Yarmouth gardening symposium Feb. 24

Import Replacement: Local Prosperity Report for Rural Atlantic Canada to be released Feb. 26 Daylong event features assortment of presenters

A two-year study conducted by the Centre for Local Prosperity to explore the potential for import replacement in Atlantic Canada, particularly for small, rural and local populations, will be released in Shelburne on Feb. 26.

Shelburne is one of the four focus communities in the Atlantic region for the study, Rethinking Community Development: The Economic Value of Import Replacement in Atlantic Canada. Miramichi, N.B., Souris, P.E.I., and Burin Peninsula, N.L., are the other three.

“Import replacement is an economic tool designed to complement exporting, to provide a more balanced and integrated approach to local economic development and sustainability,” says the Centre for Local Prosperity website. “A community (or region) focused on import replacement would seek to produce goods and services that are currently imported in order to keep money circulating in the region. By developing local production, it would increase its capacity to meet the economic, social and cultural needs of the people of the region from within the region, not in a spirit of isolationism but in a spirit of self-determination.

“Import replacement is not a substitution for exports, but a way of decreasing a region or community’s vulnerability to external pressures – a story the Atlantic provinces know too well,” the website says. “Homegrown industries diversify and expand the local economy and they naturally begin to look toward regional, national and global markets as they expand and grow. While the export model has dominated politics, public policy and economic development discourse, this alternative complementary model has slowly been gaining recognition as ‘the other side of the coin’ – this complementary model is import replacement.”

The project not only explores the potential for import replace- ment in Atlantic Canada, but investigates how those communities could become more resilient and prosperous by including it in their economic strategy.

“Atlantic Canada imported $11 billion more than it exported in 2012, with each of the region’s four provinces running a negative trade balance. Currently, the provinces have the highest trade deficit in the country, with four out of every 10 dollars generated within the region leaking out of the region,” said Robert Cervelli, executive director for the Centre for Local Prosperity.

Cervelli said the study focuses on “identifying where the leakage was occurring and then explored if or how the deficit could be reduced by plugging the leaks through local import replacement strategies. Simply put, instead of importing some of their goods and services, communities could produce them through local ownership, finance and production, keeping more dollars in the region.”

Cervelli said the compelling.

“The results demonstrated that targeting a 10 per cent increase in local production of imported goods and services across the region could add more than 43,000 new jobs, $2.6 billion in new wages, and $219 million in new tax revenue, and in due time help grow the region’s GDP significantly,” he said.

By decreasing imports, communities “stand to experience considerable gains through business opportunities that encourage local production of goods and services,” said Cervelli. “Further, these efforts can benefit through municipal and provincial policies that encourage import replacement with the same readiness given to current policies that favour export-based economies.”

The report also provides practical guidance tools ranging from immediately actionable items to techniques for aggregating community wealth through co-operation, buy-local campaigns, local business support systems and the roles for both municipal and provincial governments. The report also shares examples of best practices from some communities actively engaged in import replacement projects.

The report will be released Monday, Feb. 26, at the Shelburne fire hall, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. findings are

Just when you think you can’t stand another day of winter, an event on Feb. 24 promises to bring spring a little bit closer.

On that date, the Town of Yarmouth’s Communities in Bloom Ken Langille Gardening Symposium (named after the late Yarmouth resident and town councillor) will be held at Yarmouth Town Hall.

Wade Cleveland, chair of the Yarmouth Communities in Bloom (CBI) committee, says the garden symposium is a wonderful opportunity during the cold winter for gardeners to get together as a group to learn about some interesting subjects.

“It always has a great turnout,” he said.

“This year, there is also an opportunity for the beginners to come in as well, with a session for what I like to call ‘brown thumbs’ like me, in a session called Growing Your Green Thumb.

Participants can choose one session in each time slot:

• 10 a.m. Session #1

A. David Warner and David Sollows talk about Communities in Bloom - an experience

B. Angela Goodwin: CIB committee member/registered beekeeper Gardening for Pollinators

C. Les Barber: Beacon Church community garden - how to grow a green thumb – gardening for beginners

• 11:10 – 11:20 break

• 11:20 a.m. Session #2

A. Victor Thibault Pruning & caring for fruit trees B. Alice d’Entremont: Ouest-Ville Perennials on container gardening C. Sharon LeBlanc: Waste Check Composting 101

• 12:30 p.m. sandwiches and des- Les Barber from the Beacon Church community garden will share his knowledge on how to grow a green thumb – gardening for beginners. serts, sponsored by Town of Yarmouth’s Communities in Bloom • 1:30 p.m. Session #3

A. Kevin Hamilton

Free range chickens

B. Sacha Begg and James Con- don: BullyGoth Farm

Growing mushrooms from spore to fruit

C. Emilia Williams: Yarmouth Farmers’ Market - making kombucha – tea of immortality

The Economic Value of Import Replacement in Atlantic Canada will be released Monday, Feb. 26, at the Shelburne fire hall, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.