Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force Food Security Action Group, Media, Partner Activities, Poverty Task Force, Research

Grey Bruce Online Food Map is Launched; Targets Hunger and Waste Reduction

The Food Security Action Group (FSAG) has launched a Bruce Grey Food Assets Map. The map will help to connect organizations and businesses looking to build better food security throughout the region.

Currently, the Food Assets Map includes programs and initiatives like community gardens, community meals, food banks, food education, good food boxes, meal delivery services, student nutrition programs, and other support services. Food businesses on the map include farmers’ markets, distributors, grocers, producers, processors, restaurants and cafés. The map also captures food system infrastructure assets such as dry and cold storage, commercial kitchens and transportation opportunities.

Are you part of the food system in Grey Bruce? If so, FSAG wants you on the map. Individuals and groups may submit new assets for the map using a crowd-source form hosted by Grey County.

Over the next few months, FSAG will use mapped resources to engage partners in a Grey Bruce Food Gleaning project. Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover foods that would otherwise go to waste and connecting those foods to people in need. According to a 2014 Value Chain Management Centre report, Canadians waste a staggering $31 billion in food every year. Food gleaning can play a role in reducing food waste and its impacts, producing social, environmental and economic benefits.

The map was developed in partnership with Grey County GIS Mapping Services following a survey and interviews with food security programs and services. The Food Security Action Group is a branch of the Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force.

Community members are encouraged to connect with Jaden Calvert of FSAG to help populate the map or to contribute to regional food gleaning projects:  jaden.calvert@gmail.com.

For technical issues with the map, contact Grey County GIS at gisdesk@grey.ca.  Please reference Bruce, Grey, Food Asset Map.

—

Link to map: http://grey.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a70b87bc334846638b8d738ab26fced9

Link to map form: http://grey.maps.arcgis.com/apps/GeoForm/index.html?appid=ed0501c109e7401eb1f0f262a51dac17

jillumbach Food Security Action Group

Food Charters

The Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force briefly examined the Waterloo Region Food Charter (April 2013) at its 27 November 2013 meeting. The Group agreed that this was a good platform for starting/contributing to strategic change in the area.  It was agreed that this would be a key agenda item for the next meeting on January 8th, 2014.

Brendan Wylie-Toal, who serves as co-chair of the Waterloo Region Food Roundtable, says the charter is a “set of guiding values or principles. There’s nothing in there that’s going to force a municipal government to do anything. Our hope is that it’s a stepping stone to policies in the future that do have a little bit more teeth.”

The charter emphasizes that residents of the region must have access to affordable food, and encourages government policies that assist area farmers and prioritize “small and medium-sized” food processors and distributors.

Group members look at the following document:  Waterloo_Region_Food_Charter_final_Apr8

The Guelph-Wellington Food Roundtable has developed a toolkit for their Food Charter funded by the Healthy Communities/Public Health, The Research Group and The Trillium Foundation.  Specific sections of the toolkit are targeted to Eaters, Growers, Businesses and Institutions; Policy Makers and Community Food Projects.

GWFRT_Toolkit_Final_2013

Fifteen Ontario municipalities have already endorsed local food charters, including Guelph, London, Toronto and York Region.

 

1.  “How To” guides for creating a food charter

 

2. A sample of existing Food Charters:

 

 In March 2013, the provincial government introduced the Local Food Act, which aims to promote locally produced food and help more of it appear in restaurants and on grocery store shelves.