Kingston Food News

“Cooking up a story” offers new online video resources to connect sustainable food with culinary delights

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:31:31 +0000

To All Who Care About Food, the Environment, and the Well-Being of Farmers:

For years, you’ve supported our online television show Cooking Up a Story, which has helped spread information about sustainable food systems and the lives of farmers life around the world. With your support, Cooking Up a Story has blossomed, with almost 9 million video views on YouTube alone.

Now, YouTube is launching 100 channels featuring original programming and one — just one — focuses squarely on connecting the dots between the food we cook and eat, the farmer and the land: Food.Farmer.Earth (youtube.com/ffe), the latest ongoing project from Cooking Up a Story.

Each week, Food.Farmer.Earth takes viewers on a full-circle culinary journey

in the Kitchen with chefs like Lisa Schroeder and Katherine Deumling, to learn how to prepare a healthy dish using locally-sourced ingredients; to the Field, to meet a rare wasabi farmer like Jennifer Bloeser, or a food Renaissance artisan like cheese maker and winery owner Rudy Marchesi for a rich flavoring of food related stories; and into Food Wisdoms, to delve deeper into food issues like food waste, and hunger, with people such as Tracy Oseran of Urban Gleaners, who collects unwanted food to feed the hungry; a half-million meals a year. Food.Farmer.Earth’s high-definition, embeddable, YouTube videos are viewable on virtually any portable device connected to the internet, including connected television. The videos range from a couple minutes in length, to more than 15, determined organically based on the content. Food.Farmer.Earth is produced by Portland, Oregon-based Potter Productions Inc., located in one of the epicenters of the sustainable food movement.

We hope that you will help us spread the word about this exciting new video channel.

“’Cooking Up a Story’ is unique in the ecosphere of internet-based video media produced today for its depth and diversity of stories and information about our food system. Food.Farmer.Earth builds upon this success, bringing people closer to their food, closer to nature, and the joy that comes from eating good food,” Executive Producer Fred Gerendasy said. “We are a very small company, but we are producing serious work. These stories are clean. They are organic.”

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The Stop Community Food Centre launches new online resource

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:49:24 +0000

The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto has forwarded this note about its new online community food resource, the Learning Network. Take a look at what resources it offers and enjoy!

Kingston to Pilot Memorial Centre farmers’ market

admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:46:00 +0000

This decision appeared in the local EMC Kingston publication recently. A pilot farmers’ market project should begin in Spring 2012! Memorial Centre farmers’ market set to open in spring 2012Posted Dec 22, 2011 By Bill Hutchins http://www.emckingston.ca/20111222/news/Memorial+Centre+farmers‘+market+set+to+open+in+spring+2012

EMC News – A petition with over 800 names has prompted city council to revisit the idea of setting up a seasonal farmers’ market on the grounds of the Kingston Memorial Centre.

Staff had initially recommended against the idea for cost and competition reasons.

However, following a wave of public opinion in favour of the market, council agreed to put the idea back on the front-burner. Staff will report to a future meeting of the Kingston Memorial Centre advisory committee on setting up a farmers’ market pilot project, and will seek local vendors interested in running it.

“This is meant as a pilot project on Sundays at the Memorial Centre,” said Coun. Jim Neill, whose Williamsville district covers the Memorial Centre.

Williamsville residents say a market would boost the city’s sustainable practices by giving residents more choices to buy locally-grown food and other products.

Coun. Neill says data collected during the pilot phase will determine whether the market should be made a permanent fixture. “All kinds of vendors have expressed an interest (in selling their products).”

The Sunday-only market would not compete with the downtown farmers’ market, which has seasonal vendors on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The downtown market does not serve many residents of Williamsville, King’s Town and Kingscourt districts, Neill added.

The original staff recommendation was to abandon the Memorial Centre market idea in favour of improving service at the historic downtown location at Springer Market Square.

“Additional comments were received to suggest that more energy and effort should be placed on the Kingston Public Market in order to have it operating at a higher level, rather than creating another new farmers market in close proximity to the existing traditional location,” said community services commissioner Lanie Hurdle.

However, councillors voted unanimously at their December 6 meeting to follow the wishes of the Williamsville councillor and residents and pursue the pilot project. The motion instructs staff to report its implementation strategy to the committee in time for the once-a-week market to start in the spring of 2012.

Among the unresolved issues is the cost of setting up the new market location.

It will cost an estimated $60,000 to upgrade the floors, electrical systems and signage of the Bennett barn to open a one-day market from April to November, and $220,000 to install proper insulation to run it all year long, according to a recent staff report.

Food policy a Canadian federal election issue

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:28:22 +0000

The Globe and Mail published this article today about the food policy positions of the major Canadian federal parties with respect to the upcoming election. The article and additional links and information are available at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/for-the-first-time-food-becomes-a-political-priority/article1979395/ For the first time, food becomes a political priorityJESSICA LEEDER — GLOBAL FOOD REPORTERFrom Monday’s Globe and MailPublished Sunday, Apr. 10, 2011 10:06PM EDTLast updated Monday, Apr. 11, 2011 7:59AM EDT For the first time in Canadian electoral history, the edible is political.Each of the country’s federal parties have included strategies in their electoral platforms that, to varying degrees, highlight food as a distinct priority separate from agriculture. The Conservative policy, announced Sunday, most closely resembles a traditional agriculture policy, with its focus on efforts to sustain the family farm and boost exports, while the Liberals and New Democrats aim to foster unprecedented co-operation between government departments dealing with the production, distribution, sale and consumption of food. Building on a growing middle-class awareness of the pressures on the global food system, all parties acknowledge the need for some sort of long-term national strategy. What separates them are their degrees of willingness to expand their focus beyond the farm.The fact that food is mentioned across all five electoral platforms is being hailed as a victory for the global food movement, which has already nudged a handful of European nations to implement long-term policies. “The conversation is changing radically to be able to talk about a food policy,” said Harriet Friedmann, a world-renowned food policy expert with the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. “… It is a triumph of the food movement of the past 20 years.” On Monday, the parties will hash out their respective policies at a debate in Ottawa. But one food policy critic said none of the platforms are detailed enough to take seriously. “None of them really link the food story to health care that well, or to social-policy reform,” said Rod MacRae, a professor at York University who is one of Canada’s foremost experts on the subject. “What they’ve done is pick the low-hanging fruit – the things that are more part of the public consciousness right now.” Still, strong federal leadership in the national food policy process is critical, he said. “The federal role is to act as the animator, the facilitator, and to use its usual package of sticks and carrots to try and get everybody on board.”

Community food centre coming to nearby Perth, Ontaro

admin — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:32:42 +0000

The Stop is Growing [Press Release]First published in The Stop Community Food Centre on March 8, 2011The Stop is Growing: The Stop Community Food Centre takes its innovative model to Stratford and PerthFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Toronto, March 8, 2011 – The Stop Community Food Centre today announced that it has selected two Ontario towns, Perth and Stratford, as the first pilot sites to replicate The Stop’s innovative community food centre model, where food is used to build health, skills, and community. This unique and unprecedented collaboration is the first phase of a process that The Stop hopes will eventually bring the CFC model to every community in the country. The Stop began life in the 1970s as one of Canada’s first food banks, and has been on the frontlines of confronting hunger ever since. Over the years, in order to confront the root causes of poverty, poor nutrition and social isolation, the non-profit organization has evolved into a thriving, holistic community centre offering a wide range of services and initiatives, including several community gardens and kitchens; after school cooking and gardening programs; a farmers’ market; community advocacy training; a nutritional support program for new and expectant mothers; and a sustainable food systems education centre. On a recent visit to Toronto, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver said of The Stop: “I’ve travelled all around the world, and I’ve never seen anything like The Stop. Every city should have one.” “The Stop is a grassroots approach to tackling some of the really big problems we have in our food system: diet-related illness, disappearing farmland, deepening poverty,” says Nick Saul, The Stop’s Executive Director. “There’s so much interest in food at the moment, and what good food can do for people and communities. We get calls and visits almost every day from other organizations interested in our approach.” Saul says the pilot process will be geared toward measuring the impact that multifaceted food centres can have on individual and community health to make the case that society needs to invest in more community food centres. “Traditionally, food programs have been run out of basements on a shoestring. We’re going to try to change that, to aim higher and to build a vibrant funding program that brings public and private money together to support these programs at the level they deserve.” In the fall of 2010, a committee from The Stop, with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion’s Healthy Communities Fund and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, set out to locate other communities who could most effectively adapt The Stop’s model for their own needs. After considering several locations, Perth and Stratford were chosen because of the combination of need and local infrastructure, as well as the strong and diverse set of local partners who share The Stop’s philosophy and are prepared to drive the project forward. In Perth, The Stop will be partnering with the Perth and District Food Bank, a food bank whose staff and volunteers have decided to re-invent their organization. The food bank has recently purchased a 1960s-era stucco church which, once it is retrofitted with a kitchen and garden, will house their CFC.“We are excited about the opportunity to work with The Stop to create a version of a community food centre that re-creates the powerful, and exciting programs that we see at The Stop, but that is also relevant to our community,” says Nancy Wildgoose, a local resident who has been one of the driving forces behind the CFC initiative in Perth. Wildgoose envisions dining programs for seniors, healthy cooking programs for young parents and kids living on low incomes, community gardening programs open to the whole community and social enterprise initiatives as some of the options that hold promise for Perth. In Stratford, the United Way of Perth-Huron is the lead partner and will incubate the project. “Our Food Security Coalition has been working on re-imagining the approach to food security in our community. This is a wonderful opportunity to enhance the range of programs that we can offer and develop other partnerships within the county,” says Ellen Balmain the Executive Director of the United Way of Perth- Huron. “We are thrilled that Stratford was chosen as one of the locations for The Stop’s project.” A location is currently being sought for the new project. Balmain points to the richness of the local food landscape, with the many successful restaurants, chef’s school and Slow Food movement as potentially powerful allies in this project. As with the Town of Perth, the rural environment will present new opportunities to address issues related to local farming and farm families. -30-Media Contacts: Elizabeth Fraser, Replication Coordinator, 416-652-7867 ext 247 elizabeth@thestop.orgNancy Wildgoose, Perth & District Food Bank, 613-267-0256, nancy.wildgoose@gmail.comEllen Balmain, Executive Director, UW Perth-Huron, 519-271-7730 x222, execdir@unitedwayperthhuron.ca

New Iowa food system resilience report released

admin — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:18:21 +0000

Cultivating Resilience: A Food System Blueprint that Advances the Health of Iowans, Farms and Communities Angela M. Tagtow, MS, RD, LD & Susan L. Roberts, JD, MS, RDFebruary 2011 We all eat. Food is essential to our existence. It’s an important part of Iowa’s heritage and culture. Yet we often take for granted the large systems that produce, process, distribute, make accessible and dispose of the food we eat. These food systems, and the food provided, greatly influence our health, our economy, our environment, and justice. But, these food systems are being challenged by environmental threats of climate changes, water shortages, and depleted soils; energy threats of decreasing fossil fuels and rising energy costs; health threats of increasing obesity and, at the same time, increasing hunger; and economic threats of fewer farmers and increased control of our food by large corporations. Cultivating Resilience: A Food System Blueprint that Advances the Health of Iowans, Farms and Communities is the result of multi-disciplinary efforts including food system stakeholders across Iowa engaged in conversations about the future of food. The objective of the Iowa Food System Blueprint is to measure the resilience and health of Iowa’s food system through a report card leading to recommendations for research, programs and policies to ensure a food system that supports healthier Iowans, communities, economies, and the environment. The Iowa Food System Blueprint has two parts: Report card on the health of Iowa’s food system; and Recommendations for Iowa’s food system. The report and an executive summary are available at http://www.iowafoodsystemscouncil.org/cultivating-resilience/ The W. K. Kellogg Foundation generously provided funding for development of this report. For further information, please visit the Foundation’s website at www.wkkf.org. The University of Northern Iowa Center on Health Disparities provided fiscal administration of the grant.

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Model lease agreements, garden rules, and more

admin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:59:08 +0000

Check out the interesting resources that have been recently made available by the organization Public Health Law & Policy. This would be a great community gardening kit to download for all interested visitors to the website.

Ground Rules: A Legal Toolkit for Community Gardens

This toolkit features legal resources for establishing community gardens on vacant land owned by individuals or other private entities, as opposed to public land.

It describes the rights and responsibilities of the landowner, the sponsoring organization, and gardeners. The toolkit includes:

Model Community Garden Lease

(between a landowner and a sponsoring nonprofit) Model Gardener’s Agreement

(between the sponsoring nonprofit and an individual gardener) Model Community Garden Rules

(outlining the way a garden will operate, and the gardener’s privileges and responsibilities) Two discussion checklists

(outlining points for the sponsor organization to cover when orienting new gardeners)

Download the toolkit at http://www.nplanonline.org/nplan/products/CommunityGardenToolkit.

To request technical assistance with your community garden project, go to http://www.nplanonline.org/nplan/content/ask-nplan

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Measure What Matters – Two new reports on sustainable agriculture

admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:58:04 +0000

This website and new reports came across our listservs today. The information in these reports should be of interest to anyone interested in farming, sustainable agriculture, and changes in the global food industry.

http://www.pulsecanada.com/measurewhatmatters

Measuring Sustainable AgricultureLeading food companies have made sustainability a top priority, and view their farm level agricultural supply chains as the biggest opportunity for improvement. More than 30 interviews were conducted with leaders in the food industry to find out how measurements of sustainability are changing. What does the future hold?

DownloadMeasure What Matters Commissioned by Pulse Canada and written by UK consultant Chris Anstey (formerly of Tesco), Measure What Matters examines what is happening around the world with the measurement of farming’s impact on sustainability. Based on a series of 30+ interviews with international food industry experts , Measure What Matters will take the reader through this complex story and explain how it fits into the broader context of sustainable development, including a spirited debate on communication to consumers. The story is not always simple, but you will find it explained in simple terms. You will read the views of experts, often outspoken, sometimes surprising and always valuable.

DownloadMeasuring Sustainable Agriculture What do food industry leaders think about sustainable agriculture? Should farmers and producers be concerned about their approach? Measuring Sustainable Agriculture looks at the findings of Measure What Matters and pinpoints what these conclusions mean for Canadian annual crops. It provides a snapshot of the food industry’s rapidly evolving focus on environmental issues, and compares the food industry’s sustainability priorities with agricultural stewardship practices that have been adopted (and continue to grow) in Canada. Measuring Sustainable Agriculture was written to provide a clearer understanding of who’s out there, what they are thinking, what they are measuring, and what all of this means for the Canadian agricultural industry.

Urban agrarianism changes in American cities

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:46:43 +0000

This note came across our desks, addressing changes to urban agriculture policy, research and zoning in American cities like Minneapolis, Minnesota. Similar changes are happening in Canadian cities. This is a great article to understand the historical evolution of the relationship between urban zoning/planning, and agriculture/local food production capacity.

Editor’s Note: While many cities in North America are beginning to think seriously about urban agriculture, practice has surpassed the rules and zoning governing it. This article from the Twin Cities Daily Planet examines the community process that has begun in Minneapolis concerning the rules relevant to urban agriculture.

Urban agrarianism

By Brian DeVore, Loon Commons

January 23, 2011

The City of Minneapolis is considering how to make it easier for “urban ag” to exist in some of the most non-rural neighborhoods in the state. In fact, the public comment period for the Urban Agriculture Policy Plan wraps up Jan. 31. Ag in the city? It’s not such a stretch. “We are still a nation of farmers at heart,” nationally recognized community gardening guru Rose Hayden-Smith told me recently. Here’s one city’s chance to help its residents express their native agrarianism.

If the Minneapolis Urban Agriculture Policy Plan is approved by the Planning Commission and City Council, it will enable the city to change zoning codes and land use policies that affect everything from home and community gardens, to production of livestock and farmers’ markets. The draft is a vital step towards creating an environment where urban farmers, gardeners, markets and ag/food entrepreneurs can flourish.

Such changes are long overdue: the zoning code in many U.S. cities was written in the 1950′s when there was a move to separate urban and rural areas as much as possible. I’ve talked to wannabe Twin Cities urban farmers over the past year who’ve run afoul of these outdated rules. Often, the city officials tasked with enforcing them confide that these restrictions no longer make sense. This isn’t just a problem in the urban core — suburbs like Wayzata are struggling with neighborhood food production issues as well. But as LSP’s recent fact sheet illustrates, cities across the country have taken steps in recent years to develop zoning rules that treat urban ag like it deserves to be treated: as a viable part of the local community and economy. Officials in places like Kansas City, Madison, Milwaukee and Seattle have stepped up to the plate with creative solutions to zoning challenges. Milwaukee (the home of urban ag poster child Growing Power), for example, released a city-wide comprehensive plan in 2010 that encourages farming and gardening on vacant lots and under-utilized land.

The proposed Minneapolis plan has a lot of potential, recommending, among things:

Amending the zoning code to include urban ag as a legitimate land use and determining the districts in which different urban ag activities are accepted uses. Establishing new approaches to selling and leasing land. Encouraging urban agriculture through city planning. Supporting economic development through a Homegrown Minneapolis Business Development Center and conducting an economic impact analysis on urban ag.

But there’s plenty of room for improvement. For example, the plan should:

Recommend strong urban farmer and gardener involvement in determining the specific zoning changes. Use a more holistic set of criteria to determine what land is best used for urban ag. Articulate clear racial equity goals. Ensure positive environmental health and sustainability outcomes.

In other words, just a few zoning tweaks aren’t enough (click here for details on how you can make your voice heard on the Minneapolis Urban Agriculture Policy Plan before Jan. 31). Rose Hayden-Smith is an educator and historian who closely tracks the interest in community gardening across the country. She says that the phones of gardening experts are “ringing off the hook” as community groups seek advice on how to make their growing seasons a little more green and productive. The interest in community gardening parallels the recent buzz over gardening in general, a buzz Hayden-Smith associates with the struggling economy. According to National Gardening Association estimates, a well-maintained food garden yields on average a $500 annual return when considering a typical gardener’s investment and the market price of the produce.

“In challenging times, Americans have always turned to gardening,” Hayden-Smith told me, adding that in order for community gardening to evolve from an endeavor that is turned to out of desperation during trying times to something that is more the norm, there has to be partnerships that involve government, private enterprise and local communities.

A prime example of what such partnerships can produce was on display almost a century ago, according to Food Will Win the War: Minnesota Crops, Cooks, and Conservation During World War I, Rae Katherine Eighmey’s fascinating history/recipe book. Eighmey documents how quickly local food production was ramped-up in response to the U.S. entering the “Great War,” and how all levels of Minnesota society jumped aboard as terms like “food miles reduction” and “buy local”" (sound familiar?) became rallying cries. For example, the Great Northern Railroad turned over to its employees 100,000 acres of free garden space along its rail lines between Saint Paul and Oregon. A Minneapolis real estate developer offered up 7,000 unused building lots for gardening, and a St. Louis Park High School agriculture instructor coordinated the cultivation of empty lots. The Minneapolis Garden Club developed Vegetable Gardening in Minneapolis, a guide that included diagrams for plots as small as 20 by 40 feet.

The U of M Extension Service, USDA and the federal government’s newly formed Food Administration promoted canning and home preservation of all that produce coming off those empty lots. In July 1918, the City of Saint Paul opened the Community Food Center, and during the next three months it hosted 102 demonstrations for 3,000 people and canned 27,792 quarts of vegetables, according to Eighmey.

Perhaps the most impressive food mobilization effort took place in Twin Cities schools. In 1917 alone, some $50,000 worth of vegetables were raised in Minneapolis school gardens, making some of those playgrounds worth $785 per acre food-wise.

Obviously, we are further removed from our agrarian roots these days, but the popularity of community gardening and local foods in general shows there is the potential to create a new, more sustainable Victory Garden movement.

“It was a real quasi private-public partnership in World War I,” says Hayden-Smith. “I think there are really good opportunities to do that right now because you have government struggling with budget issues and there seems to be a stronger interest in public engagement. One World War I example that we could emulate today is to utilize community gardens to engage people where they live.”

That will require a bottom-up approach that does everything from making kids more aware of where their food comes from to a reform of federal policy that promotes production of a handful of commodity crops above all else.

It will also require researching and recognizing the economic benefits of urban ag and community based food and farming in general. A surprising statistic reported by researcher Ken Meter is that in 2007 alone Minnesota farmers sold $23 million worth of food directly to eaters. That’s only 0.3 percent of the total farm commodity market in the state, but hey, $23 million is $23 million. Direct sales actually represent a bigger market than either the oat, apple or sheep markets in Minnesota, and are nearly as large as sunflower sales.

On the local level, one basic place to start “engaging people where they live” is to make it easier for community gardens to find permanent homes. Most are established either on public land or private lots owned by firms such as railroads. Their existence is tenuous at best, with permits often granted only on a year-to-year basis. As we’ve reported in this blog before, perhaps the most surprising barriers are the ones that are thrown up by local units of government, which are desperate to fill empty lots with traditional development that will generate tax revenue.

Food and farming activities are seen, at best, as interim uses of such space until something more lucrative comes along. Here’s a news flash straight out of 1918: no matter what real estate is going for, the bottomline payoff that results from being self-sufficient is pretty hard to beat.

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WHO WE ARE: Foodforethought is an information service that encourages dialogue and exploration of innovative trends in the global food system. The service is managed by James Kuhns of MetroAg Alliance for Urban Agriculture in collaboration the Toronto Food Policy Council. To subscribe, please contact editor@foodforethought.net.

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Upcoming talks at Ban Righ Centre at Queen’s University

admin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:32:53 +0000

There are two upcoming food- and agriculture-related talks taking place as part of the Ban Righ Centre’s Speaker Series. The Centre is located at 32 Bader Lane on the Queen’s University campus. For more information, visit the Centre’s website, http://banrighcentre.queensu.ca

Thursday, February 17 ~ Eating Right? Gender, Foodways and Canadian ChildrenJillian Burford-Grinnell ~ Masters Candidate, Gender StudiesThis presentation will focus on School Meal Programs (SMPs) in Canada, in particular, why there is no federal funding for this program. Existing SMPs operate primarily through the use of volunteers and donations from corporations and vary considerably from school board to school board. Jillian will be talking about her research, a work in progress, and would like feedback on these programs.Wednesday March 2 ~ The Save the Prison Farms Campaign — “No, we won’t give up and go home…”Dianne Dowling ~ President of Local 316 National Farmers Union and Organic Dairy FarmerBridget Doherty ~ Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation Office, Sisters of Providence. The federal government’s plan to close Canada’s six prison farms motivated hundreds of Kingston area residents into action — writing letters, signing petitions, organizing and attending public meetings and rallies, presenting briefs to a Parliamentary Committee and, attempting to blockade enormous cattle trucks, which led to the arrest of 24 people. Hear about the campaign and the lessons learned.