Roadmap to buying local in Lunenburg/Queens

The Lunenburg Queens Food Producers Guide is a local directory of people who grow, process or catch local food in the two counties. “It’s an opportunity to help local producers expand their markets and give the general public an opportunity to buy locally grown food,” says Agency Executive Director Neil Emenau.

The development agency also had inquiries on where to buy local. He says with environment concerns, fuel costs and greenhouse gases, people are more interested in buying local. “We attended some of the sustainability meetings that were going on, and that seemed to be a key theme between the six municipal units (in Lunenburg and Queens Co).” Another theme was how to get more people to attend the farmers’ markets in the two counties. Emenau estimates there are 8-10 farmers’ markets between them, so the guide gives directions and describes which vendors go there.

To create the guide, the agency worked in the communities to find out who was creating local produce. Part of the research involved going to farm markets and finding out who was selling goods and where they came from.

All producers in the brochure had to make food products to be eaten. For example, they didn’t include businesses that sold plant transplants. “What we didn’t want were people who were importing and reselling things. This was to be locally grown or processed.”

The guide was supposed to come out last year; however funding came late in the season. Rather than publish it in fall, they waited until late spring when the farmers markets would make their return.

Since publishing, other producers have called looking to get included in the next version. Emenau says they would like to see it published every two years, however that would depend on funding. Until then, an online version is available and is constantly being updated. There is no cost to be included in either version of the guide.

A little over 28,000 copies were mailed out in June, from a production run of 35,000. The rest were distributed to the municipal offices and tourist bureaus. The objective was to get it in the hands of every household and business in the two counties.

The online version of the guide can be found at http://www.lqrda.ns.ca/