COMMUNITY AG GRANT PRESS RELEASE

The Harvest Bowl is a group from the Malahide Township. This project has created a partnership between Buy Local, Buy Fresh and Mennonite Community Services to help create a solution for leftover crop waste. This group has proposed both a gleaning service (collecting food left in the fields after harvest) as well as a dehydrated vegetable soup program to reduce the waste from leftover crops left in the field at harvest time. This idea helps to tackle both the issues of too much produce in food banks during harvest time, as well as the lack of produce throughout the winter months. By dehydrating the surplus vegetables donated by farmers in the fall, there will be a steady supply of healthy food for shelters and food banks to use throughout the winter.

EFAO is an Ontario-wide program called Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario designed to support the next generation of ecological farmers. This program brings training and mentorship to new farmers across the province to teach and encourage them to use ecological farming practices, which will benefit the land, soil and water for generations to come.

82 percent of farmers with less than 10 years of experience did not grow up on a farm, and therefore do not have the experience and knowledge transfer that older generations received. This program will help to introduce some of these ecological practices, like cover cropping, crop rotations, soil conservation and appropriate tillage.

By teaching these ecological practices, farmers can help to secure the future of rural communities and Ontario's food supply.

Our first grant recipient which has created a volunteer-run farm to supply the soup kitchen with all of its fresh produce. Additionally, this group provides 100 families in need with baskets of fresh produce weekly.

The entire staff at both the farm and the soup kitchen are all volunteers. Transferrable skills are taught both at the farm and within the kitchen with cooking classes for at-risk individuals.

This project engages community members in the Grow a Row initiative which invites back yard gardeners to join them in the process of growing food for donation by adding one extra row to their backyard garden.