Ottawa's Food for All project, aimed at enhancing the city’s sustainability and nutritional profile, has released a draft of its Food Action Plan.
The plan makes far-reaching suggestions for food policy in Ottawa, from breastfeeding and lower food costs to promoting more “edible landscapes” and reduced soil contamination.
“Obesity, poor nutrition, the loss of food-related skills like gardening and cooking and the loss of agricultural lands to development all point to the need to take action on food,” the plan states.
A key recommendation is that municipal officials focus on working with community groups and charities to increase access to healthy food.
The Centretown Community Health Centre is among the groups that developed the plan. Christina Marchant, the centre’s director of community health promotion, says the plan reflects the needs of the vulnerable “priority groups” such as immigrants and the GLBTQ community, which the centre focuses on helping.
Marchant says the plan's ideas on breastfeeding, healthy schools, the cost of eating, and community gardening are of particular importance to Centretown.
“We’ve got four community gardens in the Centretown area. With densification of housing, access to greenspace becomes important. Community gardening is a great way to boost greenspace and healthy food,” says Marchant, noting that the centre works with many low-income people who struggle to pay for healthy food.
One of the health centre's approaches to the issue is its Good Food Box, a project which provides local produce at low prices. People who do not have a lot of expendable income can get healthy, local food without taking a handout. Marchant says it is the centre’s “non-charitable” approach to increasing access to nutritional food.
Working toward a similar goal is the Ottawa branch of Community Harvest, an Ontario-wide program which works with farmers to collect crops for their local food banks. Program coordinator Jason Gray says he, along with more than 200 volunteers, harvested 57,000 pounds of produce last year which went to feed the hungry.
The CCHC will also be hosting a series of meetings until April 22 to get input from the community for the final version of the food action plan. Marchant says she sees the kitchen table talks as both being beneficial and a good way to promote involvement in local issues.
“We've strived to be very open to people getting involved,” says Food for All organizer Erin Krekoski.
The organizations leading the plan are trying to get as broad a feedback as possible, she adds.
After deciding on the changes to be made, Krekoski says she hopes to have the final plan in front of city council by June.