Toronto food charter aims to cut hunger

Globe and Mail, June 15, 2001

By Marissa Nelson

City councillors signed Toronto's Food Charter yesterday, outlining principles the city will uphold and steps it will take to reduce the level of local hunger. "Every Toronto resident should have access to an adequate supply of nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food," the charter states.

As part of the action plan, the city promises to "protect agricultural lands and support urban agriculture," and provide affordable "healthy foods in city facilities." "It's not going to be another charter that just hangs on the wall," Councillor Pam McConnell told more than 100 people who gathered in the council chambers for yesterday's launch.

"It has been unanimously endorsed. . . . Through the Food Charter, we are committed." This is the first such charter in Canada, and as Ms. McConnell said yesterday, the city hopes it will be emulated.

"There's a lot of hunger out there. . . . The desperation is getting deeper and deeper," she said. The city began its effort to address local malnutrition and hunger in 1999, when it developed the Toronto Food and Hunger Action Committee, of which Ms. McConnell is the co-chairwoman.

Last summer, a report by the committee found that 120,000 people in the GTA, 40 per cent of whom are children, rely on food banks. Now, the committee says it is in its second phase, developing ways of fixing the problem. Its latest report, called The Growing Season, was delivered to city council in the spring and became the basis for the charter.

Graham Riches, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a poverty activist, said the charter is an important step for Canada. "Today's launch marks the acknowledgment of 20 years of hunger in Canada," he said. "It is a demonstration that one level of government is committing itself to combatting hunger."

The city's plans for achieving its goal of reducing hunger include using city lands for community gardens and city buildings to aid community groups, having after-school homework groups serve snacks and attempting to divert "cosmetically challenged" food from landfill sites.

Wayne Roberts, of Toronto's public-health department, explained that food that doesn't meet certain visual standards gets plowed under by farmers or sent to dumps. "The poor could eat like kings if they used what we throw into landfills," Mr. Roberts said. The plan uses the ugly fresh food and makes it into edible food, using unattractive carrots to make carrot muffins, for example.

Farmers already show up at food banks with excess food because they're sickened by the waste, he said. "We hope eventually there will be active recruitment of farmers."

While the community gardens and use of misshapen or discoloured vegetables are useful, they're not the answer, says Sue Cox, executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. "These programs have a ton of social benefit, but we delude ourselves if we think they're going to end hunger," she said. "These are good things, but they're not the solution. . . . The reality is that the solution lies with higher levels of government."

More information on the Food and Hunger Action Committee or access their most recent report The Growing Season online (Food Charter also accessible from this page).