New ideas from the past

All that’s old is new again.

And eventually, it seems, all that’s even older is new again.

This isn’t an editorial that talks about blame or someone failing their responsibility to the public. It’s just a recognition that, sometimes, we’ve had solutions for some problems in our hands for years, and simply let them fall by the wayside.

Thursday, the provincial government announced a short delay in its effort to find partners to operate vegetable cold storage facilities. In case you weren’t following their rationale the first time they announced their plan, here it is again.

“The provincial government will consider proposals from individuals, producer co-operatives, or associations to establish up to four regional, co-operative vegetable cold storage and packing facilities in western, central and eastern Newfoundland, and in Labrador. Access to adequate, certified cold storage facilities is vital for farmers to extend their marketing periods, meet wholesaler requirements for consistent quality and supply, and increase opportunities for secondary processing. Establishing co-operative cold storage facilities will give producers the infrastructure they need to increase production and improve vegetable quality and food self-sufficiency in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Sounds like a good idea, right? Well it is, and it was.

Farmers harvest vegetable crops all at once, but sell their products over a much longer period of time. In order to stay in business, they need to have storage that lets them spread the glut of the harvest across longer periods of sales — and in the process, maintain stocks of locally grown food for customers who have grown dependent on shipped-in goods.

But that’s nothing new.

If your memory is long enough, you’d know that the province actually had a series of cold storage facilities in place to help farmers store vegetables — particularly local root crops, but cabbage, too — so that those farmers could meet the delivery schedules of local grocery stores. It’s hard to track a lot of detail down about the pre-internet facilities during the current shutdown of more traditional paper records, but the storage facilities were closed as a cost-cutting measure in the late 1980s.

If your memory is a little longer — well, a lot longer — you’re probably having a good laugh at that. No, not about the 1980s shutdown — a laugh at the idea that cold storage was a necessity for farmers was any kind of novelty.

Fact is, rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have known about the need for long-term cold storage for market crops for generations. It’s as plain as the root cellar in the yard of many older rural homes in this province. And it’s something that got many families in this province through winters that would otherwise have killed them. Food security is not a new idea.

It just used to be a little more upfront and personal.