Desjardins Credit Union [Change site]
Consuming locally benefits the community and the environment!
Food is an integral part of our life; it's also an area where we can affect the greatest and most meaningful changes. Did you know that on average, the food you eat travels more than 2,600 kilometres before it ends up on your plate? That's like driving from Montreal to Florida.
How can we make a meaningful contribution to saving the environment?
By selecting local products and reading labels that identify products made or grown in your province.
By becoming a partner in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) network. Each week, your "family farmer" can provide you with a basket brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables grown with the environment in mind.
By systematically asking ourselves where our foodstuffs come from and how far they've travelled. The trend of shipping food such great distances can sometimes lead to odd situations.
Each year Canadians consume about 52 billion servings of fresh fruits and vegetables, 80% of which is imported mainly from the United States. Millions of kilometres travelled just to satisfy our appetites!1 (In Quebec, 49% of the food we eat comes from outside the province.)
- By replacing $20 of goods made abroad with $20 of local products, we could create thousands of jobs.
Did you know?
Desjardins Group has been involved with Équiterre for several years now, providing support to a wide variety of initiatives that contribute to Changing the world…one step at a time.
- By raising awareness among its members and employees on the benefits of the CSA's organic food baskets.
- By joining the La Mauve cooperative to provide Desjardins employees in Lévis with a pick-up location where they can collect their organic food baskets. We are currently looking into setting up other pick-up locations.
Find out more
Visit the Équiterre Web site.
1. Source: Canadian Produce Marketing Association
