Household Food Insecurity in Simcoe County

Community Leaders for a Sustainable Simcoe

a chronic state of financial crisis

Supporting Local Agriculture

When someone is experiencing food insecurity they are likely struggling with other basic needs as well.

Why This Matters.

Food security is met when all community residents are able to obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable and resilient food system.

If household food security is the demand part of the food security dynamic, having a reliable, resilient, and accessable local food ecosystem, or local agriculture community, is the supply part of it.

We have all experienced price shock in the grocery store recently. In an highly integrated global economy much of what we take for granted in the grocery store relies on lengthy supply chains, only a fraction of which, at best, is located nearby.

A local food ecosystem can help reduce price instability by shortening supply chains and limiting exposure to distant events that cannot be controlled for or influenced locally.

Canada has been one of the few countries in which consumers have had to spend less than 10% of their income on food. (Historically this has been roughly 9.1%. The U.S., spends the least, at 6.4%.)

In 2020 Canada’s median household income was $66,800. $14,767 represents 22% of that.

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Did You Know…?

Ontario is losing 319 acres of farmland every day. Source: Statistics Canada 2021 Census
In the last 35 years, Ontario has lost 2.8 million acres of farmland to non-farm uses like urbanization and aggregate mining
There are over 2000 operating farms across the County of Simcoe. The agricultural sector plays an important part in our local economies.

What You Can Do As A Municipal Leader:

To increase community food security:

Support and increase funding for Farmers Markets
Create and invest in community food programs such as community gardens, roof- top gardens, edible landscapes, incubator kitchens and farms
Protect existing farmland from urbanization
Provide a letter of support for the creation of the Recreation, Research, and Education Farm at Lakehead University Orillia
Create an Urban Agriculture Strategy within the municipality to preserve existing public land and enhance the community’s urban-scale food production.
Strengthen municipal community food security by ensuring agriculture and food are part of Official Plans and Community Improvement Plans.
Support local school food literacy programs through financial donations and shared infrastructure and resources.
Provide food literacy programming through municipal facilities and integrate food programming into recreation departments.
Support libraries to be leaders in food literacy initiatives in your municipality in partnership with community food champions.

To support local agriculture:

Ease municipal building codes that limit on-farm housing to allow more housing options for farm workers which could include micro-units and tiny homes
Pass a by-law to classify farm gate sales locations or buildings as agricultural, not commercial, for the purposes of property taxation
Create a Municipal Food and Agriculture Committee to use a “systems thinking” approach, and apply a food lens to municipal work to address the complexity of food access and urban agriculture through leveraging community food assets.
Ensure agriculture representation exists in municipal governance to provide input and feedback in decision making.
Increase your municipality’s intensification target to ensure less farmland is lost to sprawl
Review policies that create unintended barriers for local food initiatives like community gardens and farmers’ markets.
Remove barriers and streamline navigation through the agricultural development process and land improvement (i.e., tile draining, farm buildings)
Strengthen agritourism by promoting on-farm value-added initiatives and showcasing local food.
1. Resources: Tourism Simcoe County and Always in Season