Bowen's Wendy Holm knows about how Canada may be putting cows, and dairy farmers, out of work. She has a lot of information for those who want to make sure they're getting the real deal when it comes to milk. She's just won an award to prove it.
The agricultural columnist won gold at the Canadian Farm Writer's Federation (CFWF) awards banquet on September 17. The banquet was held in Niagara Falls and it's the 7th time that Holm, who has a master's in agriculture economics and has been working in the field for 40 years, has won an award for her column.
Holm has been writing an agricultural column in various publications since 1994 and title of this year's winning column is 'Will the Real Chocolate Milk Please Stand Up.' In her column Holm says milk is in danger of being supplanted by "cheaper, imported milk constituents in products such as ice-cream, cheese and, most recently, dairy beverages" and adds that the "ice-cream battle has already been lost" and that consumers are now forced to "look long and hard to find ice-cream made from real cream."
Holm details how the battle with cheese is now in the courts but, as of this writing, only actual cheese, with a legislated minimum amount of fluid milk content, can say 'cheese' on the label. However, industry giants Saputo, Parmalat and Kraft seek to change that to call something cheese that uses 'membrane technology" and that, simply put, is not real cheese.
A similar battle is also being fought with chocolate milk, Holm says. Here chocolate beverages, without regulations and containing a high content of non-milk substances such as whey products and no minimum milk content (actual chocolate milk contains 93 per cent milk) are packaged and placed on shelves right next to chocolate milk.
So it's buyer beware and Holm seeks, as her winning story does, to help the public recognize what they're buying and how dairy farmers, a group she says are hard-working and provide quality products, are losing out.
She's written all her columns while living on Bowen Island. Her first visit here was as a fledgling academic in 1970. She knew she'd eventually live here but her career took her elsewhere and she couldn't pull it off until 1988.
"Bowen's my anchor, I adore Bowen," she told the Undercurrent. "It gives me the peace and solitude to be creative, to connect with my universe."
A wearer of many professional hats, in addition to writing on agriculture and teaching a course each year at UBC that takes her to Havana, Holm is a director of the Van City Credit Union. A frequently engaged public speaker, she regularly leads students and farmers on tours of agricultural co-ops in Cuba and other countries, such as Russia and Spain.
You can read all Holm's columns on her website at www.theholmteam.ca .
