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Unique newspaper coverage of local, regional and global topics - serious and light-hearted.




Farms + Food


An apple experience like you have never imagined

September 22, 2011

Find out what makes the Salt Spring Island Apple Festival, on October 2, so scrumptious!

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Taking control of your food system

August 11, 2011 | Harry Burton

Harry Burton discusses Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food, highlighting the paradoxes and dangers of the modern world food system, as well as a plan to get healthy again.

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Our Taste for Beef and Hamburger

March 24, 2011

Brian Crumblehulme looks back at how our intense desire for hamburger developed from a historical, business and chemical point of view.

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Denman Agriculture

March 10, 2011

Denman Island Agricultural Strategy report was presented to the Islands Trust.

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Central Saanich growth threatens regional strategy

February 24, 2011

Pressure to develop in Central Saanich will fragment the area's rural character; creating urban sprawl, and automobile-dependent housing and services. Six proposals are reviewed.

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2 Chocolate Letters in One

February 24, 2011

Brian Crumblehulm's chocolate column of the February 10 issue inspires two letters about the impact of its production and a fair trade solution.

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The Potato Underground

September 30, 2010

Hard to harvest mechanically, the Caribou potato was outlawed but growers give them away to keep this tasty variety growing.

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Goodness growing on Galiano

September 2, 2010

Galiano Community Greenhouse lets residents grow food for the islands year round.

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Greener revolution

April 1, 2010

Elizabeth May reports on an islands local food conference and how it impacts our larger community.

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Local food: defending what's local, healthy and organic

December 3, 2009

Elizabeth May takes a look at the complex factors which make food a good buy, for us and the planet.

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Red is the bite of the future! - Harry Burton

July 24, 2008

Red-fleshed apples are truly the apple of the future. At Apple Luscious Organic Orchard on Salt Spring Island, we grow 23 varieties. The novelty of biting into these apples is amazing—you never have to encourage a child to eat them—and they taste even better than they look. The first reaction to biting into the red flesh is always, ‘Wow!’

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Agriculture and the BC Budget

May 15, 2008

MLA Corky Evans gives one of his legendary speeches in the BC Legislature.

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Warning About Eating Fish

May 15, 2008

BC government warns which kinds of fish are mercury contaminated and how much to eat of them.

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Community farm on Salt Spring becoming EcoReality

May 1, 2008

EcoReality Sustainable Land Use and Education Cooperative on Salt Spring Island has agreed to purchase 37 acres of the former 100-acre Hughes Farm in Fulford Valley, 63 acres of which is to become community farmland.

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Parochial Gardeners

May 1, 2008

We all have our lists of pet peeves. One such irritant is that continental mind-set that declares there are only two seasons, while here on the Salish Sea we celebrate four.

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Sorting out farm taxes

February 7, 2008 | By Jenny McLeod

In December, Rick Thorpe, Minister of Small Business and Revenue, ordered a review of farm property tax assessment policy. The policy review is aimed to protect small farms, and in particular small suburban-area farms.

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Saturna salmon cycle begins again

November 29, 2007

Last week Saturna’s salmon enhancement group went up to Cowichan River to collect salmon eggs destined for Lyall Creek on Saturna.

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Organic food more nutritious say EU researchers

November 29, 2007

Early results of a £12 million, 4-year European Union study on the benefits of organic food suggest that some of them, such as fruit, vegetables and milk, are more nutritious than nonorganically produced food and may contain higher concentrations of cancer-fighting and heart-beneficial antioxidants.

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Shrooming in Vancouver Island’s stumpfields

November 15, 2007 | Commentary by Ingmar Lee

Every autumn I head out towards Jordan River to pick wild mushrooms. Years ago, having comprehended the scale of the industrial decimation of fish worldwide, I quit one of my favourite pastimes and channelled my predatory proclivities into the hunt for mushrooms instead.

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Fifty Years of Rootstock

July 26, 2007

Traas Nursery was the only grower in Canada producing rootstock for the fruit industry.

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More than meets the eye in bee colony collapse

May 17, 2007

I’m on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse.

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Controversy over new Agricultural Land Commission appointments

May 18, 2006 | Derek Masselink

Recent appointments to the Agricultural Land Commission, an independent provincial agency responsible for administering the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve, have resulted in controversy for the provincial government.

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Farmland Forever

May 4, 2006 | Derek Masselink

On April 18, the David Suzuki Foundation released ‘Forever Farmland: Reshaping the Agricultural Land Reserve for the 21st Century.’ The report calls on the government to reaffirm its commitment to the protection of agricultural land by making its commitment to protect and preserve agricultural land in perpetuity.

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What's Gardening Got to Do with It?

March 11, 2004 | Derek Masselink

We used to live on the UBC Farm, which we often bragged with some irony is the last remaining farm in the city...

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