Northern Ontario

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True North Community Cooperative

*  Not-for-profit cooperative food store
*  Emerged from community-university initiative
*  Focused on northern communities and social justice
*  Sell only products from ‘the land or the hand’ with origins in northern Ontario
*  Approaching operational financial self-sufficiency through organizational and individual memberships

 

La Maison Verte

*  Not-for-profit focused on community economic development for women
*  Produce vegetables and tree seedlings in their greenhouses
*  Sponsor food basket program
*  Six full-time and up to 25 part-time employees

 

Northern Ontario Health Units

*  Coalitions of Public Health Units and community groups committed to improving human health through more attention to food systems
*  Three separate health units with somewhat different mandates: Northwestern Health Unit strives to improve the quality and length of life in our communities – healthy lifestyles, longer lives lived well; The Sudbury & District Health Unit (SDHU) is a public health agency committed to improving health and reducing social inequities in health through evidence-informed practice; Thunder Bay Food Action Network whose goals are to create awareness, support food projects, promote local food, advocate for policies that support community food security, and act as an information centre for community food security

 

Eat Local Sudbury (ELS), Sudbury

* Began as a CSA, then a farmers’ market stall, now a store front retail and delivery operation
*  Two full-time and three part-time positions
*  Share resources, including office and retail space, with another organization to control costs
*  Direct links to farmers

 

Food Security Research Network (FSRN), Thunder Bay

*  University-community partnership initiatives including over sixty community partners to promote agriculture and food security to build a resilient, adaptive, thriving regional food system in northwestern Ontario
*  Central, catalytic organization in the region providing critical support to emerging local food and agricultural organizations
*  Sponsors and manages multiple community garden initiatives, school programs, community service learning students, youth training, First Nations projects including increasing food self-sufficiency, retail outlet focused on northern ‘food from the land or hand’, blueberry marketing analysis, and a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiative

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