Organic farmer Lorenz Eppinger and EcoSource are taking direct marketing to a whole new level.
Eppinger, 43, has a 100-acre certified farm just north of Campbellville. He has been growing chemical-free food there since 1989.
In order to be successful in his business, he knows you have to be your own marketing board. He has a full-time employee who works on finding consumers for the fresh produce he grows, which ranges from rutabagas all the way through watermelons.
On Wednesday, Eppinger was at Thomas St. Public School to meet a few of his new direct customers, who were probably the most enthusiastic he’s seen for a while.
Representatives of each of the 37 classrooms at the school, who are members of its “Green Team” who are assisted in their environmental endeavours by Grade 7 teacher Sheenu Sethi, gathered in the school lobby for the announcement of a new program.
It’s one that makes so much sense you wonder why no one thought of it before.
The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation is funding EcoSource for a $106,000 pilot project that will see schools like Thomas St., which is the first to try it, partner with farmers like Eppinger to provide healthy student snacks.
Lee Ann Mallett, executive director of EcoSource, who put the program together is amazed at the number of threads it pulls together into a very sensible pattern.
Having local farmers supply apples, carrots, pears and other fibre food to the 953 Thomas St. students does so many logical things: helps fight child obesity, reduces garbage from over-packaged snack foods (the school is starting a composting program where the fruit leftovers can be turned into soil conditioner for the school gardens), promotes better education since students learn far better running on the natural sugars in fruits and vegetables than on the artificial ones, helps fight global warming and improves air quality because the travel time for the fruit is so drastically reduced.
The ecological footprint of the Greenbelt Farm to School program is the paw print of a mouse compared to the elephant imprint of many imported foods.
Some of the startling facts about our carbon-belching food habits were included in a backgrounder from the Greenbelt Foundation.
Check these out. Our average meal travels about 2,500 kms. to our plate. It takes 435 calories to move a seven-calorie strawberry from California to Ontario. Buying New Zealand lamb rather than Ontario lamb results in the use of 400 times more energy. The energy used to supply the food we eat is responsible for up to a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gases.
EcoSource is hoping that, instead of negotiating contracts with cola manufacturers, our local school boards will consider board-wide contracts with local farmers.
Although the growing season and the school year don’t exactly coordinate well,
Eppinger says greenhouse produce and strategic imports will ensure a steady supply.
The best benefit of the program for people such as him might just be the development of a sustainable, educated market in future. If these kids grow up to be “conscientious consumers” they will be checking out the source of their food supply and demanding that local stores post the “carbon component” of the fruit they buy. “That’s the stuff that could make a huge difference in the long run,” says the farmer.
As he finishes speaking, a young female student sidles up to the proprietor of Greenfields Farms and says, “Thanks for the apples. They were so good, I had to eat two of them.”
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I will be on vacation for a week, returning March 19. See you then.