Eating Locally

Eating locally is a great way to support your local environment. When you support and get to know local farmers, you help to promote your local economy and protect farmland. You can also be sure to buy from farmers that take good care of their land and their communities. Finally, local food travels much shorter distances and generally uses less packaging that imported options so fewer resources are wasted in getting the food from farmer to fork.

Here are some great resources to help you eat more local food (outside of growing it yourself). 

Environment Hamilton - Hamilton Eat Local

Hamilton Eat Local was formed in 2005 by Environment Hamilton and other community partners to support programs that encourage Hamiltonians to buy food grown by local farmers and harvest food from urban gardens and other settings that would otherwise go to waste. Hamilton Eat Local aims to increase the consumption of local food in Hamilton through two major initiatives: the Buy Local! Buy Fresh! map and the Hamilton Fruit Tree Project.

The Buy Local! Buy Fresh! Hamilton and Area Local Food Map, first launched in 2007, forms the cornerstone of our local food campaign. The map features over 60 locations where consumers can purchase locally grown food directly from those who produced it. For more information, visit www.hamiltoneatlocal.blogspot.ca

 

Hamilton Area CSAs

What is a CSA? Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) is a system of growing and distributing organic produce which restores the link between farmers and consumers.There are now over 1000 CSA farms in North America. In early spring each year, local households purchase subscription shares of the year’s harvest from a local organic farm.

By paying for their produce at the beginning of the growing season, CSA shareholders provide the start up capital necessary for farmers to purchase seeds, supplies and soil ammendments. This eliminates the farmer’s dependence on bank loans and chemical inputs to guarantee the harvest. CSA farms happily bond farmers and those who consume their food.

Manorun Organic Farm, in Lynden http://www.manorun.com/ (905) 648-9608 manorun@295.ca

Heart’s Content Organic Farm (between Hamilton and Brantford – just off the Rail Trail, a 2 hour bike ride away http://heartscontentfarm.blogspot.ca/ hearts.content.farm@gmail.com 519-647-0307

Backyard Harvest Ultra local with plots mainly in the West end. 905-525-4917 backyardharvesthamilton@gmail.com russohrt@yahoo.ca

Close to Home Organic Farm
We are a small scale organic market garden operation on leased land at Landmark Farm in Hamilton Ontario. We are located at an incubator farm run by FarmStart, a non-profit organization that supports starting farmers in establishing an economically viable and ecologically sustainable farm enterprise. To register with our CSA program, please contact Rowena Cruz at 905 574 4862 or email us at closetohome.organics@sourcecable.net. For more information please visit our website closetohomefarm.org/.

If you operate a Community Shared Agriculture Farm and would like to be listed on this website, please contact Green Venture.