Reading Time: 5 minutes Climate change and the pandemic are turning more investors’ minds — and their money too — toward building resilient food supply chains across Canada, according to two experts in social financing. “There are more and more people who recognize that local, social financing is a bit of a vaccination against what’s happening with the global […] Read more
Social financing
Here’s a financing model that is pumping real dollars into strengthening the farms and businesses that supply Canada’s sustainable local food
U.N. looks for recipe to tackle global food dysfunction
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Billions of people are overweight, millions are hungry, one third of food is wasted and the way the world produces, processes and consumes food generates one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said on Thursday at the first global summit on the future of food. The aim of the summit is […] Read more
Federal NDP introduces soil health bill
Proposal calls for a National Soil Health Advocate
Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal New Democrats propose to set up a plan they say could help build up Canadian agriculture from the ground down. The NDP’s agriculture critic, British Columbia MP Alistair MacGregor, on Monday introduced a private member’s bill in the Commons to create a national soil health strategy for Canada. The strategy as proposed in […] Read more
Hungry in Canada
Shocking numbers of Canadians are getting left hungry and malnourished
Reading Time: 5 minutes Even before the pandemic, the number of people in Canada who didn’t have enough to eat was at alarming levels. Statistics Canada’s Community Health Survey reported in 2017-18 that 4.4 million people in Canada, including 1.2 million children under the age of 18, were unable to access enough food to eat. The pandemic has exacerbated […] Read more
Feeding the farmer
As global population estimates get scaled back, our sense of priorities is beginning to change
Reading Time: 6 minutes Will the world’s farmers really have to double their food production by 2050? Media reports say it’s true, and many farm sources seem to repeat it almost daily. But not all experts agree. Dr. Mitch Hunter, research director at American Farmland Trust, has analyzed the newest figures and suggests that food demand will likely increase […] Read more
Pulse weekly outlook: World Pulses Day celebrated
Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — The United Nations celebrated the annual World Pulses Day on Feb. 10, highlighting the contribution of pulse crops to world agriculture and nutrition. “Pulses are more than just nutritious seeds – they also contribute to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development,” the UN said in a release. “They play […] Read more
Argentina suspends corn exports to ensure domestic food supplies
Reading Time: < 1 minute Buenos Aires | Reuters – Argentina will suspend corn exports until March 1, the agriculture ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that announced the surprise move as part of the government’s effort to ensure ample domestic food supplies. “This decision is based on the need to ensure the supply of grain for the sectors […] Read more
Toronto’s golden Greenbelt
Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Ontario’s Greenbelt turned 15 this past February, all four of Ontario’s political parties gathered at Queen’s Park to celebrate. According to Michael Young, communications advisor for the Greenbelt Foundation, the event was “a positive and convivial occasion, with a sense that we were all coming together with the shared belief that the Greenbelt must […] Read more
Food in its place
Canada’s top urban-agriculture advocate admits that mostly it isn’t farming. So why does he keep pushing?
Reading Time: 6 minutes “I took it as a compliment,” says Michael Ableman as he recalls being called a “food terrorist” by cooking celebrity Julia Childs. It was a charge she made after he spoke to a group of culinary professionals with a bag of groceries at his side. One by one, he took out the groceries and told […] Read more
Federal surplus food program now taking applications
Qualified NGOs sought to move, distribute perishables to 'populations in need'
Reading Time: 3 minutes A federal program to get food to those who need it, using stockpiles of perishables created by the COVID-19-related shutdown of the dining sector, is now taking applications. The $50 million Surplus Food Rescue Program — which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telegraphed in a funding announcement May 5 — will take applications from “organizations addressing […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
