In Canada, we are particularly lucky that in just 39 days, the average citizen has worked long enough to pay for groceries for the entire year. Food Freedom Day took place on Feb. 8 this year.
The fact we have grocery stores we can walk into and get whatever we need, including fresh produce and meat, is something we take for granted. And thanks to the Kent Federation of Agriculture, our area food banks will also be able to supply fresh, local food to those people in need.
So many people bemoan the idea Chatham has no jobs, no good stores or shopping and nothing to do. That is so frustrating for the people who own the local businesses, stores, restaurants and attractions that make Chatham-Kent unique. It’s also false.
We have immediate access to the freshest and safest locally grown produce and meat that we only have to drive down the highway a few minutes to get fresh from the field. Don’t have a car, you say? You can still walk or take the bus to veggie and fruit stands on virtually every corner in Chatham during the summer months.
You can even go into the fields and pick your own strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and apples. Too few of us don’t take advantage of that fact. Often, it’s only if family or friends from afar come that we take the time to pick fruit, or watch maple syrup being made.
We have so much to be thankful for in Chatham-Kent, and having 2,200 area farms is one of them. We all know that moment when you bite into your first cob of sweet corn in the season, or make a salad with veggies fresh from a field or put that first steak of the season on the barbecue from a local butcher. That is the joy of having some of Ontario’s most fertile farmland all around us.
We have that, a low unemployment rate, and communities ripe with history such as Buxton and Dresden, and the Great Lakes, and beaches…
It’s time to be grateful for all we have and to take advantage of everything that is in our own backyard.
