New Brunswick Releases Local Food Strategy that Supports Healthy Local Food in Schools
Posted: November 9, 2016
Categories: Edible Education Network / Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / Schools
Last month — fittingly during National Farm to School Month — the New Brunswick Ministry of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries released a Local Food and Beverages Strategy that includes significant support for healthy local food in schools.
Stakeholder discussions that helped inform the strategy identified a number of opportunities, one of which included to encourage procurement for local food in public institutions and promote agriculture in schools.
Under an objective to Improve Availability of Local Food and Beverages, the strategy lists action to:
- “Evaluate and develop a model for local food procurement in all public schools, aiming for a medium-to-long-term target of 30% local food”
- “Evaluate the necessary funding to support healthy and local food fundraising in schools”
Additionally, under another objective to Improve Consumer Awareness of Local Food and Beverages, one action states: “Support the Agricultural Alliance of NB to employ an education coordinator to develop age-appropriate information about agriculture, facilitate farm visits and the establishment of school gardens, etc.”
You may view the strategy in full here, or by clicking the image above.
“Initiatives aimed at supporting the purchase of local foods by vulnerable and food-insecure individuals and families are improving access to healthy and sustainable food, while increased exposure to local products in younger generations is helping develop healthy habits that will bring lifelong benefits,” said Rick Doucet, Minister of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries. “By promoting province-wide availability of local products through shortened market channels such as farmers markets, community-sponsored agriculture and farm stands, we are encouraging a sustainable, community-oriented distribution system.”
The Ontario Edible Education Network applauds New Brunswick’s concrete efforts to support a healthy local food system that acknowledges the important role school food and food education can play.
Laurie Anne Patenaude, Senior Project Executive with the NBMAAF, and Farm to Cafeteria Canada’s Farm to School Regional Lead in New Brunswick, is overseeing the strategy. We look forward to seeing what grows from the strategy!