Headwaters Food and Farming Alliance offers this bi-monthly e-newsletter featuring the foundational pillars of the Headwaters Food Charter. The Charter was developed in partnership with WDG Public Health and has been widely endorsed. This series aims to keep you informed about issues and events relating to the Charter's 6 Pillars, 15 Goals and 27 Actions prioritized by our communities to enhance our food system.
Farm to School Program
OTF Resilient Communities Fund
The Farm to School Program has received an Ontario Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund grant. This fund was designed to help organizations recover from the impacts of COVID-19 and improve resiliency of their programs.


With this funding, our Farm to School team will be able to pilot free home delivery for Local Food Club and adapt our usual in-school hands-on workshops to accommodate varying degrees of virtual learning. The team will also explore fundraising alternatives to be more resilient to interruptions like the cancellation of our popular dinner series.
To help implement these program changes the Farm to School team welcomed Rachel McLean as a second coordinator. Rachel has a background in film production and lives in Mulmur, where she and her partner are starting a small market garden. She’s enthusiastic about learning, and excited to join the HFFA team.

Headwaters Food & Farming Alliance
Nicole Hambleton joins Sustain Ontario’s Edible Education Network
Nicole Hambleton has joined Sustain Ontario’s Edible Education Network as Ontario Lead for Farm to School programs. Nicole will be working through HFFA and Headwaters Communities in Action to advance some great work to support the Ontario F2S grantees and to support farm to school conversations in the province.

Nicole has worked in the sector of food and nutrition since graduating from Ryerson University with a degree in nutrition (Dietetics) in 1999. Since 2014, she has been involved in local food, farming, and education in the Headwaters Region as a consultant, then co-coordinator of HFFA's Farm to School programs.

A passionate, energetic lover of local food and farming, Nicole believes in the power of food to connect and bridge gaps, and that sharing resources, honouring lived experience, and advocating for sustainable food systems makes us all grow stronger.

Find out more about Sustain's Edible Education Network
Let's Talk Food Hubs
Farmers find new ways to satisfy growing demand for local food
Hooray for food hubs in Headwaters!
During the past year with COVID, some Headwaters farmers stepped up to the plate to create online stores and “food hubs” to make contactless shopping easier and more efficient for their customers. As well as their normal offerings, these food aggregators have partnered with neighbouring farms, chefs and other food processors to offer a mix of fresh produce, milk, eggs, meat, chicken, preserves, baked goods, prepared meals and more.

We celebrate all of our farmers for feeding us healthy local food. Visit these food hubs online or in person:

Fiddle Foot Farm - Mono
Am Braigh Farm - Mono
Landman Gardens and Bakery - Grand Valley
Mount Wolfe Farm - Caledon
Sheldon Creek Dairy - Adjala
Heatherlea - Caledon
Lennox Farm - Melancthon

Live Free Campaign coming soon...
Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington
March 5th to April 4th

Watch for the March 5th launch of this exciting edition of the annual Live Free Campaign in support of local student nutrition programs through Food & Friends. The fundraiser looks a little different this year, with an exciting goal and many ways to support, and it's all for the same critical cause - helping kids live free from hunger.


Valley Alive to showcase Grand Valley restaurants in short films
Town of Grand Valley
A new multimedia project has been developed by the Town of Grand Valley to showcase local restaurants open for takeout.

Valley Alive, the new interactive communications hub from the Town of Grand Valley and BIA, will highlight four diverse restaurants to showcase the cultural flavours of the community. They partnered up with the Orangeville and Shelburne BIAs for this exclusive.


Regenerative Agriculture
Continuing the conversation
Normally at this time of year we are gathering together to talk Regenerative Agriculture. Since we can’t gather, let’s talk about it here in our newsletter. Thinking about the environment and climate change, we can’t help thinking how we, here in Headwaters, can do our part to mitigate climate change. Today the snow covers our fields. Soon, as it melts away, take a look at how
many of those fields might have a ground cover growing. In the past we saw only bare fields. That ground cover indicates how many farmers are adopting the principles of Regenerative Agriculture. By keeping their fields covered all year, they are helping the soil to stay healthy. The roots help hold the soil together and keep carbon in the soil. This is just one principle of Regenerative Agriculture. The others are no-till, crop diversity, interplanting and livestock grazing. Healthy soil means a healthy planet.

In the words of Gabe Brown, farmer and rancher:

"Regenerative agriculture mitigates climate change while increasing resilience against current and future climatic uncertainty including flooding, fire and drought. It is essential to soil, plant, animal, human, community and economic health. Regenerative agriculture does this by restoring our land and soil, the biology and the ecological cycles and processes which are foundational to human and planetary health and stability."


Revisiting the 2019 Plan to Save: Food Waste Reduction
County of Dufferin
On average, households throw away about $1,500 worth of food per year. Most of this food waste includes healthy and edible foods like fruits and vegetables that could have been eaten but were thrown away in the garbage or Green Bin. Food waste can be avoided with knowledge and skills around meal planning and proper storage! 

The Plan to Save Reduce Food Waste campaign offers tips and resources to help you learn your food waste habits, waste less food, save more money and eat healthier in the process!

Visit the Resources section to download free materials such as a Produce Storage Guide, Refrigerator Infographic, Meal Planning Sheet, and more! 

Follow the weekly challenges on your time to help you along your journey to waste less food and save more money!

Don't forget to follow Plan to Save Reduce Food Waste on Facebook to receive regular updates and tips on food waste reduction!
Canada's Food Policy
Advisory council named to steer national Food Policy
Development of Canada’s Food Policy is taking a major step forward with the naming Friday of a new advisory council featuring industry, academic and government members tasked with guiding the policy.

Public consultations on a “Food Policy for Canada” started in 2017, leading to the release of a 2018 report from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada highlighting what was heard. The government in 2019 dedicated about $134 million to support the policy’s development and the creation of a national food system.

University of Guelph professor Evan Fraser, shown here in cartoon form discussing food security initiative “Feeding 9 Billion,” has been named co-chair of the new Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council. (Feeding9Billion.com video screengrab via YouTube)
Suicide Awareness Council of Wellington - Dufferin
Volunteer Opportunity: Farming Community, Mental Health & Suicide Working Group
Be a part of a group that represents people of all ages and backgrounds to help reduce suicide and its impact on our communities. They are about awareness, prevention and creating HOPE.

NEW WORKING GROUP FOR 2021:
The Farming Community, Mental Health & Suicide 1 in 3 Canadian farmers struggle with mental health.

The Council will be exploring opportunities to create suicide awareness and prevention activities across Wellington-Dufferin.

For information about how you can be involved with the Council, contact Heather at hglenister@cmhaww.ca or 519.239.8902 www.sacwd.ca 
March 8th, 9AM-3PM

Requests will be accepted via phone on March 8th only. Curbside pick up will be scheduled by appointment.



Future Ground Network is a growing network of more than 75 grassroots groups mobilizing to protect the environment and address the climate emergency in Canada.

Dufferin County

The latest Dufferin County Agriculture Roundtable included guest speaker Mike Belan, Innovative Farmer of the Year Award
Winner for 2020.

Dufferin Community Foundation
Intake March 9, 2021

This is a $31 million investment from the Government of Canada to support communities as they create and adapt public spaces to respond to the new realities of COVID-19. 

Join the HFFA Hub
The next meeting of the HFFA Coordinating Hub is Friday March 5, 2021 from 10am to noon. Email us if you would like to attend and see what we're all about!
Trusted Links
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Our Vision
The Headwaters Food and Farming Alliance (HFFA) envisions a food system that is productive, sustainable, transparent, and fair; supports the health and well-being of our residents and food providers; and contributes to the prosperous and equitable economy.
Headwaters Food and Farming Alliance (HFFA) is a project of
Headwaters Communities In Action