The Gomberg for Mayor platform plank on Food in the City
Seeds and justice: For world food day, Gomberg bakes bread.
An integral part of a healthy city is an adequate, nutritious and affordable source of food. The city of Toronto should play an active role in food security for its citizens, and many concrete and creative solutions exist. For example, a Food and Hunger Action Plan and a Food Charter for the City of Toronto should be implemented to help alleviate chronic hunger of the poor.
Urban sprawl also threatens our food supply. Ontario has half of all Canada’s class 1 soils but the area of farmland is decreasing. Between 1976 and 1996, about 62,000 hectares were lost in the GTA. Therefore, an agricultural land preservation policy should also be implemented. Mechanisms to achieve this could include: agreements, leases, purchase-saleback, purchase of land and development rights, conservation real estate, land designation or dedication, and community and conservation land trusts (private and public).
Urban agriculture is creative way for Toronto to grow its own food. The benefits of urban agriculture include job creation, small-business stimulation, and improved access to nutritious food. Furthermore, making use of underused spaces, such as rooftops and vacant lots, can lead to a local cooling of summer temperatures, which in turn improves air quality.
We could support local food producers by assisting them with land acquisition/access and access to water, energy and compost from organic waste diverted from the waste stream. In exchange, the producers would agree to sell their produce within Toronto, follow organic or Integrated Pest Management practices, and label their food as Toronto grown.
We could conduct an assessment of brownfield sites where urban agriculture might be practised. The assessment would include soil remediation as well as food production that does not depend on soil, such as aquaculture and hydroponics.
We could expand community gardening in the City. Toronto has about 100 community gardens, which are used by about 4,500 people. There are long waiting lists for community gardens and low turnover. Each plot produces $200 to $300 worth of fresh produce per year.
There are many simple and creative methods to ensure everyone in Toronto has a safe and affordable food supply.
Therefore, as mayor, I would do the following to improve food security for the people of Toronto:
1. Support the work of the Food and Hunger Action Committee to take the steps necessary to achieving the Committee’s goal “that all people in Toronto should have an adequate supply of safe, nutritious, affordable, appropriate food.”
2. Take measures to restrict urban sprawl. This should include an agricultural land preservation policy and the maintenance of existing agricultural land-use designations in the Official Plan.
3. Stimulate urban agriculture within the city’s limits.
4. Divert food organic waste from the waste stream and transform it into compost and biogas for electrical generation. The compost should be made available for all urban food production.
5. Join the cities of Minneapolis, Boston and San Francisco in calling for the labelling of all genetically modified foods.
BACKGROUND
With cuts to social assistance and skyrocketing rents, Toronto’s problem with chronic poverty is well-known. Here are but a few statistics:
Average one bedroom apartment monthly rent (1998): $729 Full-time minimum wage earnings for one month in Ontario: $1,096 Average funds available for all needs, other than rent, to people using Toronto’s food banks (2000): $4.95 a day People using Toronto’s food banks in 1999: 90,000 Number of children among food bank users: 40,000
Many of Toronto’s agencies which address chronic hunger and poverty receive little or no public funding. They were to a large extent created in the 1980s to address what was then perceived as a short-term emergency. Today, they have become mainstays of Toronto’s fight against hunger and poverty. They include, but are not limited to, the Daily Bread Food Bank, the North York Harvest Food Bank, Stop 103, Second Harvest, the Out of the Cold program, Anishnawbe Health, Meals on Wheels, and emergency shelters. There is a heavy reliance on charity; volunteer burnout is a major problem.
Furthermore, these agencies are unevenly distributed across the city. Poverty and hunger are not “downtown” problems. The former suburban municipalities are considerably lacking in food services, although all have areas with people in great need. For example, the emergency food and meal programs in Toronto are distributed as follows:
Central Toronto: 207
East York: 12
Etobicoke: 21
North York: 39
Scarborough: 41
York: 15
Background:
The Food and Hunger Action Committee was created by City Council in December 1999. Made up of City Councillors, City staff and members of the community, the Committee carried out an extensive community consultation process and published their findings in their Phase I report, Planting the Seeds. Besides the above recommendation that City Council endorse the principle that all Torontonians should have access to “an adequate supply of safe, nutritious, affordable, appropriate food,” the Committee makes two more recommendations as follows. City Council should:
1. Recognize that the City as a health promoter, has a role in advocating, coordinating and supporting systems, policies and programs to ensure food security in Toronto; and
2. Approves the following actions for Phase I of the Food and Hunger Action Committee’s work:
a) develop a Food Charter for the City of Toronto;
b) develop a Food and Hunger Action Plan for the City of Toronto that proposes concrete strategies to improve food security and access to safe, affordable and nutritious food for all Torontonians, identifies policy and program changes required to improve the coordination and delivery of services related to food and hunger, and recommends appropriate roles for each level of government;
c) report back to the new City Council with the Food Charter and the Food and Hunger Action Plan by February 2001; and
d) identify priority initiatives for the 2001 budget process within the context of the Food and Hunger Action Plan.
The Committee adopts the Canadian Dietetic Association’s definition of “food security”:
1. The availability of a variety of foods at a reasonable cost.
2. Ready access to quality grocery stores, food service operations, or alternate food sources.
3. Sufficient personal income to buy adequate foods for each household member each day.
4. The freedom to choose personally acceptable foods.
5. Legitimate confidence in the quality of the foods available.
6. Easy access to understandable, accurate information about food and nutrition. The Toronto Food Policy Council adds a seventh element:
7. The assurance of a viable and sustainable food production system.
Recommendation #2:
The City of Toronto should take measures to restrict urban sprawl. This should include an agricultural land preservation policy and the maintenance of existing agricultural land-use designations in the Official Plan.
Rationale:
Ontario has half of all Canada’s class 1 soils but the area of farmland is decreasing. Between 1976 and 1996, about 62,000 hectares were lost in the GTA.
Background:
The agricultural land preservation policy should be founded on an investigation of mechanisms to preserve agricultural land including “agreements, leases, purchase-saleback, creative development, purchase of land and development rights, conservation real estate, land designation or dedication, community and conservation land trusts (private and public), purchase of conservation easements on title, and accepting donations for tax credit…” (Toronto Food Policy Council 1999).
An agricultural land zoning designation should include the following: “field, berry, vine and tree crops; nurseries; orchards; apiaries; grazing of livestock, greenhouses and mushroom farms, in addition to the use of land, buildings or structures for agriculture” (Toronto Food Policy Council 1999).
Recommendation #3:
The City of Toronto should take steps to stimulate urban agriculture within the city’s limits.
Rationale:
Fifty to 60 per cent of all produce is imported but according to the Food Policy Council, half this amount could be grown within or near the city. The benefits of urban agriculture include job creation, small-business stimulation, and improved access to nutritious food. Making use of underused spaces, such as rooftops and vacant lots, can lead to a local cooling of summer temperatures, which in turn improves air quality. And it lowers the costs of trucking in food from the outside (Food and Hunger Action Committee 2000). These costs are economic (money earned in Toronto leaves Toronto) as well as environmental (emissions from trucks damage local air quality and contribute to global climate change).
Background:
The City of Toronto should support local food producers by assisting them with land acquisition/access and access to water, energy and compost from organic waste diverted from the waste stream. In exchange, the producers would agree to sell their produce within Toronto, follow organic or Integrated Pest Management practices, and label their food as Toronto grown.
The City of Toronto should encourage food production in greenhouses and on rooftops by running pilot projects on City-owned land and on public buildings. The City of Toronto should conduct an assessment of brownfield sites where urban agriculture might be practised. The assessment would include soil remediation as well as food production that does not depend on soil, such as aquaculture and hydroponics.
The City of Toronto should expand community gardening in the City. Toronto has about 100 community gardens, which are used by about 4,500 people. There are long waiting lists for community gardens and low turnover. Each plot to produces $200 to $300 worth of fresh produce per year.The City should also conduct a pilot project for a Community Shared Agriculture farm.
Recommendation #4:
The City of Toronto should divert food organic waste from the waste stream and transform it into compost and biogas for electrical generation. The compost should be made available for all urban food production.
Background:
An anaerobic digestion process could turn organic wastes into compost and biogas which can be used to generate electricity.
Recommendation #5:The City of Toronto should join the cities of Minneapolis, Boston and San Francisco in calling for the labelling of all genetically modified foods.
Works Consulted
Food and Hunger Action Committee. Planting the Seeds. Phase 1 Report, May 2000.
Toronto Food Policy Council. Feeding the City from the Back up 40: A Commercial Food Production Plan for the City of Toronto. Submitted to the City of Toronto’s Official Plan November 1, 1999