Speaker series: Food insecurity lives here
Even though Creemore is widely perceived to be an affluent area, an increasing number of people within our community are suffering food insecurity.
Rev. Lorna May of St. Luke’s Anglican Church is on the front line of the battle to help those people. When the Creemore Food Bank was launched in May 2022, six local families received regular deliveries. By February, that number had risen to 26 families.
May told an audience of about 60 people at Station on the Green last Friday that food insecurity is inextricably linked with income insecurity and housing insecurity. While food banks cannot solve the underlying problems, they provide critical support to people struggling to get by.
May says the Creemore Food Bank is unique in that it delivers directly to clients. Often people struggling with food insecurity cannot afford to maintain automobiles and due to the lack of public transit in the area, accessing help through the typical food bank model is not a viable option. Weekly home deliveries also help preserve the privacy and dignity of food bank users.
Dignity and access to healthy food are also core values for Gillian Flies of New Farm. From its inception, New Farm has been committed to improving access to healthy food for people in low income communities. In addition to supplying organic greens to some of the best restaurants in Toronto and throughout Southern Georgian Bay, New Farm supplies produce to food banks. Over the past 13 years, the annual Farms for Change event has raised close to $2 million to provide local, organic produce to community food centres and good food organizations throughout Southern Ontario. All of the proceeds from the volunteer-run event go towards purchasing vegetables from The New Farm and other local farms.
Chris Kornachi at Hogwild Farming has turned an abandoned farm in Clearview into a showpiece regenerative farming operation. Regenerative farming relies on chemical free methods to allow the earth to heal itself, thus improving soil quality and the nutritional content of food produced. On just 37 acres, Kornachi pastures 12 steers, 20 pigs and 120 chickens. Animals graze on rotation, fertilizing as they go. Chickens feed on the fly larvae in droppings from larger animals providing them a free, high protein diet while simultaneously controlling the fly population. The soil is never tilled, limiting erosion and reducing the impact of sun and wind.
Due to personal health issues, Kornachi became interested in the way food is grown and how it affects nutritional content. Now he and wife Brandy are committed to finding ways to make regenerative food more accessible. He suggests that rather than the typical dried pasta and peanut butter food bank donation, people consider purchasing quality food from local growers.
The Friday night event at Station on the Green was the first in a series of forums organized by Valerie Smith and Katrina Elliston of Sothebys International Realty. Smith spent many years working with Non Governmental Organizations in places like East Africa and Central and South America before relocating to Clearview a few years ago. She says the speaker series is a way of bringing people together to shine the light on problems that need attention and showcase some of the great work that is being done in our community. Plans are in the works for the next session, which will focus on sustainability within our own households and personal decisions.
