About Food For All

Food for All:
An Ottawa Community Response

About Food For All

What is Food for All: An Ottawa Community Response?

Food for All is a community and university partnership led by Just Food and the University of Ottawa and has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This 2 year project is aiming to create the space and supporting structures necessary to allow the Ottawa community to pull together an Ottawa food action plan and community food assessment toolkit.

Background:

Food for All: An Ottawa Community Response was born out of the perfect conditions in Ottawa for the development of a community driven food action plan: there is a NEED, we have KNOWLEDGE and EXPERTISE, and there is an ENTHUSIASM around food and what is possible.

Community need
People throughout Ottawa are feeling the crunch of a food system that needs attention. Examples of this need range from food producers in rural areas finding it difficult to make ends meet to increasing numbers of people in Ottawa turning to the food bank to meet their food needs.

Community and University knowledge and expertise
For years, workers at community agencies, community developers, service providers, community councils and organizations have been working to address food issues in their communities and through this work have developed considerable knowledge, experience and expertise in this area. Academic researchers have also developed important research evidence on the importance of action around community food issues.

Community enthusiasm
As the media is paying more attention to the benefits of buying food locally, and people in Ottawa are becoming more aware of the issues surrounding their food, enthusiasm for addressing some of the systemic food issues is starting to grow.

Food for All, as a project, is a response to all three of these factors. The timing is right for Ottawa to address the existing need for a food action plan in this city, by harnessing the enthusiasm, the knowledge and expertise that exists in addressing food issues.

Food for All Project Overview:

Food for All Project Objectives:

Food for All is working to make sure that food in Ottawa is for everyone. The aim of the project is to collaborate with community partners to:

Develop, with broad community participation, food policies in Ottawa
Adapt and pilot a community food assessment toolkit to assess and monitor community food
Build capacity within communities to implement policies aimed at improving community food, and
Record and share the experience of addressing community food issues in Ottawa

Food for All Project Activities:

Between March 2009 and March 2011, Food for All is going to be conducting a number of activities to reach its objectives. Food for All is:

Interviewing Decision-Makers around food issues in Ottawa
Reviewing literature that exists around community food – policy and assessment
Getting an up-to-date profile of the food services in Ottawa through an environmental scan
Guiding a number of community Food Action Planning conversations
Engaging 3 communities to pilot a Food Assessment