Greenbelt Fund News

The Greenbelt Fund invested $49,000 to support Ontario Apple Growers' "Strength in Our Core Value - Ontario Apple Awareness Campaign". We invited OAG to share an update about the project.

The lucky winners of the Brewery Discovery Routes contest have been announced! Robert Arsenault from Stoney Creek won a dinner at Langdon Hall and Annie Chu from Toronto won a 2-night Ontario getaway.

The Brewery Discovery Route wanted to celebrate the businesses along the route by running a contest that rewarded the business that customers tagged the most on Instagram and Twitter.

With the help of a $15,000 grant from the Greenbelt Fund, Pollo Garden is launching a market assessment for their slow growth chickens. Minh Do from Pollo Garden provides an update on the project and next steps for his niche product in this guest blog.

Want to learn more about local food and farming in Ontario?

Shelly Rahme started Northern Harvest seven years ago – a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) program to provide local farmers with consistent, predictable income, and bring fresh, local produce into Temiskaming homes. Now, with a $25,000 grant from the Greenbelt Fund, Shelly is launching a new product and food hub aimed at making local food more accessible to the community.

A new report from our sister organization, The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, has found that flaws in the implementation of the Growth Plan are contributing to sprawl. Without new policies to make sure municipalities change the way development happens on the ground, more and more farmland will be paved over.

Institutional food doesn’t have the best reputation. Readers weren’t surprised to see that the management at Ottawa Hospital were no fans of the food served to patients – but I was impressed that they were prepared to admit as much, and announce steps to make big changes to their foodservice.

David Farnell, CEO at Real Food for Real Kids (RFRK), knows these changes aren’t easy. RFRK tried to break into the foodservice market at Toronto-area hospitals and realized getting their healthy, fresh-prepared food to patients would take some work. With an investment of $69,000 from the Greenbelt Fund, RFRK is re-designing their entire operation to meet HAACP regulations and begin serving patients at Sick Kids and St. Michael’s Hospital.

In June 2016, FoodShare partnered with the Greenbelt Farmers’ Market Network and a $45,000 investment from the Greenbelt Fund to create a new microgrants program for farmers – the 2016 Production Opportunities Program. The program was designed to help increase market opportunities for farmers by offering $500 to $2,000 in matching funding for farmers to introduce new products, scale up, extend their growing season, and improve quality and value.

The Greenbelt Fund champions local food leadership. We invited our friends at Sustain Ontario to share their success story in launching a toolkit for municipalities and institutions to make the changes to bring more Ontario food to the table.