It is a historic day for municipal food policy. This afternoon, the Toronto Board of Health will endorse the consultation report, “Food Connections: Toward a Healthy and Sustainable Food System for Toronto.” Congratulations to the Board of Health, the Medical Officer of Health, the Food Strategy Steering Group and staff on their work. Lauren Baker, Sustain Ontario’s director will make the following deputation at City Hall this afternoon.

The City of Toronto is a global leader in municipal food policy development. Across North America municipalities look to the City of Toronto, and in particular Toronto Public Health and the Toronto Food Policy Council for leadership, guidance and advice.

Just yesterday I received an email that also went to Toronto City staff, from a city of Columbus, Ohio staff person.

The note states:

“Throughout my research, I have noticed that Toronto is by far one of the most progressed cities in North America in regards to local foods…As I am about to present my report to the City of Columbus, specifically about Toronto’s local food economies and policies, there are a few last questions that I hope can be answered.
How Toronto has dealt with Urban Sprawl and the local food economy? 
How does Toronto ensure rural communities receive just compensation for their risk and labour, while welcoming all the diverse urban communities to the table? 
How this benchmark is Toronto’s local food procurement been implemented and how has it affected Toronto and the local food economy?
How has Toronto increased the number of food markets and food availability? 
What sort of tactics were used to market local food?
With your help, we might be able to establish better local food economies in other places throughout North America, as Columbus looks to take a step in Toronto’s direction.”

Big, broad questions. But all are ones that the City of Toronto, despite many jurisdictional limitations, is grappling with. And Toronto is not only grappling with the questions, but addressing the thorny and complex issues related to implementation. Because of this balance between policy development and implementation, Toronto is recognized as a global leader.

The Food Connections report builds on the City’s commitment to provide healthy, affordable, accessible, local and sustainable food to Torontonians. It links food to health, the economy and environment, to our culture and neighbourhoods. And, in the tradition of the Toronto Food Policy Council, is making these issues part of the City’s public discourse.

I’d like to point out several ways that this report stands out, from my perspective.

Builds on Toronto’s Leadership
…and others are following.

Toronto signed a Food Charter outlining food rights and a vision for food security for Toronto. Many others followed suit, including the province of Manitoba, Thunder Bay, Sudbury and most recently, Durham. Endorsed by Durham Regional Council last December, the Durham Food Charter reflects the community’s vision for a food secure Durham Region focused toward building a just and sustainable local food system as a foundation for population health.

Local Food Procurement
Toronto has committed to a local food procurement policy, but has been slow to assign target benchmarks. Markham was the first municipality in Canada to adopt local procurement practices for its municipal food services, an initiative to help support Ontario’s farm economy, address climate change, reduce green house gases and pesticide use, and to promote environmentally responsible purchasing. At the same time the City of Markham implemented a Zero Waste policy. The City of Toronto should become the first large municipality in Canada to develop a comprehensive local food procurement policy.

Other food strategy processes: the People’s Food Policy Project, the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. All are undertaking federal food policy processes. The Toronto Food Strategy paves the way for looking at food, regional agriculture and health in an integrated way, and will inform these policy making processes in the same way Toronto led the way for municipal food policy councils and food charters across North America.

Makes food a priority
This report defines food from field to table, as generating health along the food chain, as connected to other pressing societal issues. One neighbouring municipality has done extraordinary work in this area, and I hope Toronto Public Health uses this work as a model for moving forward. Waterloo Region Public Health has led the way for municipal health authorities, releasing a discussion paper entitled “Towards a Healthy Community Food System in Waterloo Region” in October 2005. Public Health asked the public for input on the proposed strategies in the report. In 2007 the report “A Healthy Community Food System Plan” was published.  Waterloo Region is actively reshaping its regional food system to deliver healthy local food to residents.

Citizen Engagement
The report outlines a broad, creative and meaningful consultation and engagement process that will capture Torontonians Good Food Ideas, and more importantly, strategies to effectively implement these ideas.

Connects City and Countryside
In late 2008, Sustain Ontario was formed as a provincial alliance that would research and develop policy proposals related to healthy food and local sustainable farming. Sustain Ontario’s mandate is to advocate for a food system that is healthy, ecological, equitable and financially viable. Sustain Ontario acts as a bridge between rural and urban farming and food leaders, and connects farmers, food entrepreneurs and eaters.

I want to end my comments by speaking directly to the report’s recommendation related to connecting city and countryside through food. The report outlines a few strategies to do this.

• local food procurement
• participating in a regional food strategy process
• school food and food literacy
• promoting diverse crop production
• city to farmer linkages and training through urban agriculture

There are other recommendations in the report that meet this goal. These recommendations mesh with how Sustain Ontario’s constituency view the interrelationship between urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

• support small and medium size businesses through initiatives such as the Toronto Food Business Incubator. We must rebuild our local food infrastructure and food entrepreneurs as central to this task.
• enable urban agriculture – as food education and through enabling land use policies that will, no doubt, be taken up and implemented by other jurisdictions
• local food promotions. Torontonians need to be inspired to choose local first.
• farmers markets. The city should continue to release public space for markets.
• link priority neighbourhoods with local sustainable food and community food programs. Eating fresh, local fruit and vegetables is key to meeting the health challenges of all Torontonians, especially those who live on fixed incomes and in food deserts.

For more information:
City of Toronto Food Connections website

Board of Health Agenda

Urban food strategy unveiled – The Globe and Mail.