Friday, January 29, 2010

Buying Vancouver Island Flour

I blogged about this in November but want to remind people that Eat Magazine had a series on growing grain on Vancouver Island. I applaud the people trying to do it, but I think they are economically foolhardy.

For Good Measure in Cadboro Bay has Vancouver Island flour for sale. Metchosin flour is $3.30 a kilo. This is milled at True Grain in Cowichan Bay. While this is all nice to be supporting local food production, the price is insane. This is three to four times what we pay for flour. We could not afford to bake if we were buying this flour.

We buy white, whole wheat, and durum flour in 10 kg sacks and go through it moderately quickly. We also buy cake and pastry flour though only about 3-5 kg at a time. We bake bread, biscuits, and make pasta. We go through a lot of flour.

There is another option out there for getting Island grain. Island Grains is a grain CSA. A CSA is community supported agriculture, you pay up front for a share of the harvest. You gain if things go well and you share the pain if things go bad. It is an innovative way to finance small market gardeners.

You can sign up for 2010 and should do so quickly if you are interested as there are only limited shares available. The fee is $195 and the estimate is that this will yield about 18 to 19 kilos. This implies a price per kilo of over $10 a kilo...... The crop will grown at Makaria Farm in Duncan.

Makaria Farm also operates a fruit and veg CSA for $465 for the season - 18 weeks or a full box every other week for $232.50.

1 comment:

Heather (Island Grains) said...

Hi Bernard,
thanks so much for spreading the word about our grain CSA! Our Island Grains participants in 2009 really enjoyed experiencing grain production first-hand. It's relatively easy to grow grain, even for the home gardener. It really makes you feel powerful when you eat pancakes or bread made from grain you grew. We all (I think) believe grain needs to be grown on huge tracts of land in Saskatchewan, and while I agree that's the most cost-effective and efficient way to do it, it's empowering to know that it is also possible on a small-scale, just like tomatoes or corn. Happy eating!