Right in the centre - All about cold and cauliflower
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- Published on Thursday, January 21, 2016
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
During winter’s darkest (and coldest) hours, it’s difficult to understand how people survive in this country. We are a hardy lot. Two centuries of adapting to Western Canadian climate has brought about a very steadfast system of winter survival. Fortunately, our challenges come in smaller doses than our forefathers faced. We don’t face food shortages very often and we can generally keep our houses warm and our vehicles running.
It wasn’t always the case. Even in my memory, it was a pretty bleak outlook on January mornings before we had Hydro on the farm. To start a late 1940s truck on a cold January morning was a challenge. My dad built a straw bale garage over the truck to at least keep the wind off it. He may have even gone out at night and started it a couple of times to make sure it would keep going. Sometimes it had to be pulled by the horses to start it. Dad had an extra long set of harness lines on the team so he could drive the team while sitting in the cab of the truck. It was a lot of work just to keep a truck going, but it was part of our lifeline to town to get groceries and our mail.
It was interesting this past week to see all the furor about the Canadian dollar combining with other factors to make the price of cauliflower rise to new heights. To have to spend $5 on a head of cauliflower was touted as a disaster for food buyers. It wasn’t long before someone suggested that either customers don’t buy cauliflower or that they substitute another vegetable. It is actually only in the past 20 years or so that fresh, raw cauliflower has made it’s prominent presence on every salad bar and buffet in Canada. It used to be that you ate cauliflower in the late summer when it was in season and if you really wanted to enjoy it later, it was as a frozen vegetable or pickled. Fresh cauliflower was unheard of for most months of the year. It’s interesting how lack of fresh cauliflower can become a problem. It pales in comparison to a lack of food or lack of heating fuel. It even pales in comparison to not being able to start the truck on a cold morning.
However, the expensive cauliflower did trigger a bit of discussion about food production. Peter Kaufman, a Winnipeg realtor and former candidate for mayor of Winnipeg said we should grow more of our own food in Canada. That’s an understatement. We have oil, sunshine, wood and coal in abundance. We have good soil to make a basis for a growth medium in greenhouses and we need food. It’s a great idea. It’s been touted for decades. In fact, I participated in some of the original research on commercial greenhouse tomato production in Manitoba in 1970.
Greenhouses and extending our growing season should be done in Manitoba, but we are so spoiled with cheap food from California and Mexico and wherever that we probably won’t see widespread, viable, year round fruit and vegetable production in Manitoba for a long time, if ever. Greenhouses are a great idea, Korea is full of them, as are other countries with large populations. If we decided to grow as much food as we could grow, we could bury ourselves in food. Canada could feed many more millions of people than we do, but it’s a matter of economics and attitude.
As far as greenhouse food production is concerned, it’s mainly a matter of economics. It’s very difficult to produce food in Canada and sell it at a price competitive with the trucked in food from warmer climates. The cost of setting up a commercial greenhouse is immense. Many Hutterite colonies have small greenhouses and they produce wonderful food but it’s not cheap.
Until we decide we want better food and have a national food policy, we won’t likely see a major year round fruit and vegetable production system in Canada. It would be nice and I would love to see it happen but I’m not holding my breath.
