Member’s Achievements in the year 2017!
Posted: January 1, 2018
Categories: GoodFoodBites
Take a look at a few achievements from some of our Members in 2017!
Farms at Work: 
Farms at Work with the support of a Seed grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation released a report on the feasibility of community egg facilities. These facilities would support local farming communities and increase opportunities for access to local food. The report focused on the feasibility of these facilities in eastern central Ontario and aimed to address a barrier faced by small-scale egg producers and processors when trying to get their eggs to market.
The ability to grade eggs allows farmers to sell their eggs which would increase the accessibility of locally produced food to the eastern central Ontario community. Egg production represents an important opportunity to create a sustainable farming livelihood. The development of such facilities would help local economies and create self-employment opportunities in eastern central Ontario. Goals of the report include stimulating conversation and informing the local food community on ways to strengthen local economies and provide more support to small scale egg producers.
Download Egg Grading for the Community: A Feasibility Study
- The Halton Food Council held the “Policies, Practices, & Partnerships: Reducing Food Waste Symposium” on May 30th.
- Full day event in partnership with Sustain Ontario, the Ontario Food Collaborative and Country Heritage Park and supported by Riverstone Branding, the Ontario Produce Marketing Association, and The Printing House at Country Heritage Park in Milton.
- The symposium kicked off with keynote speaker, Dr. Martin Gooch, CEO/Partner of VCM International. It was an opportunity to learn more about the National Zero Waste Council’s National Food Waste Reduction Strategy, the work of Provision Coalition, best practices, and innovative solutions, and to engage with other FoodThinkers.
- MPP Marie-France Lalonde announced new funds to create community space at Just Food Farm. Just Food is received $246,800 of support through the Ontario150 Community Capital Program for their Barn-Raising Renovation to create a city-wide community asset at the Just Food Farm on the NCC Greenbelt.
- Just Food was our local partner and host at the Bring Food Home 2017 Conference!
- After ten months of fundraising, they raised $85,000 with donations from Food and Water First and Green Durham Association. This got their drive launched and a donation from the Carrot Cache that took them over the top!
- RAISED $85,000!
- As part of a new partnership between OCO and COG, they offered Southwestern Ontario’s first Introduction to Organic Certification workshop, held in Guelph on Apr. 1st, 2017.
- This full-day workshop helped producers determine the differences between their current farming system and a certified organic farming system. The workshop kicked off the Organic Success Program, a program designed to assist Ontario farmers transition to certified organic production. OCO will be working with COG to facilitate the program in Western and Southwestern Ontario.
- The workshop was led by Ruth Knight, a Professional Agronomist and Organic Consultant with experience in organic certification inspection and livestock/pasture farming.
Feb 2017: Partnered with Lakehead University, the Food Strategy began a speaker series where 86 people collectively attended and participated (online and in-person) in talks led by Dr. Elaine Power about food insecurity and basic income in Canada.
- The Food Strategy launched a monthly newsletter to engage and communicate with the Food Strategy Council and wider community.
- March 2017: The Food Strategy’s Indigenous Food Circle was established.
- June 2017: The Food Strategy Executive Committee submitted a formal response to Minister MacAulay regarding A Food Policy for Canada. An Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression Workshop was held for Food Strategy Council members, led by Gwen O’Reilly from the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre and Jessica McLaughlin from Oshki-Pimache-O-Win. The training session aimed to help participants deepen their understanding of how racism and oppression occur at a personal and structural level. The session also provided assistance with the change process toward equity and helped participants develop a critical approach to addressing racism and other forms of oppression and deepen their analysis of how racism and oppression play out in society and within their organizations.
One of our newest members in 2017, Kitchen 24 opened up it’s doors in August. Kitchen24 is a building that aims to meet all needs when it comes to building a food business. They have a fully equipped state of the art commercial equipment, specialty equipment, storage and shipping and receiving. Offering cooking classes, event space rental, special events and a photo and video studio.
Ontario Farmland Trust The Ontario Farmland Trust held a Farmland Forum in March 2017. This looked at the future of farming and farmland protection in Ontario. There was almost 130 planners, Councillors, students, and academics at the forum. They discussed Ontario’s future through a wide variety of topics, such as drawing experience from the Oregon State Department’s work in agricultural land protection, examining shifting trends in farmland ownership, and exploring Indigenous perspectives on farming and farmland preservation. This annual event was a huge success! Click here to see the program and Click Here to see the event’s proceedings.
Sustain Ontario, Roots to Harvest, Greenest City, Green Thumbs Growing Kids, Foodshare conduct PGP Youth Evaluations Project!
The project, entitled Growing Out: Evaluation and Impact Youth-Grown Tools is intended to empower youth who participate in food programs throughout Ontario to evaluate and share their experiences of the impacts and processes of these projects, in ways that are authentic to them. Initially these youth will be recruited by and from four partner organizations in the food sector in two different communities, Roots to Harvest in Thunder Bay; and Greenest City, Green Thumbs Growing Kids, and FoodShare all in Toronto. Sustain Ontario and FoodShare, as the lead partners will coordinate and provide administrative support for this project, with the other partners all forming part of the project steering committee.
Indigenous youth, youth leaders and youth participants from diverse backgrounds, and the partner organizations worked together in two different regions of Ontario, as co-creators of an evaluation plan, indicators of success, and culturally and demographically appropriate evaluation tools. The core team of youth participant-researchers along with the staff of the partner organizations were trained as evaluators and appropriate tools and methods were co-created. Examples of the types of methods included surveys conducted with phones and tablets, storytelling, photo voice, animation and focus groups. The youth all presented their research techniques at Sustain’s bi-annual Bring Food Home conference. The session was a success and it was even stated multiple times afterwards that the conference itself should be youth led! The findings will be made into a toolkit and an evaluations report will be made. Keep your eyes out for the final results soon!