While the provincial Golden Carrot Awards, sponsored by Food Matters Manitoba as part of the Northern Harvest Forum between 2007 and 2009, which was held in Thompson, shifted south to Winnipeg this year, the Burntwood Food Security Committee was out at City Centre Mall showcasing Manitoba foods to mark World Food Day Oct. 16.
Patricia-Ann Solomon, a public health dietician with the Burntwood Regional Health Authority (BRHA), Paullette Simkins, executive director of the Thompson branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) at 43 Fox Bay, Mariam Schwartz, also a BRHA community dietician, and Janet Brady, a former social worker with Awasis from 1987 to 1990, who returned to Thompson in 2002 to teach at the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Social Work in the Northern Bachelor of Social Work Program, were among the Burntwood Food Security Committee members on hand to promote World Food Day.
"Food security is the assurance that all people at all times have both the physical and economic access to the food they need for an active, healthy life. It means that the food itself is nutritionally adequate, and culturally appropriate, and that this food is obtained in a way that upholds basic human dignity," the committee says. "This is Burntwood's vision, that all residents have access to healthy foods. Their mission is to establish partnerships with community groups, community leaders, businesses, government, and local residents, in order to develop strategies to ensure secure access to safe, nutritious, culturally acceptable foods for everyone in a manner that maintains human dignity."
Food security, the committee says, is built on three basic pillars: Food availability, meaning having enough food on a everyday basis; food access, meaning being able to get nutritious, yet affordable food; and food use; meaning having a basic knowledge of healthy and safe food preparation and methods.
The Burntwood Food Security Committee says about "60 per cent of all households on social assistance are food insecure. These households can't afford the cost of basic needs, including a healthy diet." In Manitoba, the committee says, 47 per cent of all food bank clients are children.
The Burntwood Food Security Committee has established partnerships, in addition to the BRHA, Food Matters Manitoba, University of Manitoba's Faculty of Social Work, Thompson branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), with the Thompson Corps of the Salvation Army, Thompson Zoo, and with the Manitoba Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Department's Northern Healthy Foods Initiative, which was expanded last March into 17 more Northern communities, including Fox Lake, Split Lake, Lac Brochet, York Factory First Nation, Cross Lake community, Cross Lake First Nation, Grand Rapids community, Town of Grand Rapids, Pine Creek First Nation, Rockridge, Norway House First Nation, Meadow Portage, Spence Lake, Princess Harbour, God's Lake First Nation, God's Lake Narrows and Chemawawin Cree Nation.
The theme of last year's Northern Harvest Forum, co-ordinated by Food Matters Manitoba, which took place in Thompson in on Oct. 22 and 23, was "Northern Food from Northern Hands." The forum included the Golden Carrot Awards.
The two-day annual event, which had taken place in Thompson since 2007, featured workshops that focused on hunting and gathering traditional foods; food preservation; gardening; grocery store and healthy cooking demonstrations. Also, a World Food Day dinner took place at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 244's Centennial Hall. Before moving to the Legion in 2008, the inaugural event in 2007 was held at St. Joseph's Ukrainian Catholic Hall on Juniper Drive.
In October 2007, the City of Thompson became the first municipality in the province to sign the Manitoba Food Charter during the two-day Northern Harvest Forum here.
Among the steps the city committed to three years ago by signing the charter was to play "a more active role as the regional hub in promoting lower food prices in outlying communities" and Nunavut; and becoming a "staging centre for food distribution" through Canada Post's Food Mail Program; and "lobby for the regulation of milk prices throughout Manitoba."
The seeds for the Manitoba Food Charter were planted in 1992 with a document known as "An Action Plan For Food Security For Manitobans" created by the Nutrition and Food Security Network of Manitoba.
A decade later, in 2001 and 2002, a coalition known as FoodSecure Manitoba brought Rod MacRae, food policy analyst and former co-ordinator of the Toronto Food Policy Council, to Winnipeg in April 2002 for a "strategic visioning session." Areas for concrete action were developed and the group made its first priority to be a "food security" two-day conference in 2003.
The Manitoba Food Charter project built on energy created a year later with the National Food Security Assembly in Winnipeg. During March and February 2006 a steering committee of volunteers crisscrossed the province listening to more than 70 groups of people and food security participants involved in various aspects of the Manitoba food system.
Seventeen per cent of the input came from Northern Manitoba and on May 10, 2006, more than 80 individuals from across Manitoba gathered in Winnipeg to engage in a provincial conversation on food. Community gardeners, academics, farmers, politicians, local food retailers, government folks, food activists, community health workers, neighbourhood residents, university students, and educators gathered to set priorities for future action for the Manitoba Food Charter project.
Funding for the Manitoba Food Charter project comes from the Public Health Agency of Canada; the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; and Heifer International of Little Rock, Ark., a non-profit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance and sustainability. An American Midwestern farmer named Dan West, who was a Church of the Brethren relief worker during the Spanish Civil War, started Heifer in 1944.
In its own words, the "Manitoba Food Charter emerged from Manitobans' common vision for a just and sustainable food system.
The charter provides a vision and a set of principles that will guide and inform strategic planning, policy and program development and practice in mutual effort toward food security and community development."
The charter analyzes the current food situation in the province this way in part: "Manitoba's food system has both strengths and weaknesses. We have a significant and diverse agricultural sector and many Manitobans can access the food that they want. However, agricultural communities are challenged by an increasingly urban and globalized economy. Many Northern, inner city, and low-income citizens have difficulty accessing quality food and realizing their fundamental human right to adequate food. Rural, urban and northern communities are disconnected. Not all of our food is necessarily nutritious, not all information about our food is complete or accurate; and much of our food comes long distances."
The "vision" the charter notes for "a just and sustainable food system in Manitoba is rooted in healthy communities, ensures no one is hungry and that everyone has access to quality food.
