Buying local means you are purchasing directly from farmers in your community. This helps your local economy by keeping money circulating through your community. When you purchase goods produced by farmers in your community, you are supporting a local business that also invests in the community by hiring people and purchasing goods and services locally too. Buying locally can also benefit the environment by reducing the distance your food and agricultural products need to travel.
Definitions of “local food” vary, but the focus is always on the distance between where food is produced and where it is sold. This can range from being in the same country to the same province, or even the same region or town. In our region South Central Ontario, we are lucky to have some of the best conditions for growing food and creating healthy and tasty agricultural products! That is why we are Always in Season! Please check out places they grow, process and create local goodness in our region. With the Where Local Lives flipbook, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Six by Sixteen and SCOR have partnered to help you identify locally produced foods and beverages, think about the impact purchasing local has on our economies and celebrate all the good things we make….right here at home!
This flipbook will:
1. help you to identify local foods in Ontario,
2. give snapshots of where you can find local food across South-Central Ontario, and
3. give you tips and tricks on how to extend those local products.
Download the Colouring Book!
Helping our children to understand how our food is grown and where it comes from is an important part of their education and food literacy. Six by Sixteen has been helping us teach our children how to learn about food and prepare healthy meals. They have created a downloadable/printable colouring book to celebrate all the good food that comes from our region. Download and print the pages and take the opportunity to colour with your children and open the discussion about where food comes from and how important it is in maintaining a healthy body! Download it here!