Ep. 293: How secure is the future of Canada's food supply?

Guest: Julaine Treur, Creekside Dairy

Over the past 70 years, there has been a silent exodus from farming in North America.

In the United States, the number of farmers fell from 30 million to less than 3 million between 1950 and 1980. The reasons are many: the allure of the city, the bone numbing and exhausting work in an ever and challenging landscape, crop failures, weather conditions, poor market prices, lack of access to farm workers.

Today, we may be witnessing a small and slow reversal of that trend - a trend that, in part, is motivated by dedicated farmers like the Truer family. “We love it,” says Julaine Truer. “Farming was in my blood, it was in my husband’s blood but our families had moved away from the farm. We decided to return to dairy farming and we couldn’t be happier.”

A visit to Creekside Dairy makes farming appear idyllic; it is only so because the Truer’s make farming look easy. That in itself is difficult to do. Central to their success is their passion for their work, their animals and for their place in Canada’s food supply system.

A system that is under intense scrutiny - according to the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity, “As of last year, only one in three Canadians believe our food system is headed in the right direction.”

The top issues of concern are a rise in the cost of food (especially healthy food), coupled with rising health care costs, rising energy costs and the safety of food imported from elsewhere. Then add in climate change, the treatment of animals and concerns about an ample supply of food.

We invited Julaine Treur of Creekside Dairy to join us for a Conversation That Matters about her and her family’s approach to farming and why she believes that Canada has an exceptional food security and supply system.