Raise the Hammer

@Turbo. Not sure where you live, but the Downtown market is by no means the only option. Ottawa street is open three or four days a week, there's a weeknight market at the Sky Dragon, and a Thursday night market on Locke. I also heard a rumour about a Concession Street Market, but I'm not sure how that went. They seem to be popping up everywhere.

This is a good link to help locate markets that may be closer http://www.environmenthamilton.org/eatlo... If there isn't one near you, maybe there's some way you could gather some neighbors and ask Hamilton Eat Local to partner with your local community association to bring one there (which I'm pretty sure is what happened on Locke st...correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure if I agree with James about the ideal situation being for local food to be in supermarkets. At that point the farmers get so little of the money, and the shortcuts they have to take in order to meet the price points mean that what ends up there qualifies only marginally as food. I'd say the ideal would be for there to be a farmer's market within a short bus ride/reasonable walk of enough people in Hamilton that there would be a real choice as to how (well) we eat.

As for the comment about cars, I couldn't agree more. James, I'd encourage you to click on the link under "Backyard Harvest" and see the amazing work Russ is doing. All grown locally in not only his backyard, but those of other neighbors close by. We just picked up our last farm share from him last night, and are really going to miss the amazing quality and diversity of food he provided us all summer.

Just to clarify, the only farm we actually visited was Brantwood, all of the rest of the food came from the Ottawa Street Farmers' Market which while we chose to drive there, could have been accessed by transit. (Sorry about the mispelling of Lynden!). In fact, we could have gotten a locally produced turkey from the meat vendor at Ottawa Street, we were just hell bent on meeting the farmer.