also known to sell their product to Soma Chocolatemaker (King st, west), which happens to be my favorite gelato place in the city.
Leslieville Farmers Market
Leslieville is a very big market and has different farmers that come from across the city. there is a wide variety of produce that is available here. This market is operational on Sunday’s. I had gone to this place with a group of colleagues from college, and we got to talk to an enthusiastic farmer at the stall of Kooner Farms.
She has been working with Kooner farms for several years now. She chose farming as a career, because she wanted to be involved in growing food in a way that is beneficial to people as well as the planet. Kooner farms has been growing organic food since 1988. The sole philosophy of Kooner farms is growing organic food. This is done keeping in mind the sustainability aspect of growing produce. This is an increasingly important term that we are hearing everywhere these days because there has been a rapid decrease of resources around the world.
According to her, politics does not effect their business at large. But definitely, growing food in a country like Canada, there are several environmental factors. Firstly there is rain that is very unpredictable, and organic food is fragile, it can destroy crops at a large scale. During the winters there is hardly anything that can be grown, but even then there is a constant fear of a frost destroying the vegetables. During the winters, most of the farming is conducted in greenhouses. This does affect the business and the labor involved in growing things. Also the sea level rise is a constant fear. Although, she says that there still is a very long time before something like that happens.
When we visited, there were a variety of products on sale. There were lots and lots of cauliflowers, and other vegetables like tomatoes, romaine lettuce, carrots, red radishes.
Coming to the price comparison, it is slightly expensive to buy products from an organic shop such as this. For example, one cauliflower is worth five dollars. Which is probably three to four dollars more than what you pay at a Store like Freshco. But, compared to the price of what we have to pay in the future, with the drastic environmental changes happening, I do not really think that five dollars is that expensive.
What I Learnt
One thing that I learnt for sure, that there are more people in this world that care for this planet than I initially thought there were. Apart from that, I learnt that farmers market is the best and easiest way of getting any seasonal products that you want to buy. Buying from places like these should be made aware to the people that do not have a slightest clue of what their food actually contains.
Theory Of Food 