hello and welcome to changes radio and c h o y one zero one point seven f m my name is lisa kozar and i will be your house for today on this show will be exploring and i'm most farmer's market in particular the bowen road market located at babbin park we'll start with a little bit of the history and learn about how the farmer's market first started well here a very special interview for the local food movement with farmer dirck backer this interview was actually recorded on oct twentieth two i hope the show will help highlight the importance of our farmer's market in promoting healthy strong community and the production and consumption of local sustainable organic food and  here's a clip of the show deconstructing dinner entitled the birth of a farmer's market hosted by john steinman on the first farmer's market in an i'm all held on october twentieth two thousand and seven the show was aired on january thirty first two located directly across the georgia straight from the city of vancouver is the urban hub of the middle island region of vancouver island with a population of around eighty thousand people it serves as a considerably sized center for commercial activity but the nine ball is like many other north american cities of this size and has seen much of its commercial activity take the shape of big box stores located among the fringes of the city itself one store in particular that felt the crunch of the influx of these national and multinational grocery retailers was the made island grocery store now it was the grocery store that found itself unable to compete in the new era of big box stores and today that space is now rented out to liquidation world but a group of members within the co op recognized the rapidly increasing threats to the future of vancouver island agriculture and through the launch of a food sustainability subcommittee chose to organize a farmers showcase on october twentieth two thousand and seven now while the event was a one off it was also hosted to gauge the potential for a weekly farmer's market at the same location which again was in the parking lot of the former grocery store now liquidation world and so leads to the title of today's broadcast the birth of a farmer's market and as we are about to hear the bark it was so successful that most vendors sold out of their products within a few hours and the most popular question from residents was when the next market was going to be on today's show we will meet with the many farmers and producers around and imo who have been granted a new sign of hope in a world where local food production is increasingly feeling the squeeze i would certainly stress that the excitement on the faces of the many farmers and small scale producers at the market was of an enthusiasm that has become a rare sight among those pushing for more responsible local food systems and in the end this event was one of the most positive signs for the future of food one farmer in particular who experienced the success of this farmer's market experiment so to speak was dirck backer it was only a couple of hours into the market the dirks squashes other vegetables had almost disappeared and so in the middle of the market he chose to drive the thirty kilometer round trip to his farm in lance ville in order to restock the table before the market wrapped up dirk was even more enthusiastic with the literally thousands of people who showed up to the market because dirk is also one the food sustainability  subcommittee of the middle and co op who organized the event dirk becker's organic farm is called compassion farm and is situated on two and a half acres dirk took up farming later in life in his reason for doing so as you're about to hear is very unique i spoke with dirk is the market was winding down and in this segment we also hear the music of the i'm a musician les one of the many musicians who performs throughout the day thousand nine hundred ninety percent of canadians were involved in agriculture now it's four point three in one thousand nine hundred sixty percent of our food was going through island now it's six percent which means ninety four percent of our food is imported so after all the years of fighting clear cutting and being a social activist and running for council in the many different forms of activism i had to gauge and i realized that after thinking that the most destructive force on the earth was humans then the automobile clear cutting or envelopment i'm realizing more and more it's food how it's grown where it's grown who grows it the chemicals and fertilizers and and of course most of all the balls appear used in the production of the food the trying sport storage and distribution of food etc etc so the reason i'm here today selling at this market and the reason i was one of the main people to get this going is i realize that for me to change the world or to be the change that i want to see in the world it's about practicing what i've been preaching which is reducing our footprint thinking globally an acting locally and i realize now there's no better way for me to do that than to grow food locally and to reduce the transport of that food and for people to get help healthier food whether you want to think in terms of obesity or diabetes or heart disease you know where they want to have more energy where they want to live longer or you are actually thinking about how people are treated on other parts of the planet and working their work themselves to death or death for three to five dollars a day one working with poisons chemicals and fertilisers so in terms of this market the way this happened is some people from the middle and co op were interested in food sustainability and so they called a meeting and they asked me to come and they said they want to work on food stamp sustainability in the region and i said to them i said what does that mean what what does that mean because as activists especially social environmental activists we talk a lot about sustainability sustainability well what does it mean in your life what's happening practically on how you live and i said you want to see an ability no more studies no more talking i'm just done talking i'm done with meetings not to mention food here has done three years of studies about sustainable in this area and what we need to do and how we need to work together farmers and nothing's happened i said he wasn't going to be living you need farmers you need farmers to grow food so you can sustain farming so you can sustain the food supply and i said no more studies nor meetings have a farmers market have something well it was already too late in the season of a farmer's market i said how about we do a farmers showcase where we get all the farmers together after farmer's market season when they're all tired and burnt out but they have time now because farmer and if it was showering and sprinkling i was going to be happy with three hundred and it was sunny i was going to have six hundred look like three thousand it was it was amazing when you talk about using this is a farmer showcase to raise awareness i mean it really seemed that that's what this was when i speak with the other the vendors that were here the farmers the producers the processors that were here the common message they were saying is that people are here asking you know is this going to happen every week you know this is great oh this tastes unlike anything i've ever tasted before so coming to a novel and seeing that this hasn't really existed yet or that there is a farmer's market that technically exists but has no farmers really it becomes a craft market exactly where the market where have the people of the novel being in kind of bringing something like this to where it's at right now well really short version reflecting on my article in small farm canada the only magazine i get there's a list of twelve reasons why people shop at farmers markets and twelve reasons why farmers farm and selling farmers markets the number one reason why people shop at farmers markets typically women between the age of thirty and forty is in order to get recently priced nutritious food the last reason the twelfth reason why they shop at farmers markets is to change the world the number one reason why farmers that farm and sell it farmers markets is to change the world so you can see there's a difference there so to answer your question most people have been conditioned and brainwashed to the mega one stop shopping experience convenience and low price this is if this is a disease in the society which must be turned around because that low price is actually the most expensive price because when you buy a thirty nine cent lettuce when you buy thirty bananas at thirty cents a pound you are buying vegetables that have traveled between one and three thousand kilometers and they have been grown by people who are living breathing and drinking the poison that they're using which is manufactured in this country in the g eight shipped they're put in the bananas important grapes then those vegetables and fruits are for ship back here we eat them and i call that karma so so where does the co op come into all of this interesting enough of course and this is quite ironic when i think about it the co op used to be have several grocery stores and because we have the highest retail per capita in canada and we have grocery stores that are huge mega chains they just hammered the co op with their low prices and  glitzy beautiful lights and flyers everything else which people are just addicted to they don't even think about it what they're doing and eventually the clippers losing losing a million dollars a year not making not breaking even losing million dollars here so we had to from a business perspective we had to close  ironically the co op also was started by farmers bunch of farmers a scotchman were getting ripped off in the fuel he said but start making our own fuel they told me that they couldn't do that they did it anyway and then the the refineries wouldn't reduce the price and the the farmers finally made fuel and then there were then the other gas stations lower the prices to hammer the farmer and so that's how this co op here and i'm all started so it was originally about farmers and rule people trying to make a living because in one thousand nine hundred the average farmer got forty cents on the dollar for his food or her food as it were now the farmer gets seven cents on the dollar and this is deconstructing dinner where we've been listening to dirck backer of compassion farms in landstuhl british columbia and who also sits on the food sustainability subcommittee of middle and co op while on the surface a farmer's market may simply seem as a great place to purchase great tasting and fresh food there is much more to the concept of farmer's market that dirck backer recognizes as being even more important believes that local farming and the local market helps heal the social and environmental connections that have been lost in an over stimulated culture we're here we're creatures of habit and we're easily stimulated and where even quite overstimulate i grew up and society we're looking at twenty five hours a week minimum for canadians thirty five hours a week minimum for americans so we're very over stimulated and so we've become very disconnected and so that's what my farming is really about because as long as we are is disconnected as we are society will keep going the way to us and so for me being here today and organizing this event food and farming is really my sneaky activists gandhian be the change you want to see in the world way of getting people to think how disconnected they become with themselves with one another from their families from the land from the earth from the air from the animals from every living thing and so those who can hear this what i actually say to them is i don't really care about finding food nutrition and h though it's now fifty percent of our budget is being eaten up by health care and almost fifty percent of canadians are now overweight what i really care is about people reconnecting with their hearts and with the land and with things that really mean something and that's what agra culture is we used to be an agricultural base society so when i talk to people about why societies become the way it is i don't want to talk about rap or skateboarding or drugs or people not going to church i want to talk about how they become disconnected how they can go to a store like wal mart a costco and have no thought about where that food came from who grew it what those people went through what all the hidden costs are so when they're buying that thirty nine cent letter so that thirty three cent a pound banana that is actually the most expensive lettuce in bananas in the world because everyone on the planet is paying for that and it's not being accounted for so when you're buying lettuce at the farmer's market for two bucks that's actually the cheapest lettuce because you're getting the vitamins you're getting the nutrients you're supporting local and at that price i'm still working for only a dollar an hour now is your form of activism in that sense i mean you introduce that it's a lot you're only working for a dollar an hour is your form of activism sustainable when there is this disconnection that still exists and i mean today was a great example of the potential for such state sustainability but where do you see it going right i agree and even though maybe only one percent of people use farmers markets maybe even less than that that one percent can easily sustain a farmer's market in every community providing it's located well and that there is enough produce that people can do something akin to one shop stopping at least when it comes to fresh food as in vegetables and fruit and if we had a farmer's market in every community and the consumers supported the farmers and the farmers were encouraged to farm then we we would have that and we would keep going that direction what happens for instance with farmers markets is let's say if it's raining have as many people show up or on mother's day or on thanksgiving depending on whether it's a saturday or sunday market and so really i like to put it back in the consumer and say stop stop telling the farmers stop telling anyone what they should do and understand that if you want to keep seeing the odd cow this other road if you want to have more organic produce or you want to have animals treated better or if you want to eat chicken with the chickens or running loose or you want to eat less farm salmon you want to eat more fresh salmon than you need to realize that is the consumer needs to realize you're not all of us are consumers we need to realize that the most powerful ballot the most powerful vote you can make is something called the dollar when we call it the looming so every time you spend every time you and i spend a dollar that is in essence a ballot so when you buy the cheapest coffee and you're saying i don't care about the people that grow coffee i just want the cheapest coffee when you buy fair trade coffee you're saying i care about people i care about how it's grown where it's grown and their families in that was a clip from the show deconstructing dinner nico up radio to hear the complete podcast you can go to the website deconstructing dinner dot com and says for the birth of a farmer's market under the year two thousand and eight note that since that interview the mid island co op has gone substantially and now has over fifty thousand  i gave derek a call today for an update and to chat a little bit about the past he said that after the success of the first trial market they continued to sell at the court location until july of two thousand and eight when they moved to the current location which is at bevan park dirk and his wife nicole after sixteen years in lance phil due to his zoning legal battle moved to arrington just recently in two thousand and fifteen to set up a new farm called farm ation with an a to symbolize farm that farming creates and promotes both personal and community transformation backor and his wife nicole still are a great force in the food farmer movement in and around and the island if you have any questions or want to connect with nicole and dirt you can find them on facebook and her transformation well i'm king was also involved during this initial time and we'll hear from him next my name is king i'm the vice president of the island routes market cooperative and treasurer and secretary of the bowen road farmers market i have been involved with the bone road market since its inception in two thousand and seven and i joined the island roots board at their last meeting a few months ago so you were at first trial market and in october twentieth two thousand and seven correct and can you tell us a little bit about that experience yeah i mean at that time there were several farmers markets in the city but none of them constituted what we believed were actually a farmer's market which is to say if you go to the market is what you see almost exclusively food and food based products most of the markets were called farmer's markets but they were actually more crafty and not a knock on craft markets but there wasn't a true food market in and i'm a proper for cedar which is fantastic and then there's qualcomm to the north but there was nothing in the city and so we started the market spearheaded mainly by dirck backer nicole shaw previously of compassion farms now of transformation farms and arrington and i was brought in to kind of project manage and make it all go on the administrative front and that's to be an exciting day the actual first day yeah it was mayhem is what it was it was an exciting it was mayhem i mean who really was the primary champion of it all thought there would be a few hundred people through and it end up being thousands of people the city came it was there was it was mayhem but showed the appetite for a food primary market and imo and that that wasn't being met so what happened afterwards after the trial date after the trial that we thought well this this really works this there's a demand for this and so we set up a market we set up a society and  initial market first at the co op the first market was held at the co op and we held it as well at the co op for about a season but it became apparent that being on a hot pavement though the parking was ample was not appropriate and so we looked for an alternate location we came up with the current location the field and bevan park behind the center and that's been our home ever since how were you able to take to convince the strip mall parking lot area that's owned by by the middle and co op gas station chain and so we were simply on private land who was holding a market and we got a business license we held a market and when we approached the city the city is positive about food i mean i think to be more positive but the city authorized us to use the land we actually were subleasing from the v i x and the bank of allen exhibition for land that they lease from the city everyone was just in favor of it we had a good relationship with the v i x for years and still do this last season we now contract record with the city but previous to that we were using the same field but it was actually through  and we were subleasing from them it proved not to be the right location what is the best location for a farmer's market honestly the best location for farmers market is what's convenient for farmers and what's convenient for people i mean in stylistically the grass is nice a field is nice ample parking is mandatory but realistically it's where it's where do people want to sell food and where do people want to buy food and bevan and bowen is imo it's it's a drive so is the location a big issue about why we don't have a farmer's market downtown yeah i mean there is a farmer's market downtown there's the friday night market which i don't consider a farmer's market simply by the fact that there's more people who are not food based there than our food based i think it's a craft market with some food there's been a lot of discussion about downtown farmers markets there was a trial one i don't think it's happening anymore at the down across the plaza we were approached to run that market there's been conversations about potentially doing new things with the friday market yet nothing's come of it and it we were interested in the data crawl market because we didn't think that it was appropriate for farmers the reality of how a farmer sets up their needs for parking close to their stall things of that nature you know the location is ideal downtown but in terms of in terms of walking people in terms of customers but it's not ideal for farmers it's incredibly problematic so we opted to stay out of it and it ended up failing for its own reasons can you tell us a little bit about how the born farmer's market hold elections and the board of directors is elected for a term of two years i've sat on the board since day one i'm the only person who's in that boat at this time and we hold regular board meetings and communicate by email and talk about things and we have an excellent management team that we collaborate with as needed and instruct as needed island routes is very very similar except island routes is a cooperative so they're governed by a different body beyond that it's all very similar meeting you get elected to the board of directors and there's regular board meetings and we communicate via email it's virtually identical it's almost what it's called once called a society one is called a co op and from a business standpoint there are substantial differences co ops can be for profit co ops issue shares where societies issue memberships so there there's differences in that way but from how how it actually functions in terms of running a farmer's market my experience there are virtually identical so you can purchase shares from anyone and everyone can purchase shares from the islanders co op and should purchase shares from alan rates go up there are several different share classes as an individual person you're buying just a single share i for example own ten shares there are ten dollars each you can buy as many as you want really depends how much you want to support the organization how much you believe that we should have access to year around local food in a convenient matter and so it's mostly what you're comfortable doing we also have different share classes in terms of lifetime shares and things like that if you're a business you can have a business share that you know at a different price with lots of share options everyone should buy at least one and where can they go to buy a share where can people go to buy shares island routes market dot com or they can come buy any bone road farmers markets which run from four to six thirty pm on wednesdays at babbin and nine am to one pm also at babbin on saturdays you can buy shares at the market or you can buy shares on the island roots website as the vice president of island routes and overseeing the  market what do you see as the future farmer's market and i know so i would route was created for a couple of purposes firstly bowen road is a summer market only we run from may to october so island routes set up a winter market starting in two thousand and fourteen that runs from the week ours ends and ours runs from the week there's and the long term vision which we have been in  negotiations and discussions for months with is to establish a year round permanent indoor market space at bowen park in the same location that we currently run the bowen market and we've been working on it actively for months we've been in meetings with the other major stakeholders at babbin including vancouver island exhibition than i'm a quest for an association and then and imo aboriginal center for their project which is called the indigenous peoples place of culture as well as a lot of sister groups such as the for each club boys and eighty nation have all been at the table with us trying to figure out if we can create a plan that uses bevan park in a new way i don't know i'm not sure if you're aware but  city council has listed the bevan park master plan or the redevelopment has been a bevin as one of their top five projects and potentially their number one project and so we have presented to them already a few weeks ago a council with a proposal for what that can look like that is a space where farmers all year round can sell directly to local consumers when do you see that happening good question when you see that happening we are moving towards that as rapidly as possible on a supreme we optimistic everything that needs to go well including fundraising community support city council support realistically if everything went as well as it could i could conceive of us having ground broken by two thousand and eighteen there's some optimistic view price that hope that could be two thousand and seventeen i don't i don't know how possible that is but realistically i would say if this project is going to proceed we looking at a timeline of somewhere between two and five years to be operational within an indoor space that's kind of the very large window of what we would imagine our timeline would be if it's going to be successful if we're going to do it we've put a lot of time and effort in work nine years in the making why is it that you do the work you do i mean in terms of food i'm really strong believer in in food and sustainability i feel like where the world is at right now our food systems are not sustainable and i'm concerned about what that's going to mean for a number of different reasons i'm also not an active farmer but i own a farm as well i'm vested in the in the food production system also just kind of a foodie i really appreciate i mean we're sitting in this beautiful backyard of my good friends house which is surrounded by figs and kale and things like that i i  i like food a lot and so it's one of the primary ways that i volunteer to give back and i benefit because i shop at the market every single week and buy most of my food at the farmer's market so i benefit as well personally but the co manager of the born or old farmer's market what she saw as the purpose of the market and to the community this is what she said the purpose of the farmer's market is to bring people together and then community within the context of food farming health nutrition and relationship that's why we have about ninety five percent food vendors every week so this also provides an opportunity for people to reconnect with themselves and each other while they're there the earth and the soil the water the air everything is the food is coming from which are just some of the many elements employed by the local farmers and food producers so in order to bring some of the less than six percent of our own food grown here on vancouver island to then and i'm a public so the vision is for all of us to become reacquainted with our world and how our food food production and consumption of food fits into the world and all of its people and creatures from this vantage point of the city the goal is that from this place of awareness of the interconnectedness of all things that we continue to make individual changes that ultimately do lead to cultural shifts that moves us all in a direction that is more harmonious and stable and so this is where it kind of comes in that if you see a vegetable that is perhaps more expensive at the farmer's market know that that cost is savings elsewhere so the cheap food that you're going to buy from the grocery store there's already been a cost on the earth and this whole cycle of interconnectedness that we've already paid with the wells the health of the the earth in the air in the soil has  transferring that cost in and deciding as a consumer to spend the extra couple of dollars is going to go so much further in the local economy supporting the communit that we're all a part of and that we all benefit from your out the market there most were days and saturday wednesdays from four till six thirty and saturdays from nine am until noon which actually we're going to be changing very soon and another couple of weeks going into august we're actually going to staying open later on saturdays and creating more of a lunchtime vibe so we're going to be open from ten until one maybe even ten until two it's just kind of right now in the process of being decided by the board of directors what i see on these wednesdays and saturdays are this these vision and goals coming together i see i see people coming together community coming together there's lots of kids there's elderly people there is people coming and grocery shopping they they work it into their budgets and they just make it work so they come every week and it's a plan to go and support those farmers and to make those meals and perhaps even to try out vegetables and food that are unfamiliar i see that kind of bravery because it does take a little bit of bravery it takes making the decision to eat seasonal foods even though they're unfamiliar or perhaps you don't know how to cook it well it's so convenient that the farmer who grew it and knows a lot about that that vegetable knows exactly how to prepare it and can give you specific instructions and that's just you know one of the benefits to having the food producer there and available and from a management point of view we make sure that the people who are there is vendors have something to do with the production of the food so that they are a resource for the consumer anybody who is interested in vending at the market can go to the website b r f ca and fill out a vendor application we basically ben and i do all of the market management through our email email address directly is bowen farmer's market g mail dot com and that goes to both ben and i am and we basically look at what are the products that this vendor wants to sell is it made locally is it using ingredients that have come from vancouver island because it is important to us to have to to meet these requirements is it local is it stuff that's made from local ingredients what kind of containers are they using are they real usable in all of these kinds of things really all factor into whether or not a vendor can can come and sell their stuff well the markets expanding all the time i think because there are there are just more people interested in buying local and stimulating local economy and i think it's just being more exposed to the effects of local food and food that hasn't been on a truck for three weeks and i guess just more people are coming to realize that it actually doesn't cost very much more if any to buy to buy fruits and vegetables from the local farmer's market because there are just so many benefits for example since the tomatoes haven't spent the last three weeks on a truck they're going to spend three weeks completely fresh in your cupboard if you know you haven't eaten them right away and so it's like less food going to waste and and it just tastes better there's such better flavor when there's with organic practices and allowing food and those plants to grow as they are meant to and so there's there's just so many benefits for eating food this way and eating seasonally and you know being ok with not having a certain food at a certain time of year eating a lot of another food at a certain time of year and i just think more and more people are realizing this and that's why the markets growing all the time are g i went to the bourne road farmer's market on the wednesday i arrived at around five o'clock and talked to some of the shoppers and vendors and here is what they said i'm just at the bowen road farmer market it's a beautiful day for people walking around some popsicles buying their vegetables children sitting on the ground eating their peas really faces everywhere farmer brown that kevin didn't like this washed and he felt so thorburn local live local and then i'm all here and we like to support the local food people right here and i will come to the farmer's market to appreciate kind of a local culture in the local food and prudent veggies in the fact that it's fresh and that the money is going back into the community basically and it's a great thing to do in the middle of the week right would you like to say to the people who don't come to the farmer's market come check it out and you'll probably be coming back on a regular basis ok so my name is carolyn harriet and i am trying a new business called incredible imports for us to reconnect with the source of our food which is the source of our well being and i think it some porton that we don't lose sight of local agriculture which is severely threatened right now due to lack of i'm trying to prove to myself that you can make a decent living as a farmer doing small scale diversified farming where you are a farmer before no i wasn't a farmer i lived in victoria and we is that it's actually going really well this year because unlike last year which with would have been an absolute nightmare because of the drought this year we've had on seasonable weather which is actually worked very well for farmers because once a week we get a good rain and this nothing beats a good rain for a food production and saves a lot of time too when we don't have to war so we're happy with the weather this year and it's all been going really depends on you know how much room people have how much time people have but it's really about some asking people to support their local farmers without which we didn't have the farmer's market we wouldn't have the farmers they they need each other the best access is to food that we grow here on the island instead of importing it there are lots of challenges the lack of funding and subsidies is a huge challenge that training and mentorship  opportunities for new farmers is a huge barrier i think you know again it's as they say it's a pharmacy life yes it's a pharmacy life we lost fifty percent of our garlic crop this year i don't get any compensation for that but it's just one of those things all the plums on the plum tree have split because of the rage well there's no compensation for the loss of income you know from those plums so i mean that's the challenge is from the financial point of view that you are at the mercy of the weather and there are lots of barriers and these barriers need to be removed in order for us to have a successful local food movement where people can access local healthy food it's quickly as things are changing it's not quick enough but we are moving in the right direction so i do feel encouraged about that but for example like in this space here this is a very year round market here and i think that the direction that we need to go in is to have fun as a city of men i mow for every city a big central food market so that the people who are drawn to farming have a place that they know is going to be available to them to access so that consumers can access their produce and year round is another thing that we can towards my name is christopher brown i am an organic farmer with farm chip growers cooperative we've been selling to the bone or farmers market for four years and we're building a community through this venue it's really important that we have access to local markets because our biggest challenge is selling our food we are competing with the convenience of grocery stores and so this is a habit that people are quite used to and we are inviting our community to attend this market on a regular basis every week because we're all about relationship building and we're asking them to commit to five hours a week that we're at this market and buy their food from someone they know and from an ethical source to my name is  l and my farm name is yesteryear farms and from yellow point how long have you had your farm for eleven years now eleven years we've been we've been farming but the last five years we've really we've really  kicked it up a notch and realize the demand people are starting to open their minds to how to nourish them and how to learning how to take care of themselves better than a commercial you know commercial product that  also supporting smaller farmers a lot of people that have small farms like five or ten acre farms and they they grow amazing products but they but they have no idea how to how to sell it and how to get the most from it  specifically for me so for hogs and for them for lambs i have people growing chickens for me also and i just buy all the product as it is and i i do all the dirty work so to speak right they get top dollar for their product they feed according to my to my specifications so everything is non g m o hormone free antibiotic free and gluten free in the finish the poultry is organically fed only sell your products  the market no i am there is such a demand now that i'm supplying some health food stores so i gabriel the health food store should mean its health food store the community farm story and duncan so i worked for some well amazing a sense of freedom and creativity i wouldn't have i don't think i would have the said business the opportunity to support so many small farmers that i do now if it wasn't for the farmer's market just  the the mindset of the people that come to the farmer's market are one that they want to care and and nurture themselves so they come here to find the appropriate products to do so people that showcase their products here the farmers themselves have that firm belief we share that common common bond you know it's just really just an amazing sense of community so you started at the farmer's market yeah yeah i started i started actually at the cedar farmer's market and then i was given the opportunity to attend duncan market which is saturdays ten chilled too and so i did the two markets for the supermarket which is also tend to do for a couple years and then started attending the when same market and yeah and then you know as word gets out and you know people that share the same ideas you know this new food movement is really strong really powerful you know people are cuckoo for right so they want to share that they want to share the love they want to spread the word so that everyone is a vegetarian no no i don't like their sausages yeah and it's important that it's clean you know otherwise what's the point so markets and he said well this gentleman is from syria and he's an experienced butcher and he is looking for work and we just started a new commercial kitchen happy with him very skilled and very knowledgeable and we're working through the language barrier and it's it's very interesting with caitlin and i'm a farmer with farm shop growers co op and you can find us at the farmers market on wednesdays from four till six thirty and saturdays from nine to twelve come meet your  local dollars going into the local farmers these local farmers are buying local stuff to help make the food and it's all just it keeps it all closer to home thank you to everyone who took time from their busy farming schedule to talk to me thank you the musicians paul and josh gellman for their beautiful music this is changes radio on c h l y one o one point seven f m thank you so much for listening until next time  on this island by paul gellman