Sometimes I am reminded of how fragile agriculture is.
Boucherie Lawrence survived a pandemic that, among many other lessons, taught the public how fragile supply chains are, and taught merchants not to take for granted that the same trucks would pull up to their shop week after week to unload goods. Our experience was different to most since our supply chains are so short and rely on so few players. While merchants that sell products that get shipped across our huge country, or worse yet, across borders and oceans, found their shelves and fridges bare, we kept chugging along, appreciating the beauty of a product that simply travels from farm to abattoir to us, with no extra stops in between. The farms and abattoirs we work with are operated by a handful of people at most, so the raging Covid infections that shut down so many larger operations didn’t affect us in the same way. We got our goods, and so did our customers. We developed a new appreciation for the simplicity of our business model and for the benefits of sourcing product that is small scale and local. But despite that, there are things that are outside anyones control that affect our experience with the food we eat, whether we are a small mom and pop shop or a huge supermarket. Recently, a couple of events have reminded me of that.
The first example of this occurred a few months ago, when I noticed that the tomatoes that we have been selling at the shop for many years were suddenly different. As someone that would name a perfect cherry tomato as her desert-island food of choice, I was devastated. These were just NOT the same perfect cherry tomatoes. After a small tantrum I started the process of inquiry, and learned that my beloved cherry tomatoes were no more. They had fallen victim to a microorganism called tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV). This virus is believed to affect greenhouse tomatoes at the level of the seed, and because seeds for tomatoes grown all over the world originate in many fewer seed companies, a disease that affects the plant at seed level quickly spreads far and wide. This particular virus causes tomatoes not to ripen. Once the the disease enters a greenhouse, it spreads fast. The solution for most greenhouses is to replace susceptible tomato varieties with other more resistant varieties. If any of you have the experience of parents or grandparents lamenting the tastelessness of today’s fruit and vegetables compared with those of their youth, this is the reason. To combat disease, or fragility in transport, or a short shelf-life, or relative “unattractiveness”, more “resilient” breeds are prioritized, but that resilience usually comes at the expense of flavour. This is the first time I personally mourn the loss of a beloved variety. It’s eye opening, and also a reminder of how important it is to keep the gene pool of the plants and animals we eat varied, lest our food fall victim to more and more clever diseases and we end up with less and less variety and bounty.
A second example came in the form of news that the aquaculture operation that supplies us with the farmed salmon we use for our smoked salmon, Sustainable Blue, is temporarily out of operation. After a short tantrum, I started the process of inquiry. This time, I learned that a technical problem in the complex machinery that sustains life in the tanks that house the salmon as they grow, aka, a broken filter, caused CO2 levels in the water to soar, resulting very quickly in a (very ominously termed) mass mortality event: a total loss of all the salmon growing in those tanks. And in case you don’t know, salmon take a LONG TIME to reach maturity. That means no salmon for many months. Devastating for sustainable Blue, and devastating for all their loyal clients. For now, we are smoking Creative King Salmon from BC, which yields a similarly delicious result, but that doesn’t boast quite the same promise of cutting edge sustainability as Sustainable Blue (They ARE certified organic, and they DO claim to be at the helm of sustainable aquaculture, but still). At least this one we know we will get back soon enough!
