First shoots… the “Growing Good Food Ideas” Video Project springs to life!
Posted: July 5, 2011
Categories: Growing Good Food Ideas
Over the past ten years, public interest in sustainable farming and food has been growing.
This interest has resulted in an 
unprecedented demand for healthy, local, sustainably grown food and a burgeoning entrepreneurial farm and food sector working to meet this demand. Research shows that Ontario consumers are interested in purchasing local Ontario food and learning more about farm and food activities in the province. Local food initiatives, however, are often disconnected from one another. The over-arching story of Ontario’s good food ideas has not been told. This results in lost economic development opportunities for the farm and food sector in the province of Ontario.
Ontario is growing good food ideas all over the province. Sustain Ontario’s recent report entitled “Menu 2020: Ten Good Food Ideas for Ontario” identified a range of initiatives across the province that promote health and economic viability across the food chain. This project connects these initiatives and Ontario farm and food networks to an exciting social media project. The Good Food Ideas videos provide a platform to showcase and promote these great new initiatives while telling a broader story about farming and food across the province. The objectives of the Good Food Ideas video project are to:
- Promote local food initiatives across Ontario
- Encourage Ontarians to buy locally
- Create local food network of “good food ideas”
- Build the Ontario local food sector’s capacity to use social media
A series of High Definition videos are being produced by Powerline Films, in partnership with 16 groups across the province. Watch for them! There will be a new webpage which will include information about Ontario’s food and farming regions, actors, products, resources while it showcases innovative food and farm practices. They’ll also be available as a YouTube channel, too!
Project partners include a range of regional food and farming organizations including Perth, York Region, Thunder Bay, Niagara, Durham, Caledon, Kawartha Lakes, and Algoma; food organizations such as Carrot Cache, Local Food Plus, FoodShare (Toronto), Organic Council of Ontario, Organic Growers of Ontario’s Ottawa Chapter, London Training Centre, London Community Resource Centre, and the Western Fair Farmers Market.
The videos will tell stories of agricultural economic development, food production innovations, local and regional food marketing efforts, agri-tourism, farmers markets, organic agriculture, initiatives that link local food to health, farm-to-school programs and cross-sector collaboration.
In October 2011 the series will be launched at the Bring Food Home provincial conference, which will be held at Trent University in Peterborough, October 27 – 29. A workshop at the conference will share the lessons learned from this co-marketing, social media project. Keep posted to see the results!