Ontario Food and Nutrition Strategy
About the Strategy
A coordinated, cross-ministerial approach to food policies and programming has tremendous potential to make sure that Ontario’s future is one of healthy people, a strong economy, resilient ecological systems, well educated kids and much more. The Ontario Collaborative Group on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity has started a process to create a provincial food and nutrition strategy. Sustain Ontario is pleased to have joined the Design Team that is helping to create this strategy.
What’s Happened so Far
Between April 24th and May 31 there was an initial consultation on an early draft of the food strategy. There were more than 130 submissions by over 200 food and farming experts. These submissions helped to prioritize elements of the strategy and offered suggestions for changes to content, language, and structure as well as a wealth of research and reports. All of the feedback has been compiled into the June 2012 Consultation Report which includes a significant Annotated Bibliography.
The Design Team integrated the feedback from the first consultation into the December 2012 draft of the Strategy and Action Plan, which was open for an online consultation from December 2012 to February 2013. We received 78 submissions during this time. We continued our engagement with key government contacts and stakeholder groups. We are pleased to present the September 2013 draft strategy, which includes comments received from stakeholders from December 2012 until August 2013. We are using this draft strategy to further engage with key stakeholders including you and your organization.
We welcome and thank you for your comments on the Draft Strategy.
Get Informed
Want to learn what’s happened to-date to bring this strategy to life? Read these background documents, reports and presentations.
Why a Strategy, Why Now?
Ontario’s food system is in crisis, but also can provide solutions for many of the challenges facing our province today. Farmers are not able to make an adequate income farming, while eaters aren’t able to access the food that they need to be healthy. We have a farm income crisis, an obesity crisis, a chronic disease crisis, and challenges in the food-processing sector. At the same time, food and farming is the single largest employer in the province with tremendous potential for further expansion and growth, and dietary improvements could end our health crises…Read more