Tag Archives: local food act

Ontario’s Local Food Act and Food Literacy Goals

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM (EDT)

The Ontario government is spreading the word about local food to help increase the demand for the good things that are grown, harvested and made in Ontario. In this context, OMAFRA will present on the Local Food Act and the development of the recently announced aspirational food literacy goals in relation to local food.
Presenter: Sherry Persaud, a Policy Advisor with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Read more…

Fortnightly Feast vol. 21

This is the Local Food Election!

[…] There was lots of media hype (both positive and negative) about the passage of the Local Food Act late last year, with all parties scrambling to show how they were the most supportive of Ontario’s local food scene, farmers, food access programs, etc.

But as Sustain Ontario’s latest assessment makes clear, only pieces of the Act have been ‘proclaimed’ —and therefore legally binding.

The sections [of the Local Food Act] that have not yet been proclaimed are:

the creation of a tax credit for farmers who donate to community food programs and food banks

setting goals or targets to aspire to with respect to

– public procurement of local food

– increasing access to local food

(Elections 2014: What’s Next for the Local Food Act?)

I think this would come as a surprise to many who are active in the food access and local food scene —let alone the broader public. See the full post here.

A New RUAF Website!

RUAF is the only global resource centre on urban agriculture with over 15 years of on-ground experience in urban and peri-urban agriculture project implementation, policy design and action-research in over 40 cities in more than 20 different countries in the world. After these 15 years of operation, we considered it timely to renew the RUAF website in order to further enhance its functionality for the continuously increasing number of users (actually close to 1 million unique visitors/year!). Check out the new site!

Beyond Honeybees: Now Wild Bees and Butterflies May Be in Trouble

Wild bees and butterflies are out on the landscape, making them difficult to count, and a lack of historical baselines makes it challenging to detect long-term trends. Slowly but surely, though, results from field studies and anecdotal reports from experts are piling up. They don’t paint a pretty picture. Many pollinator populations seem to be dwindling. Full story at Wired.

City Regions as Landscapes for People, Food and Nature

It’s time to think ‘outside the urban box’
City Regions as Landscapes for People, Food and Nature is a new take on integrated landscapes that highlights important linkages between cities, peri-urban areas and rural areas. Challenges like poverty, climate change, and growing demand for resources are issues faced across the urban rural continuum, and they all relate to food. With food and agriculture linking the ecosystems, economies, and public health of communities rural and urban, we must plan for food systems on a city region scale in order to meet 21st century challenges and reduce the risk they pose to food and nutrition security. Download the report.

Community Investments

Spring 2014: Volume 26, Number 1 (pdf 2.5 mB)
Special Focus: Collective Action for Community Development

It’s not surprising that the idea of collective action has gained rapid interest and followers recently. The framework, which seeks to produce true alignment of purpose across related sectors working on social, economic, and environmental challenges, offers a great deal of promise for making significant improvements in the life chances for disadvantaged populations.

Ontario’s “Local Food Act”

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On Monday of this week, the Ontario government re-introduced the Local Food Act. The new Bill 36, “An Act to enact the Local Food Act, 2013” (pdf) contains two provisions generating most of the response in the press: local food procurement and Local Food Week. Some have complained that the Act would replace “Ontario Agriculture Week” with “Local Food Week” -by celebrating both in the week before Thanksgiving.

Local food procurement by public sector organizations is the focus of most of the Act’s provisions, which lay the groundwork for mandated “goals or targets” for various sectors. These goals or targets are a way of addressing one of the practical constraints to encouraging procurement of local food in the public sector: metrics**. Research on Ontario’s health care sector suggests that these mandated “goals or targets” are only half of the ‘metrics’ that are required. The report’s authors found that the province must first establish clear and definitive boundaries around the concept “local food” -and how it is to be measured- and then give public sector organizations the opportunity to establish baselines. This is the approach used by the Canadian Environmental Law Asoociation’s model bill [Ontario Local Food Act 2013 – pdf], which contained -as a first step- the assessment of existing local food procurement (along with production, processing, and distribution).

One of Ontario’s opposition parties has suggested that the province needs more food terminals, modelled on the Toronto terminal that handles most of the current produce sold in Ontario. Regions across Ontario (from Peterborough to Perth, Simcoe to Ottawa) are currently taking action on their own to establish regional food hubs that would provide aggregation, processing and distribution infrastructure to service regionally-determined needs. Anyone who follows the ‘Fortnightly Feast‘ on this page knows that, just across our borders, the state governments of Michigan and New York are investing economic development money into the construction of “food hubs” to help drive regional recovery.

**(Note: other practical constraints to public sector procurement include i) the BPS Procurement Directive‘s non-discrimination clause; and ii) group purchasing. A recent policy report on local food procurement in Ontario health care concluded that even allowing local food exemptions for procurement contracts under $100,000 would have little effect, as most food services contracts (because of group purchasing) involve amounts larger than that!)

Fortnightly Feast Vol. 4

Notice Board

The call for abstracts for the 5th AESOP Conference on Sustainable Food Planning is now open. The conference will focus on innovations in urban food systems, with specific sessions on flows, land and governance.
Abstract submission deadline is June 15, 2013.

Social Innovation Pop-Up Lab, March 21, 2013 – Brantford
Finance, Farms and Food – Exploring new ways to organize and raise money for sustainable food system projects. If you are interested in some new ideas and can travel to Brant County on March 21, we encourage you to participate in this learning event. Come out to hear from a variety of organizations on how they are using new tools and approaches to raise money for sustainable food projects. Details.

Petition to Support local food & good jobs in Ontario
The Premier of Ontario has committed to re-introducing a stronger Local Food Act to support our local farmers and eaters. We think the government can do more to create jobs in Ontario like they’ve done with sustainable energy, by supporting the fast-growing local sustainable food sector, while making the province a more awesome place. Please sign if you agree and want more diverse local food!

A draft Ontario Local Food Act, from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, with funding from the Metcalf Foundation, and building on work done by Sustain Ontario and it’s members.

Greenbelt Fund Green Papers: Volume 5
Access: Aggregating Ontario Product
Historically, farmers in Ontario have delivered their produce directly to local grocery retailers, restaurants, and institutions. This practice has largely disappeared for two reasons. First, distributors emerged as a one-stop shop for restaurants and institutions to obtain product, eliminating the need for multiple suppliers. Second, as franchises and corporate foodservice companies became more dominant, fixed contracts with select distributors to supply categories of products have become the norm. Read more…

New 2^nd edition of the Resource Guide for Organic Insect and Disease Management [pdf]
Brian Caldwell, Dr. Eric Sideman, Abby Seaman, Emily Brown Rosen, Dr. Tony Shelton, and Dr. Christine Smart

Upcoming WEBINARS

Partners from the Intervale Center, the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) and the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (New Entry) will discuss farmland matching programs, helping farmers access capital, and the structure and challenges of continued support for graduates.

Title:	NIFTI Webinar 6 – Transitioning Farmers Off the Incubator Site
Date:	Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Time:	1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT

Food policy councils are becoming an effective way to foster healthy food environments in communities across the country. Join us for an in-depth examination of the successful Los Angeles Food Policy Council.

Title:	Food Policy Councils: Improving Healthy Food Retail in a City
Date:	Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Time:	2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Limited retail access to healthy foods affects the dietary patterns and health outcomes of many Americans. Join us to learn how new research and evaluation practices are helping to generate innovative solutions that stimulate change in local communities.

Title:	Food Access & Health Impacts: Trends and New Research
Date:	Thursday, April 4, 2013
Time:	2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

New to us

Australian Food Hubs Network – understandizng, promoting, experimenting with introduction of Food Hubs to Australia
The AFHN is a collaboration of individuals from diverse backgrounds, who are bound by … the vision of fair, sustainable and resilient food systems for all Australians.
We recognise the severity of the many social, ecological and economic challenges our food systems face, locally, nationally and globally. We are convinced of the urgent need for transformative changes in these systems. Read more…

Shocking

Could a simple green calorie label make people see nutrition-poor foods as healthier?

Nourishing Communities

Sustainable Local Food Systems Research Group