Food Banks

C

can't miss

Well-Known Member
We argue about such peddy stuff here, my self included.
Food banks are running short now, and I know we all give what we can, and we are going to have to give even more, we're Canadian's, we will.
Even if we could throw a switch today, end C19, the number's out of work won't change for a long time, the number's requiring assistance is tapping out the food banks now, and it's going to swell by many fold.
So what do we do? Give more $$, yes, but thats going to happen anyway.
This post is just to throw out idea's, mine, think we have to loosen reg's? Dairy dumping milk, people going hungry, get the whole pasteurization vrs whole milk argument, but hard times make for tough decisions. Farm gate, if they can produce and are willing, meat, veg, ect, let them. Grocery stores, give away the past date stuff? Wild game, if a soup kitchen can make a donated venison stew, let them.
Here, doubled up our already to big garden, if it goes to folks in need, great, if not needed, gets me off the couch.
We may not be able to fish, hunt, and I get that is what this forum is all about, right now, we all have to pull together. Stay well
 
Well said @can't miss It's Government Regulations that is the cause of so much food waste. My nephew works in a Chain Food Store and tells about all the food waste that he sees. Just because a Packaged or Canned food product has expired does not mean it's not edible. Anybody please correct me if I am wrong.

Several years ago a friend of mine use to raise a few chickens then do his own slaughtering and sold them off to friends etc. which he had done for several years but Government Regulations changed that and he would have to have them done at a Provincially Licensed Meat Plant which was cost prohibitive.

Talk about food waste that I have seen 1st hand. What do you think happens when a Vegetable Farmer is under Contract to grow and supply
xtons of Sweet Corn, Squash, Yellow or Green Beans, Potatoes for Chips and more to a packer but has an exceptional high yield that growing season. The farmer is not going to harvest it (though sum do) and give it to Food Banks because he does not want to incur any more costs.

Of course, sum Vegetables that are grown for the packers is not the best tasting if it was fresh out of the field because it is best for processing only. I remember a few years a local farmer had an exceptional high yield of Sweet Corn. On one of the farms he rented, 200 Acres alone was ploughed under and there was more on other rented farms.

I have seen at harvest time acres of what is called Ultra Butternut Squash that will grow over 20lbs each sitting in farmers fields and then ploughed under because he has met his quota.

What a waste.
 
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Its such a GD waste, absolutely no argument here. But it's not all gov reg's, although a lot is. As for field crop's, alot comes into play. Canneries/freezer plants are business's with a bottom line, profit? Should they produce beyond that for the betterment of society? Probably, but thats a argument for another day. Were behind that now, no one saw this shit coming, maybe that changes now?
Canned/frozen food crops are planted south to north, in order to insure when the canning plants get on a line, say sweet corn, they have a constant supply, if crops in Elgin were shit do to say dryness, Oxford was good, some farms get by-passed, Sugar content, ripening schedule, all comes into play.
The waste is just sad, and that's not on the farmers, we became such a sue now era? The one's I know hate to see the waste, but they can't take the chance of here it is folk's, and someone stubb's their toe?
All the farmer's I know would much rather see their crop go to good.
 
I know that 1000’s of gallons of surplus milk is being dumped down the drain here in Canada and the US.

What you may not know is:

The amount of waste is staggering. The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week.

In the US 1000’s of acres of fruits and vegetables that are grown in Florida across to California are being plowed over or left to rot because sum farmers solely sell to Restaurants, Theme Parks or Schools nationwide that have closed because of the COVID.

An Idaho farmer has dug huge ditches to bury 1 million pounds of onions. In Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits.

The loss has created a domino effect through the farming industry, Florida’s second-largest economic driver. It yields $155 billion in revenue and supports about 2 million jobs.

Many growers have donated produce to food banks, but there’s a limit on what the charities can accept and storage is an issue for perishable fruits and vegetables. Food banks are full after theme parks shuttered and donated massive amounts of produce.

While the farmers have been plowing fresh vegetables into the soil, they have had to plant the same crop again, hoping the economy will have restarted by the time the next batch of vegetables is ready to harvest. But if the food service industry remains closed, then those crops, too, may have to be destroyed.

Yet with the US Plowing under their crops in the meantime Mexican Produce is still being imported.

Ontario has about 3,000 acres of vegetable greenhouse with most in Essex County but I don't know if they will be impacted.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/unprecedented-greenhouse-growth-wont-slow-down-in-2020/

BELOW ARE PICS OF CROPS TO BE PLOWED UNDER OR LEFT TO ROT GO TO GOOGLE IMAGES AND SEARCH "FLORIDA FARMERS PLOWING CROPS UNDER" AND SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING WHICH IS BEYOND THEIR CONTROL
PLOWED VEGIES1.jpgPLOWED VEGIES2.pngPLOWED VEGIES3.jpg
 
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