January 2015
Happy New Year from the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance 
with our first newsletter of 2015!

We are happy to have you along our side as we continue to work together to strengthen the Golden Horseshoe Food & Farming Cluster into 2015 with our 10-year Action Plan.

In a news release distributed earlier this week, the province has shared their established goals to increase food literacy, and ultimately increase consumer awareness and demand for local food. 

The province has said it will develop baseline statistics and performance measures to track and report on progress towards these goals. 

 

Understanding the vital role food literacy plays in a healthy food system, we are looking forward to following along with the progress of these goals.


Back in November, the GHFFA attended a meeting in York Region that gathered 
various leaders together to share information and ideas regarding food and food waste, and founding the Southern Ontario Food Collaborative.

With concern for food waste certainly on the rise, this meeting came at a crucial time, creating specific tasks groups that would begin to battle this issue at numerous levels. 

Be sure to visit our website here for more information on this meeting, and to view the Food Collaborative Report of Proceedings in full.

Farm & Food Care is back with their latest issue of The Real Dirt on Farming, answering Canadians' top questions and concerns about our country's food and farming industry.

We spoke with Farm & Food Care about their latest educational resource - check it out and share the ag knowledge!


The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is offering three courses in February and March that will explore Value-Added Opportunities via webex and teleconference.

Participants will learn how to generate ideas for value-added opportunities, assess an idea's business potential, identify and manage risk, and develop a plan to execute their idea. 

On Thursday, March 5, the York Region Food Charter Working Group is hosting their annual Food for Change event, with this year focusing on food literacy from seed to table.

 

If you are interested in this free event, read more here.

Contact:
Janet Horner, Executive Director,
Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance
janet@whitfieldfarms.com