By Janna Graham
Food security is coming to a neighbourhood near you.
Ottawa’s first food film series, The Reel Food Film Festival, is now showcasing food-related films at Ottawa Public Library’s main branch on Metcalfe Street. Ranging from a hilarious animation about meat production to an anxiety-provoking documentary about genetically modified crops, the film series hopes to inspire thoughtful food choices.
Local organizations Just Food, USC Canada, the Ottawa Good Food Box and World Inter-Action Mondiale are collaborating to bring Ottawa this feast of films during the first three weeks of March.
Just Foods, a non-profit organization, wants to make Ottawa a food-secure city.
Heather Hossie, a Reel Food Film Festival co-ordinator, works for USC and Just Food.
She says food security exists when all people have access to healthy, nutritional and affordable foods at all times.
According to Hossie, this isn’t an impossible goal in Ottawa.
“Ottawa is the largest agricultural urban centre in Canada,” says Hossie. “We have the ability to feed ourselves, but we don’t because the majority of our food is going to export.”
Supporting local farmers is an important step in realizing food security. Hossie says that food often travels for more than a week before it arrives on grocery store shelves. The longer a head of broccoli travels, the less nutritious it is.
Many farms, like Acorn Creek Garden Farm in nearby Carp, sell farm-fresh produce at their farm gate. The farm’s Andy Terauds says Ottawa area farmers face obstacles to commercially selling their fruits and vegetables.
“Grocery stores won’t accept food from farmers, everything has to go through the central warehouse and so they want a large quantity, which is impossible unless you’re a huge operation,” Terauds says.
Terauds credits the City of Ottawa for creating Ottawa Farmer’s Market at Lansdowne Park. The market, open every Sunday from July through November, is the result of consumers demanding locally grown produce. According to Terauds, Byward and Parkdale farmers markets aren’t exclusively local farmer markets.
The Ottawa Good Food Box is a non-profit community-based initiative that sources and resells fresh fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices.
Sponsored by Centretown Community Health Centre, Ottawa Good Food Box estimates their food boxes feed about 500 people each month.
Natasha Beaudin, the co-ordinator, says the organization was created 10 years ago when local dieticians realized many Ottawa citizens couldn’t afford to eat fresh fruit and vegetables.
“People relying on the food bank are eating canned food, bread and processed food, so the Good Food Box is a healthy supplement, but we’re open to anyone interested in affordable fruits and vegetables,” says Beaudin.
There are 26 different sites across the city that locals can order and pick up their food boxes. In Centretown, the main site is the Community Health Centre on Cooper Street. There’s also a site on Rochester Street and Gladstone Avenue.
In February, a $10 box intended for one person included four apples, three bananas, five pounds of potatoes, two pounds of carrots, two pounds of onions, an avocado, a head of broccoli, a head of lettuce, a mango and a green pepper. Larger boxes are available, depending on family size.
Beaudin say that in summer months Good Food boxes are stocked with local farm fresh fruit and vegetables.
Judging from the packed house and the people poring over information tables at the first screening of The Reel Food Film Festival, food security is an important issue in Ottawa.
Hossie say that attitudes towards food are changing and people are looking towards buying local food and supporting local farmers.
She hopes the film series will get people thinking about the kinds of food choices they are making.
“We were going to wait for the summer and show the films at Centretown’s outdoor film festival that happens in the summer,” she says. “But we wanted to get people thinking now about food and their food choices for the upcoming growing season.