food issues?

[Daniel Bida]

As Transition Toronto gets organized and begins to work with all concerned stakeholders, it would be helpful to have some input on what you think the Food subcommittee should focus on.

So please, what are your ideas to increase the resiliency of Toronto's food supply?

[John Fleming]

I found the "Frankel Lambert Community Garden" on my way down to Bloor today; there's a hydro corridor and I knew it was there somewhere. There were actually a few people out working at it and I chatted them up for a minute. Nice to see this in action.

[Marisa Meléndez]

Some exciting news! I found someone (James Nesbitt) to happily and excitedly create the food site! He anticipates having it done by the end of this coming week. That is so amazing! I will give everyone an update about it when it is complete.

Jen Lalonde said:

This is what I found:

http://groups.yahoo.com/

Below the search bar there is an icon that says "Start your own group".

ttfn :-)



Marisa Meléndez said:

Hmm... Okay, well what I have found so far is that the site is painfully slow for one thing. For another, I can't for the life of me figure out how to create a group. I can only see how to join pre-existing ones. Specific contact info is nil, but I went ahead and emailed what seemed to be the best department to get some info. Please, if anyone has better success, let me know.

Jen Lalonde said:

There is a freecycle group uses Yahoo Groups for a very similar-sounding purpose.

It could be done very simply by members putting what their offering and their location in the subject line (e.g. Bloor/Spadina - tons of zucchini from my garden to give away) and then the offer goes out to everyone in the list. To reply, you click a link in the email and you're directed to the yahoogroup page to sign in, and reply.





Geoff Buddle said:

Are there other TTown examples of these things? If we find them and put up the links for all to see, then we can leverage all the footwork already done, someone may have a template site ready for customizing already.

Geoff

Marisa Meléndez said:

Thanks for your input Martina. I talked to an IT guy about it and apparently a web page like that will be a lot of work, as well as there being liability issues with people posting their emails or phone numbers. I asked about anonymizing emails like on Craigslist, but the problem again is that it is a lot of work. Perhaps we could get more than one person to work on the task in order to lighten the load?

Martina Rowley said:

I totally feel your pain, Marisa! All those healthy vegetables in my fridge often end up shriveled and/or limp by the time I eat my way to the last one! LOL.
In principle I like your idea of some kind of "food share & swap" page. Off the top of my head I'm concerned though about putting too much detail and hundreds upon hundreds of back-and-forth messages onto our main website. That seems like something that might serve everyone better if we can create a link to a separate site, e.g. a forum for food itself. I will try and remember to discuss this at our next steering committee meeting and see what others think. Our I.T. person, or someone else?, might have some suggestions on a site that would be better suited for such a page.
If anyone reading this has some ideas, please share them!

Marisa Meléndez said:

I am just throwing this idea out there, but I was thinking that maybe we could create a Food Share page on this site. What I mean is, I know that for myself and others I know, we often have much food wast. You know, you buy parsley because you need about a tablespoon of it but it comes in an enormous bunch? Or perhaps you purchase some orange juice because it is on sale, only now you have to figure out what to do with a liter of the stuff! Perhaps this is not as much of an issue for those in a family or with roommates, however for those of us whom are single and live in an apartment it is. Try as I may to use it all and to give some to friends, it is inevetable that stuff goes to waste. This could also work for people with a veggie garden and/or fruit trees where they have an abundance of something. So what I propose is a page divided by area. Then a person can find their area and list an item/s they don't need and/or search for something they do. Then people can swap or just give away if they wish. Maybe there can even be a wish list, ie., "I really need some carrots, does anyone have some?". I think this would also be great in terms of Food Security issues. I know at least one community based organization that deals in Food Security whom probably could spread the word about it. It could also be a way of getting more people on the site and involved.

[Sarah Sackville McLauchlan]

Hi people! Neat discussion so far! And I really like the food-swap page idea! That could be really useful!

I wanted, though, to share some ideas about maybe starting to think in terms of a slightly bigger picture. My concern is that, when the delivery-trucks to the supermarkets begin failing, front and back-yard gardens will not, by themselves, be enough to provide three square meals a day for everyone in a city the size of Toronto. Even if people were allowed to raise chickens and other small fowl in their yards, which we should be, it wouldn't be absolutely enough I think. So we need to work with the Transportation group as well to start advocating hard for the revival of a comprehensive railroad system, so that food from those lovely organic farms can still get into the city and be delivered to stores/markets.

The other thing we really need to do, I think, is to focus on low, or better yet zero, cost ways of making sure people have local food. The reason I say this is that right now, poor people in the city are by far the most dependant upon the carbon-based food distribution system to bring them cheep, non-perishable food that will get them all the way through a month. And it is these people who will be hit the hardest when, as many believe will happen, food prices go up as oil becomes scarce. The SCAs are great, but most of the working poor can't afford them, much less people on welfare. True, we need a different economy. But we need to cushion the effects of the one we've got until then too. And we really need to think through the practicalities of these issues as part of our transition program, or we're going to have starvation and violence when the crunch hits. And none of us want that!

Anyway, sorry about the lengthy post, but I really felt that those issues need to be on our radar.