Debbie Field is the executive director of FoodShare and is a recognized leader in the world of food security. FoodShare tries to take a multifaceted, innovative, and long-term approach to hunger and food issues. They are involved in grassroots program delivery, advocacy for social assistance reform, job creation and training, nutrition education, farmland preservation, and campaigns for comprehensive food labelling.

A long standing activist in a variety of social movements, Debbie began her work life in 1976 as a teacher at Brampton’s Sheridan College. Next she was Canada’s first Equal Opportunities Coordinator, working for OPSEU (the Ontario Public Service Employees Union). In 1979, along with four other women, Debbie was successful in her Human Rights’ complaint against Stelco in Hamilton for their no-women hiring policy. She was then hired and worked in the coke ovens until the strike in 1981. In the 1980s she was the Coordinator of the Development Education Centre, a non-profit resource centre specialising in third world issues. Prior to coming to FoodShare in 1992, she was Executive Assistant to Metro Councillor’s Dale Martin and Olivia Chow.

I met Debbie at Food Secure Canada’s November 2008 Conference in Ottawa. I had only been in my job at Hamilton Eat Local for little more than a month. The experience meeting the women there was unforgettable; they are brilliant, passionate women like Colleen Ross from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), Lori Stahlbrand, President of Local Food Plus, Tania Morrison, representing the First Nations and Inuit Branch of Health Canada, and the tireless conference organizer and publisher of The Ram’s Horn, Food Secure Canada’s Cathleen Kneen. They are all women who are working against huge odds for food security for all Canadians.

But what, exactly, is “food security?”

There are two commonly used definitions. The first comes from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO):

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s definition is somewhat more comprehensive:

Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.

Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).

Together, these definitions cover the most crucial points.

That conference in 2008 was where I became acquainted with another important term used by those concerned with community food access: “food desert.” If you need to walk twice as far to get a fresh potato as you do to buy a bag of potato chips, you are living in a food desert. Many people in affluent neighbourhoods actually live in “food deserts” without being aware of it.

The summer that I lived in a tiny-but-cheap basement apartment just south of Locke and Aberdeen, I experienced challenges in both of these areas. My finances were so bad that I did live with hunger from time to time. I kept that fact to myself because I felt ashamed. When I did have money to buy food, the nearest grocery stores included a very expensive health food store and a big shiny supermarket. There was no direct bus service there; I would have had to go downtown first and double back on a second bus into my own community or take the bus to Westdale and then transfer to another bus to get my groceries. Walking felt dangerous as I travelled along the very pedestrian un-friendly Dundurn Street South, while cycling along that stretch of road between Aberdeen and Main was even more daunting. The logistics of getting to the supermarket made living in my safe, comfortable neighbourhood unbearable and was one of the biggest factors in my decision to move out.

It feels awkward to complain about such difficulties when there are people in this city who have even greater obstacles to getting nourishing, affordable food—it is very difficult to get that food in a dignified manner when you have no money.

Fortunately, for the most destitute, food banks in this city continue to provide some basic calories to people on limited incomes who cannot manage to get the food they need. We have to understand that there are folks in our community who simply cannot look after their own nutritional needs. To abandon them would be cruel and inhumane. They need to be cared for. Period. The alternative to this (no food for the poor) would have unimaginable consequences for daily life in this city (not just for those folks and their neighbours; we would all be touched by the ensuing calamity).

Food banks were first established in the early 1980s to address the food “emergency” caused by tough economic times, and were meant to be a temporary measure to supplement the work that had been traditionally and quietly undertaken by churches and other organizations. Unfortunately, the growth in need has continued unabated.

Statistics on hunger in this city are abundant and very disturbing. But the numbers alone don’t tell the story.

I have heard first-hand accounts from users of food banks, and they have expressed frustration and sometimes anger over the food made available to them, the way it is distributed, and the way they are treated by frontline staff (who are often volunteers).

But if food banks aren’t the answer for everyone, what else can be done?

The good news is that there are abundant examples from around the province and around the globe of how communities can use their ingenuity, energy, and humanity to close the hunger gap. The following are three examples of people and cities which have done so: Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a famous example of a city that rose to the challenge of feeding all of its citizens healthy food in an egalitarian way. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin former professional athlete Will Allen received a McArthur Fellowship for the work of his pioneering community food access organization called Growing Power.

On a provincial level there is groundbreaking work being undertaken by Sustain Ontario under the leadership of Lauren Baker. Her academic record, hands-on experience, and her ability to bring people together were the driving force behind the recent “Bring Food Home” conference in Kitchener-Waterloo in early March. It brought together many food heroes: farmers, processors, professors, students, and activists gathered to listen, learn, and organize working groups to push forward the issue of food security in this province. The fact that the new Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner is the former Vice-President of the non-profit organization Local Food Plus (LFP), suggests that sustainable food will be on Ontario’s political agenda in a way that we have never seen before.

Cities across Canada are taking action, too. British Columbia has an impressive network of community kitchens in various cities. Sudbury is only one example of a city which has a Food Charter that sets out access to food as being an identified responsibility of its civic government. And Toronto boasts the Toronto Food Policy Council headed by the energetic Wayne Roberts (who is soon to retire from this role, but that won’t stop him, if I know Wayne!).

Toronto has two internationally-known organizations that have developed the model of the community food centre in a big way. Nick Saul’s The Stop started out as a food bank thirty years ago, and has come to be a shining example of community empowerment through food: their facility boasts a greenhouse, community garden, community kitchen, and a farmers market at one of its sites. The other original site, located in a struggling neighbourhood, benefits from its ties to its newer sister location.

And then there’s Toronto FoodShare. Please visit their website and learn more by coming to hear Executive Director Debbie Field tell it like it is. You won’t forget her.

Links:

Toronto Food Policy Council: http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm
Sustain Ontario: http://www.sustainontario.com
Local Food Plus: http://www.localfoodplus.ca
Food Secure Canada: http://foodsecurecanada.org
National Farmers’ Union: http://www.nfu.ca
Growing Power, Milwaukee: http://www.growingpower.org

Seeds. Just add water and let the magic unfold. The age old miracle known as germination lies inside each and every seed. Nature's magic trick happens for free, everyday, providing us with the fruits and vegetables we enjoy daily. This process of nature is now being altered by the biotech industry. At a rapid pace, pharmaceutical and chemical corporations, are buying up the world's seed companies, therefore controlling the distribution of seeds and creating a monopoly. Our genetic seed heritage is largely in the hands of a few multinational corporations. According to an article in the March/April 2006 edition of Country Side Magazine, “Six corporations: DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, and Dow control 98 percent of the world's seeds.” A frightening statistic. This article will focus on what is happening in the largest corporation, Monsanto.

First off, some background information and key terms. GMO stands for 'genetically modified organisms'. The government of Canada is now calling these 'novel foods' because of the negative stigma that was attached to the phrases, “Gentically Engineered” (GE) or “Gentetically Modified” (GM). The government did a decima poll in 2003 and found overwhelmingly that 88% of Canadians wanted mandatory labelling of GMO's in our food supply. Unfortunately the Canadian government refuses to label because it will negatively impact their investments (CPP and RRSP's), as was shown in 2008 when they voted against the bill for mandatory labelling.

Back to Monsanto. Being one of the most litigious corporate entities, Monsanto is often involved in one or more court cases at any given time. Monsanto has paid out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2 billion in court settlements in the last 15 years. It seems that it is more profitable to break the law and take the risk of getting caught, than to act in a lawful manner. In one of their largest lawsuits they paid out $700 million US to some 20,000 plaintiffs from Anniston, Alabama, for knowingly contaminating the towns water supply from their PCB factory, causing death and thousands of illnesses and health problems. They were charged with negligence, wantonness, nuisance, suppression of the truth, trespass and outrage. Outrage is described under Alabama law as, “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society.” Now this corporate criminal is buying up as many seed companies as it can; over 40 companies in the last two decades. Monsanto has been charged repeatedly with antitrust lawsuits. Antitrust laws are made to prohibit companies from creating a monopoly in which they have an unfair advantage and can drive out competition. Between 2002 and 2009 there were 60 patent infringement and/or antitrust cases in the U.S. court system of which Monsanto had been involved in almost 75% of them either as plaintiff (over 50%) or defendant (25%).

Monsanto purchases smaller seed companies and eliminates all the least profitable seed varieties and replaces them with their patented varieties. This usually means they abandon the open pollinated and heirloom varieties. New seed varieties in the Monsanto catalogue have the letters PVP beside them. PVP stands for 'plant variety protection', which means the seed from that variety cannot be saved because it is patented and the property of some corporation. Hundreds of varieties have been dropped by Monsanto which means they can potentially be lost forever if no one saves that seed line. New varieties are often created using old open pollinated heirloom varieties that have certain traits such as cold tolerance, taste or strong growth patterns. Unfortunately, the opportunity to breed new varieties is decreasing because Monsanto controls a large portion of seed distribution. It is difficult for people selling seed or breeding plants to find a seed company to carry these products and access markets.

Furthermore, Monsanto targets small seed cleaning businesses and individual farmers to sue them for patent infringements. The job of small scale seed cleaners is to clean seeds from farmers for next year's harvest, which is slowly being eliminated from farm productions. Monsanto tests the seed and takes both the seed cleaner and farmer to court when they find any of their trans genes in seed samples. There are hotlines for people to call and turn in their neighbours. Farmers even claim Monsanto has taken samples from their farms without permission and sued for infringement. Farmers usually settle out of court to save themselves money and time as Monsanto has deep financial pockets. These contaminated seeds can blow off from any field within 100 metres. Take the recent banning of Canadian flax by the European Union. The Canadian government ordered that all GMO flax seed be crushed for oil and taken off the market. We have now learned that during a short period of time 8 years ago, GMO flax was released and the percentage of contaminated flax in the food supply has risen year after year. The E.U. found contamination in Canadian flax and banned all our imports. The E.U. accounts for 60% of the export market for Canadian flax farmers. Tests have proven that farmers saving corn, soy, flax or canola seed have seen increased contamination over time from cross-pollination. Further potential for contamination happens during tranport or at processing facilities. Since pollen can be carried 100 metres or more, it is extremely difficult to get the genie back in the bottle once its released. The same goes for one of the most important crops farmers grow: alfalfa. Monsanto wants their GMO alfalfa on the market and opponents say it has huge potential to wipe out non-GMO alfalfa.

In an article from the American Antitrust Institute, Diana L. Moss wrote, “A threshold question to consider is whether Monsanto has exercised its market power to foreclose rivals from market access, harming competition and thereby slowing the pace of innovation and adversely affecting prices, quality, and choice for farmers and consumers of seed products.” To further this point, Monsanto has thousands of patents and PVP's on plants and animals. They unravel DNA and then patent whatever they think will be valuable. Essentially having ownership rights over the natural world. How can this be? The World Trade Organization along with governments concern themselves not with the protection of biodiversity, but rather with the protection of the commercial interests of large seed corporations.

There is hope! Backyard gardeners and farmers can help by supporting Kokapelli Seeds, The Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Diversity and all local seed companies that buy direct from farmers. It is vital to learn the 12,000 year old practice of seed saving and start saving our own seed. There's a great event you are welcome to attend called Seedy Saturday on Saturday March 20th from 2pm – 5pm at the Jamseville Community Centre. You can learn more about saving seeds, community gardening, food politics and celebrating food. There will be lots of seeds for sale. None from Monsanto! Whoever controls the seeds, controls the food. Better to take food sovereignty into our own hands than rely on the corporate monopoloy that has been created.

We are starting a new chapter here at the Bread & Roses Café.

After assessing where we are and where we want to go we have decided to introduce an Express Lunch as a way to meet the needs of a large section of people in the downtown core who are looking for delicious and healthy food served relatively quickly.

We believe the need for promptness leads people to go to fast food places that offer food at a reasonable cost, but the quality of food is not always high and promotes little sustaining energy and nutrition. We have set a goal around how long it will take for you to come in, order, sit and eat that is within 5 minutes of coming through the door.

With the Express Lunch we want to offer a nutritional and filling option to fast food joints. From 11am-2:30pm patrons who come into the Café are offered a hardy meal made from local organic products and prepared in-house from scratch.

What is on the menu? Well, the Bread & Roses' Bowls are back in a form to fit the quick service model: start with a grain option, add either a meat or vegan/vegetarian topping, a sauce (Tamari Miso or Coconut Curry), and a sprinkle of what you want [name the sprinkles].

This menu model allows for exploration of (daily or weekly) specials, additions of sauce and grain choices as well as tighter service. We will endeavor to keep it exciting for you and yet consistent enough that you know what you are getting.

We want to stay in a place of growth, yet at a rate we can handle with confidence and
completeness. We desire to grow in a way that fits into our mandate as an organization, which is to create a positive effect on the community around us.

As executive chef I want to challenge you to let me know what you think about the changes we are making – the only way I know this is working for you is if you tell me.

Live Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

Marg Ann Roorda
Executive Chef Food Services
margann [at] skydragon.org

Food, it’s an essential part for sustaining life. Simply put: “We are what we eat”. If the soil that grows that food is contaminated with toxins and carcinogens then, who, or what are we?

The soil food web is a complex ecology of nematodes, protozoa, beneficial bacteria and fungi. In one handful of soil there are approximately 6 billion micro-organisms at work. These organisms are constantly recycling nutrients and making them readily available for plants to uptake and provide the plant -and us- with nutrition. We now know that nutrients are recycled by these micro-organisms, especially mychorrhizal fungi.

Sewer sludge or the Orwellian sounding name, bio-solids, as the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMFRA) likes to refer to it as, has found a home on farm fields across this province. Sewer sludge is as gross and disgusting as you can imagine, the end waste product of everything ever flushed down a toilet or dumped down a drain.

Water treatment plants process water for consumption and filter out the sludge. The treated reclaimed water is then drunk by millions, and put back into rivers and lakes. The sludge is often put in a landfill, incinerated, or spread on farmers fields as a cheap source of nutrients. When farmers choose to spread sludge on their fields they often get the sludge for free or in some cases are even paid to do so.

Fertilizer can cost a farmer thousands of dollars a year depending on their soil fertility, thus to get fertilizer for free is a tempting offer. The down side is that the sludge likely contains hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and copper. When sludge is applied it creates an environment that is lethal to soil ecology. Pharmaceuticals and heavy metals are detrimental to the soil ecology as a whole. Healthy soil with high levels of biodiversity holds over 50% more moisture than soil without, and allows natural nitrogen and available phosphorous to be released naturally and for free.

Hank Vanveen who works for Wessuc Inc., a Brantford based company that spreads sludge on Ontario farmland says that currently the sludge is tested twice a month for 11 heavy metals and bacteria like E-coli, but not for any pharmaceuticals or chemicals.

According to Vanveen “The levels [of pharmaceuticals] are so low they are not a concern at this point”. However, with no ongoing testing for pharmaceuticals or chemicals in the sludge or in the farmer’s soil there is currently no systemic mechanism in place to measure chemical or pharmaceutical contamination of soil that is being used to grow food where sludge has been spread.

OMAFRA’s website acknowledges that “biosolids may still contain some chemicals that are not beneficial to crops, but pose minimal risk to the environment”. However with no ongoing testing of the volume or types of chemical contamination, there is no way to conclude that there is only a minimal risk to the environment.

Furthermore, Environment Canada’s website acknowledges “land spreading of sewage or sewage sludge” is a source for ground water contamination. Once ground water is contaminated it can take a very long time for it to become safe to drink. Considering many people in rural communities rely on wells as their main source of water, the chance of their neighbors contaminating their well water is simply unacceptable.

Most of the chemicals dumped into the sewage system and the pharmaceuticals that are excreted from our bodies do not dissolve in water. They dilute and can easily end up in our waterways and in the sludge being spread on farmland. There is evidence that plants can absorb and bio-accumulate various chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Thus it is probable that food crops grown on land that has had sludge spread could be a medium for transferring these toxins into our bodies and back into the food chain.

According to the 2003 film Crap Shoot produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Ashbridges Bay, Toronto has relatively high concentrations of brominated flame retardants (BFR), and Canada’ effluent water has among the highest levels of pharmaceuticals in the developed world.

Dr. Lennart Hardel from Orebro Hospital in Sweden found that BFR act similar in our bodies as Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and both have been found in cancer patients. His research team found BFR in vegetables, like broccoli, as well as mother’s breast milk. BFR have been associated with cancer, particularly non hodgkin's lymphoma, and can disrupt the balance of thyroid hormones. When this research made it public that sludge in Sweden contained BFR, the public demanded the practice of spreading it on farmland be halted. Due to consumer backlash, the practice has been halted and sludge has been land filled in non-critical areas such as roads.

Considering that here in Canada there is no required testing of sludge for chemicals like BFR, many communities are concerned about the health implications of spreading it on farmland. Once heavy metals are put on soil they can never be removed. High concentrations of heavy metals in soil result in the land being unusable for agricultural purposes ever again.

There is no opportunity for the public to comment on the granting of a license to spread sludge on a piece of farmland, nor is their an opportunity for the public to appeal the license once it has been issued. Companies that spread sludge are not required to even notify neighbors that they are going to spread sludge, even when it can be spread as close as 25m from there residence, this according to the OMAFRA website.

On November 19th, 2009 the first civil suit in Canada was filed where an individual has claimed damages due to their proximity to the spread of sludge. Wendy Deavitt filed a civil suit against the Town of Cobourg, and two farmers, Terry and Sandra Greenly of Warkworth, for up to $650,000 in damages allegedly caused by the Greenly’s spread of bio-solids. Deavitt claims that living close to where they spread sludge, a Warkworth farm, has caused her family’s health problems and those of her animals.

Considering we know many chemicals can cause serious health problems, by not testing for them in sludge the Ontario Government is taking a position of willful ignorance about what contaminants are being spread on farmland.

According to “the precautionary principle”, science does not always give us immediate information about the health risks of using a particular product or process. Thus, when we do not know the long-term consequences of an action or product, we should exercise caution. From this perspective an industry should have to prove its product is safe, rather than assume it is safe until it is proven harmful.

“I think it’s [the precautionary principle] is a joke.” Says Vanveen. “If you would apply that principle to every aspect of your life you would live in a bubble. It doesn’t make any sense…I do not think the precautionary approach is appropriate in risk management.”

The Canadian Government would appear to agree. They rarely take a precautionary perspective in the drafting of its legislation. By taking a risk management approach the government to justifies exposing populations to perceived low risks, while maintaining business as usual. This approach can be found throughout Canadian regulations governing conventional agriculture practices, such as spraying chemical pesticides, genetically modifying crops, or in this case, using sludge as a fertilizer.

This said, many policy decisions in Europe are based on the precautionary principle. It would seem governments there are more interested in protecting its citizens from the unnecessary risks of industry.