Connect Farm Seminar - Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who attended tonight's Connect Farm Seminar, especially to the wonderful panel of speakers whose insightful information motivated, inspired, and entertained us!

After the event, one participant said "It was great! I feel so much better about the world now, and so much worse about my eating habits!"

Emily VanHalem - FoodShare, Karen Campbell - Everdale Farm, Angie Koch - Fertile Grounds.

The panel featured guests from as far away as Wiarton, ON and as nearby as Dufferin and Bloor Street. Participants learned about how they can use organizations resources such as Everdale Farm's "Farmer for a Day" program and Food Share's "Field to Table Schools" initiative. We heard first hand accounts of the trials and tribulations of being a small-scale local distribution fisherman from the Akiwenzie Family (Andrew, Natasha and their three boys), and the similar struggles (and joys!) of being a small organic farmer from Angie Koch of Fertile Grounds. Arlene Stien from Hart House shared information about the University of Toronto's food service contracts (which have a mandate to source 25% of their produce locally), and Kristin Schroeder from Real Food For Real Kids told us about how similar mandates can be worked into the elementary system, but that there is much work to be done in order to make headway into the Secondary Schools cafeteria menus.


Finally, we finished off the evening with a local potluck dinner. During this time, we had the opportunity to get some feedback from our classmates and from our presenters, and the response was very positive. Many of the presenters were grateful for the chance to spread the word about their programs, and expressed the need for more opportunities such as this. As Emily VanHalem from Food Share pointed out, having informed teachers will go a long way towards making real changes in the education system, from curriculum that implements learning about food systems to changing school lunch programs and reconnecting kids to the earth. Karen Campbell from Everdale Farm echoed this opinion saying that hopefully through programs like this we can create a small army of advocates that will help re-educate Ontario's youth about food.

So now, it's up to us to continue to advocate for fresh, local produce in our schools and to promote education that incorporates learning about food -- whether it be food budgeting in Math class, nutrition in Phys. Ed., or cooking in Home Economics. As teachers, education about the economic, health and environmental benefits of supporting locally grown (or caught!) food is an important aspect of our careers that should not be overlooked.

Renegade Lunch Lady.

Having just finished our first practicum placements, I am sure that every student at OISE has had a taste (or at least a smell) of the cafeteria food that youth are consuming each day at school. Did anyone experience anything outstanding in their cafeterias? In my school, I was impressed at how hard the lunch lady worked and about the amount of food that was prepared from scratch each day -- unlike the prepackaged foods that Cooper speaks about in her presentation. From muffins to soups, to salads, the back kitchen in the cafeteria was a busy busy place. However, I am also certain that a good deal of the food being produced in that busy kitchen is still calorie laden, imported and probably not locally produced.

So what can we do about this? Some teachers, like Paul Finkelstein in Stratford, ON, are taking school lunches to a whole new level of healthy learning. His Screaming Avocado Cafe is a student-run cafe that serves up local, healthy meals to their classmates in place of a cafeteria. How can others implement programs similar to this one? Mr. Finkelstein will be a guest at the Connect Farm Seminar next Tuesday evening, so you can come out and learn for yourself.

Others, like Ann Cooper -- a "renegade lunch lady" from Berkeley, CA are pioneering the local lunch movement in schools across the United States. In this incredibly passionate and informative TED Talk, Cooper talks about the importance of not only educating youth about eating healthy, but also the bigger political issues regarding farm subsidies, government spending and health care.



From the TED site: "To help other school systems transform their own meal programs, she just launched a beta version of The Lunch Box, a website from her nonprofit F3: Food Family Farming Foundation. Inside The Lunch Box are budget models, menus and lots of recipes -- enter the number of servings you need, and the recipe page calculates how much of each ingredient you'll need. (Meatloaf for 600, anyone?)"

One of the important pieces that Cooper touches on in her talk is the idea of public-private partnerships. When I asked my colleagues at my practicum placement school about how the students were working with community groups, the teachers said that students were "very involved -- they make donations to community groups all the time." Making donations to community groups is great -- but, what about another, mutually beneficial sort of that relationship? It seems to me that many people view school-community relations as a one way street: Student Activity Councils operate fundraisers, canned food drives, or organize assemblies to benefit non-profits, or occasionally non-profits come into schools as guests to do presentations. But what about meaningful, ongoing partnerships?

One such partnership that has had great success in teaching kids about food is the organization Added Value in Brooklyn, NY. Founded by Youth Worker Ian Marvey on the premise of creating leadership amongst at-risk youth, Added Value is a farm located in the most unlikely of places -- on an old concrete baseball diamond in a low income neighborhood. The farm is run almost entirely by teenagers, who take home not only valuable income to their families, but also the fruits of their labour. Additional produce from the farm is also sold to local restaurants such as home/made, and the funds go towards creating education programs for youth. Added Value works in partnership with local schools during a 26 week Farm-to-Classroom program, in which "first graders at Red Hook’s PS 15 participate in weekly farm-based lessons, coupled with weekly cooking lessons. By taking part in farm activities, the students develop a working knowledge of plant biology, plant cycles, and a farmer’s work to grow food. Not to mention, an excitement for fruits and vegetables!" This program is much more than a one day field trip to a farm -- students become deeply invovled with the farm, community members, local businesses and each other, making connections between their actions on the farm, their health, the earth and their future.

In our readings for the School and Society Course, we read about Paulo Freire's Praxis process for education, which consists of five parts: identifying a problem, analysing the problem, developing a plan of action to address the problem, implementing the plan of action, and analysing that action. I've found that when it comes to student's reaching out into the community, the piece that is often missing the action and then reflection on that action. Often students learn about problems in the neighborhood and figure out a way to raise funds or awareness, but they don't often interact in a meaningful way with those involved in the actual problem or community group.

Overall, when thinking about how school lunches can be changed for the better, I believe that the solution needs to be student-driven, teacher facilitated, parent supported and include some sort of meaningful partnership with a community organization, such as the Stop or Food Share.

To find out more about these organizations, and how they can help you provide meaningful praxis oriented learning opportunities for your students, join us on Tuesday for the Connect Farm Seminar.

100 Mile Finds

Today as I was checking out my usual weekly blog reads, I came across this call for vendors on Toronto Craft Alert. It seems that the buy local movement is rapidly spreading beyond food to incorporate hand crafted or locally produced clothing and household items. 100milefinds.com sounds like it's going to be a localized version of Etsy.com, which has taken off in the past several years to be the e-bay of the crafting world.

Supporting locally made goods is just as important as supporting locally grown produce, for all the same reasons: saving in fuel and transportation costs (both economical and environmental) and supporting local economies. Therefore, when we are teaching our students about the importance of buying locally, we should not overlook the possibilities for these items.

As individuals, we should strive to support these local artisans and remember that a dollar spent on their goods is a dollar that stays local and helps strengthen our local economy. Not to mention your product will be unique and more interesting than something mass produced! For example, rather than buying your next greeting card at Shopper's Drug Mart, where it was probably printed in some far off place and shipped half way around the world, check out a local Etsy.com seller -- or the soon to come 100milefinds.com -- and pick up something special.

Finally, if you know any local Toronto crafters or artisans that might want to list their goods on 100milefinds.com, spread the word!

Links and Resources

Below are some of the resources and organizations that we have discovered in our research. We hope you will find them useful, and if you have any suggestions for additions, please leave us a comment!

Food Cycles
- Urban Farming and composting in TO
- Website is rich with resources
- They post ideas for action (ie hosting a 30 mile food party)
- Possible field trip to learn more?

Added Value
- An urban farm in NYC that has been very successful
- Currently working on a project in partnership with the organization that I worked for in NYC, the Design Trust (http://designtrust.org/projects/project_09farm.html) -- this project will result in a how-to manual for urban farming and also it will address city policy in regards to urban agriculture (currently there is not city zoning law that addresses urban agriculture).

Food Share
- An organization that takes a "multifaceted, innovative, and long-term approach to hunger and food issues.At FoodShare we work on food issues "from field to table" - meaning that we focus on the entire system that puts food on our tables: from the growing, processing and distribution of food to its purchasing, cooking and consumption."
- Their website includes a 'toolbox' of ideas for action.
- Specifically, they are interested in connecting local farmers to economically disadvantaged communities where 'food deserts' exist.

Food Jammers
- A television show in which Micah Donovan, Christopher Martin and Nobu Adilman come up with brilliant designs for culinary contraptions.

Canadian Organic Growers Association
- Includes a database of where to buy organic in Canada.

Green Enterprise Toronto
- They have a list of places consumers can buy local in Toronto.
- They support local, green businesses.

The Center for Social Innovation
- An organization that brings together a variety of non-profits to promote collaboration and social change.

Food Inc
- A movie about the industrial food system. The website also includes a reading list and other resources.

Canadian Policy Research Network
- A resource for researching food policy in Canada.

Ontario EcoSchools
- Education programs (including curriculum resources) based on the environment

The Toronto Food Policy Council
- Partners with businesses and community groups to develop policies promoting food security -- equitable food access, nutrition, community and environmental health.

GTA Local Food
- This website is primarily about where to get local food, but if you go to the agricultural profile section, it provides statistics on the current status of farming in the GTA.

Whitmore's Farm
- A local farm.

Foodland Ontario
- This is an official program from the Ontario government that is very active and yet still highly overlooked.
- The website has a growing season index, recipes, kids activities and traveling events. Perhaps some co-ordination with this group might make our job easier.

Ontario Greenbelt Alliance
As a part of the company Enviromental Defence, Ontario Greenbelt Alliance acts as a researcher and defender of the Ontario Greenbelt. They protect try to protect the enviroment of the greenbelt while advoacating its conservation and established use as farmland. They combat the sale and industrial development of the greenbelt when ever possible. They have many credible organizations as supporting members. They call local farmers the "Stewards" of the Greenbelt.

Jamie Kennedy's restaurants.
He cooks "locally" (Canada is local in this context). He is also a strong advocate of Ontario wines, which is one of the more profitable farming opportunities in Ontario.

World Wildlife Fund Localicious
The World Wildlife Fund has a campaign going on right now called Localicioius and it promotes eating locally at participating restaurants. Although this campaign only runs from Oct2-18, this is a good idea to promote local eating to restaurants in our community, even if they just have one dish. Restaurants are also distributors of food. So that's an idea. Restaurants having at least one local dish may feel proud about it and advertise their restaurant as a locally runned restaurant, therefore that might attract customers to try and also mabye they will consider locally grown in their home too. Just a few strands that can lead to differnt places with this idea that I totally stole from wwf.

Harvest Wednesdays
Chef Marc Breton at the Gladstone Hotel prepares a meal from food produced by local farmers every Wednesday.

The Farm Show (play)
A collective creation based on an ensemble who spent 6 weeks in rural ontario living and working on a farm in order to create a show. This play is from the early '70s but there are some pertinent monologues in there.

Ministry of Agriculture: Food and Rural Affairs - Pick Ontario Campaign

Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance

November 22 is Buy Local Day!

Ontario Agri-Food Education
Working to increase awareness of the agri-food industry by providing educational programs and resources. Many links to other great resources.

The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair

This annual event showcases some of the new innovations in agricultural policy and technological development including enviromental awareness, community involvement, health and energy. It is running November 8-16 2009 at the Exibition Place. Adult tickets are $16.

Canaidan International Farm Show

This event connects farmers from all across Canada to discuss major issues in farming such as local support, environment and innovation.

It is running Feb 16-19 2010 at the Toronto International Centre.