Other Resources and Reports

The reports below are organized in terms of their relevance for people working for change within the:

public sector (state-led programs and policies),

private sector (private businesses), and the

‘plural’ (grassroots / community / non-profit) sector.

Reports

The contributions of community seed saving to health and wellbeing: A qualitative study in Thunder Bay, Canada

Assessment type: Resource provides qualitative research on the benefits of community seed saving.

Author(s): Rachel L.W. Portinga, Charles Z. Levkoe, and Lindsay P. Galway

Year: 2024

Synopsis: This paper positions community seed saving (CSS) as collective knowledge and practices used to cultivate, collect, conserve, exchange, and advocate for regionally adapted seeds as a foundation of healthy and sustainable food systems.

Affordable Food, Region of Waterloo

Assessment type: Resource providing links to affordable programs

Author(s): Region of Waterloo

Year: 2022

Synopsis: This source provides links to affordable programs for those who need them. It also contains information on healthy eating at a low cost.

Waterloo Region Indigenous equity and AR food strategy concept draft

Assessment type: Outlines Indigenous Equity and Anti-racism and how it can be integrated into the Waterloo Region Food Strategy

Author(s): Calder, E. with Scott, S. & Koberinski, J.

Year: 2021

Synopsis: Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies across Canadian institutions, organizations and companies are shifting the landscape of how anti-racism and Indigenous equity is practiced. In the area of food systems planning, we have a lot of ground to cover in terms of harmonizing our regional and municipal food policies and strategies with national and international agreements and contractual commitments. To start, Anti-racism and Indigenous Equity Units are being established at the regional and municipal level governments in Waterloo Region. We can continue to build on progressive efforts by implementing strategic actions, backed by policy changes and funding allocation, reflecting the multi-faceted ways structural racism impacts food insecurity. The paper outlines key recommendations or action items that could be incorporated into a broader food systems planning strategy for the Region. Action items are elaborated on in six Waterloo Region Food Strategy categories: access to food, urban/rural agriculture, hunger and malnutrition, food literacy and diet, economic policy priorities and incentives, and overall/general.

School Food Gardens Start-Up Guide

Assessment type: Toolkit on starting a school garden project

Author(s): Popovic R.N., C., & Pigott, K.

Year: 2019

Synopsis: This School Gardens Guide can be used as a planning tool and guide by any school wishing to start a school garden project. Five interconnected areas work together to plan and implement school food gardens: 1. Student engagement 2. School and classroom leadership 3. Curriculum, teaching and learning 4. Social and physical environment 5. Home, school, and community partnerships. The Six-Step Healthy Schools Process guides a school community through planning and implementing activities or projects: 1. Establishing a school team. 2. Assessment of the school and broader community’s needs and assets. 3. Identifying a priority health topic. 4. Developing a clear and realistic action plan. 5. Taking action and monitoring process. 6. Celebration of successes and evaluation of impacts. The guide also helps with garden installation, including garden site selection, mapping of school grounds, garden design, finding resources and creating a budget, garden preparation, garden planting, garden growing, harvesting, and finding local resources.

Campus food report card: The state of food on Ontario university campuses

Assessment type: Student surveys on campus food options and impacts of diet

Author(s): Maynard, M., Lahey, D. & Abraham, A.

Year: 2018

Synopsis: Meal Exchange’s Campus Food Report Card measures the success of Ontario universities in providing locally-grown, sustainable, healthy, accessible food, as rated by students and campuses themselves, as well as the physical food environment. The Campus Food Report Card is composed of three components: The Student Satisfaction Survey, the Campus Food Services Survey, and the Campus Food Outlet Checklist. This report looks at food options around campus, and their dietary affects. It discusses data collected from student surveys.

Young City Growers: Practices in Stakeholder Engagement as an Emerging Urban Food Project

Assessment type: Consultation report of Young City Growers stakeholders

Author(s): Ames, L.

Year: 2017

Synopsis: Young city growers is a new and growing urban farm initiative. This report shares the opinions, concerns, and values of the Young City Growers stakeholders, as maintaining and fostering connections is an integral part of the project’s core mission. Consultation took form in interviews with key partners and stakeholders. The key problems identified include limited capacity, financial stability and the clarity of communications between the initiative and its stakeholders. Recommendations for improving communication and strengthening relations between Young City Growers and its stakeholders include an emphasis on storytelling to accurately represent their mission and establishing an intern/volunteer role with a focus on communications.

Gardens for Healthy Schools: A Scan of School Gardens in Waterloo Region

Assessment type: Literature summary and scan results on Waterloo Region school gardens

Author(s): Community Garden Council of Waterloo Region, Prepared by Sustainable Societies Consulting Group for Community Garden Council of Waterloo Region and Region of Waterloo. Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Year: 2016

Synopsis: This report presents a summary of the key literature on school gardens, and of the results of a scan of school gardens in the Region of Waterloo. The Community Garden Council of Waterloo Region (CCG) is a grassroots association established to support the Waterloo Region Community Garden Network (WRCGN). They focus on youth engagement and education in sustainable food growth. Schools are increasingly being recognized as important health and wellbeing promotion sites as they link student cognitive, social, emotional, and physical wellbeing and academic success. Thus, school gardens have become a tool in building the “Foundation for a Healthy School.” The CCG commissioned a School Garden Scan to best understand how to promote school gardens, develop best practices, and propose recommendations. This involved a key literature and policy review, school board surveys and key stakeholder interviews. Results revealed the multi-actor benefits of school gardens where they are implemented, but also the challenges in initiating and maintaining school gardens due to time, funding, staff support, and school infrastructure barriers. Recommendations include increasing community partnerships and developing guidelines and resources for community gardens.

Exploring experiences of the food environment among immigrants living in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario

Assessment type: Investigating the dimensions of the food environment in the food experiences of immigrants in Waterloo Region.

Author(s): Rodriguez, P.I., Dean, J., Kirkpatrick, S., Berbary, L. & Scott, S.

Year: 2016

Synopsis: This exploratory study aimed to shed light on the role of the food environment in shaping food access among immigrants living in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario. This qualitative case study uses in-depth interviews with nine immigrants, key informant (KI) interviews with nine community stakeholders holding expert knowledge of the local food system and immigrants interacting with it. This paper focuses specifically on insights related to the food environment, applying the Analysis Grid for Environments Linked to the Obesity Framework to assess economic, physical, socio-cultural and political aspects. The paper discusses economic, geographic, social, cultural and political factors in interactions with the food environment. This exploratory case study is consistent with prior research in highlighting the economic constraints within which food access exists but suggests that there may be a need to further dissect food environments.

Planning for Sustainable Food Systems: Students and Food Swamps in Waterloo Region

Assessment type: Investigating the intersection of food swamps and student food experiences

Author(s): Tarana Persaud

Year: 2016

Synopsis: Since its official definition in 1996 at the World Food Summit, food security has been a focal point in the development of living spaces, with the aim of ensuring that sufficient, healthy food is accessible to all. However, meeting the criteria of food security as defined has proved to be problematic in society. Consequently, researchers and policy makers have identified many challenges to achieving universal food security, with a recent focus on urban areas. One such challenge has been described as ‘food swamps’, which are areas where food availability and accessibility are adequate, but processed and calorie-dense foods dominate the market in place of healthy foods. Recent research in Waterloo Region identifies food swamps as a major obstacle in achieving food and nutrition security, resulting in unhealthy and/or processed foods being more readily available and in higher quantities than healthier alternatives.There is evidence that suggests a correlation between poor food consumption habits and the academic outcome and general well-being of students. Using this as a starting point, this research has two primary objectives: (1) to document the extent to which students who reside in Waterloo Region are exposed to food swamps and (2) to understand the relationship students maintain with their food environment, and whether a sustainable food system as a concept is perceived to have value.

Region of Waterloo: Agriculture

Assessment type: An agricultural census bulletins over the years in Waterloo Region

Author(s): Region of Waterloo

Year: 2016

Synopsis: This source looks at many agricultural census bulletins from varying years in the Waterloo Region. In 2016, there were 1,374 farms in Waterloo Region, covering 214,975 acres of land. Of these, 69 per cent raised livestock, while the remaining 31 per cent grew crops. In 2015, farms in Waterloo Region generated $563.6 million in revenue, up $90.7 million from 2010. For more information, please see the 2016 Census Bulletin on Agriculture.

Dollars and Sense: Opportunities to Strengthen Southern Ontario’s Food System

Assessment type: Report on economic and environmental impacts of regional food systems

Author(s): MacRae, R.

Year: 2015

Synopsis: This report examines the economic and environmental impacts of regional food systems, and looks at the effects of increasing food production on the food system. It acknowledges the important contribution the food system makes towards Ontario’s economy, but also its environmental impact as measured by indicators of environmental analysis. The study specifically focused on traffic pollutant emissions to estimate the environmental impact of transporting agricultural products — and how changes in the food system might affect this.

Growing Food in the Suburbs: Estimating the Land Potential for Sub-urban Agriculture in Waterloo, Ontario

Assessment type: GIS study analysis of land potential for urban agriculture in Waterloo, ON

Author(s): Caitlin M. Port & Markus Moos

Year: 2014

Synopsis: This study uses Geographic Information System analysis to measure the land potential for urban agriculture in four sub-urban neighbourhoods in Waterloo, Ontario. Findings show that 49–58% of land measured has the potential to support urban agriculture. Challenges and opportunities for urban agriculture will differ between new and older sub-urban areas due to differences in neighbourhood design. The findings have implications for planning practice in terms of linkages between neighbourhood design and urban agricultural potential. Conceptually, consideration of sub-urban agriculture opens up the possibility of exploring a novel dimension of the now internally diverse sub-urban landscape and the changing functions of suburbs within metropolitan areas.

City of Kitchener Official Plan

Assessment type: Overview of the City of Kitchener Official Plan

Author(s): City of Kitchener

Year: 2014

Synopsis: The Official Plan is a legal document that contains goals, objectives and policies to manage and direct physical and land use change and their effects on the cultural, social, economic and natural environment within the city. This Plan provides a framework for decision making and plays a number of essential roles in the future planning of the city.

Food Wastage in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario

Assessment type: Study on food waste research and the role of food environments

Author(s): Isabel Helena Urrutia Schroeder

Year: 2014

Citation: Food Wastage in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario. UWSpace. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/8764

Synopsis: This paper discusses food waste in Canada, exploring the mechanisms that increase food waste in order to formulate an understanding of how to create solutions. Food wastage has direct and indirect environmental impacts ranging from unnecessary waste of inputs to produce food to food waste disposal. To create targeted food waste reduction strategies, better understandings of the drivers of food waste levels in Canada must be first established. This study uses online surveys, case study household food wastage collections, and case study interviews to do just that. This study confirms many of the findings from other food waste research, but also emphasizes the role of food environments (e.g. retail environments and access to grocery stores) and environmental triggers (e.g. time constraints) in household food wastage. These findings highlight the complexity of the issue of food wastage, and the need for strategies that go beyond targeting household behaviours.

Best Practices in Local Food: A Guide for Municipalities

Assessment type: Report informing municipal decision-makers on the best local food practices

Author(s): Deloitte

Year: 2013

Synopsis: This guidebook provides municipalities with best practices to support and promote their local food industries. The objective of this report is to provide municipal decision makers with guidance on how to align municipal activities with the expectations outlined in Bill 36 and build on local food innovations and experiences in Ontario and other jurisdictions. This report was developed through extensive stakeholder consultations and secondary research. A total of 24 stakeholder consultations were conducted with 43 representatives from leading municipalities, regions and local food groups across Ontario, Canada and the United States.

“Making Something out of Nothing”: Food Literacy among Youth, Young pregnant women and young parents who are at Risk for Poor Health

Assessment Type: Report studies food literacy among young people

Author(s): Desjardins, E. and Azevedo, E.

Year: 2013

Synopsis: This study utilized a strength-based (or assets based) approach. Food deskilling in the general population is an identified impediment to healthy eating as it creates reliance on unhealthy convenience foods and it exacerbates the strain of limited food budgets. For the two identified target groups (teens aged 16-19 years, and young parents and pregnant women aged 16-25 years), this project aimed to (1) explore the meanings of food skills and develop a working definition; (2) identify the barriers and facilitators to food skills acquisition and practice; and (3) use the findings to inform programs and policies that could improve healthy food preparation among young people at risk for poor health. Analysis showed that food skills, meanings and practices among the young people in the study encompassed not only technical ability and knowledge for preparing food, but also the mental health components of confidence, social connectedness and resilience. The study identified four external and environmental determinants that influence the ability to develop and action on food literacy, and provides related recommendations to overcome challenges to acquiring food literacy.

Municipal food policy entrepreneurs: A preliminary analysis of how Canadian cities and regional districts are involved in food system change (PDF)

Assessment type: Analysis of municipal and regional involvement in food policy work

Author(s): Donahue, K. & MacRae, R.

Year: 2013

Synopsis: This report identifies the diverse ways in which food policy work is unfolding, what the key activities are, and what numerous actors believe is their value to municipalities and the food chain. Three broad recommendations emerge from this scan of municipal and regional food policy initiatives across Canada. First, there is a need for actors and organizations working on municipal food policy across Canada to create a network to share information and best practices and build capacity for food policy work. Second, municipal food initiatives would benefit from identifying a range of ways to document and evaluate their work in order to demonstrate successful processes for social change as well as food system and other municipal/regional impacts. Third, policy makers at various government levels should clarify jurisdictional food policy connections and define the linkages between municipal food policy efforts and provincial and federal food, agriculture, public health, and other policy domains.

Towards a Regional Food System Alliance Development Strategy for the West Kootenay

Assessment type: An analysis of best practices for forming and sustaining a regional food system alliance for the West Kootenay region

Author(s): Steinman, J.

Year: 2011

Synopsis: This report serves a number of purposes. Firstly, it is a stand-alone analysis of approaches to coordinate food system development work in the United States and Canada. Secondly, the report serves to inform the work of this project’s start-up advisory committee and communicate a vision and recommendation for how afoot system alliance in the region should function and what steps could be employed to realize this. Thirdly, a final recommendation from the committee will act as a guiding document for the development of a West Kootenay food system alliance and become a strong tool to help garner interest among possible funders who could support the alliance’s start-up phase.

Incorporating policies for a healthy food system into land use planning: The case of Waterloo Region, Canada

Assessment type: Documentation of partnerships, data collection and community consultation, and food-related policies integrated into land use planning in Waterloo Region

Author(s): Desjardins, E., Lubczysnki, J., & Xuereb, M.

Year: 2011

Synopsis: Land use planning is a critical tool among the strategies needed to redirect our food system onto a new trajectory toward improved health, environmental sustainability, and small to midsize farm viability. We present the case of the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where recent revisions to the Regional Official Plan (ROP) now include a suite of specific land use policies related to food. What characterizes food systems planning in Waterloo is the inclusion of both rural and urban land use policies, and close collaboration between the Planning and Public Health departments. This article documents the context in which this partnership took shape, the process of information gathering and community consultation, and the specific food-related policies that were included in the ROP. The relevance of these policies to the local produce auction, community markets, community gardens, and on-farm stores illustrates how policy emerges from practice, and also suggests that policy work is an ongoing work in progress.

It’s not Just Food, Sustainable Food Security for Immigrants: Barriers and Opportunities

Assessment type: Linking food insecurity to culture and religion and the food system

Author(s): Khan, Y.

Year: 2011

Synopsis: This paper acknowledges the importance of linking culture and religion in the food insecurity definition, which is especially relevant for Canada as a multicultural society. Food security criteria (physical and economic access to food, religious and cultural adequacy of food and the food system’s environmental and social effects) were applied to a case study in Waterloo Region by examining regional policies and initiatives to address food insecurity. This analysis of the case study findings reveals that in most cases the current food system of Waterloo Region is largely industrial and contains major gaps in fulfilling the criteria of access, sustainability, social justice, and cultural and spiritual attitudes. Finally, this study recommends a broader multicultural policy at the regional government level to include the issues of immigrants.

Waterloo Region Neighbourhood Market Initiative

Assessment type: The operations of the Waterloo Region Neighborhood Market Initiative

Author(s): SEontario

Year: Began 2011

Synopsis: The Waterloo Region Neighbourhood Market Initiative operates two farmers’ markets in Kitchener and Cambridge. The purpose of these markets is to provide local people in the Kitchener-Cambridge communities, and the surrounding area, with fresh local vegetables and fruits throughout the summer and fall months. This gives local farmers an opportunity to sell their goods at a fair price to people in the community, for people in the community to become market volunteers to help vendors, and to educate individuals and families about nutrition. This article outlines the Waterloo Region Neighborhood Market Initiatives’ products and services and its health, economic and community benefits, its successes, its challenges and lessons learned, its development and structure, its physical, human, financial, and community/social resources, its funding, and its vision for the future.

Linking future population food requirements for health with local production in Waterloo Region, Canada

Assessment type: Study on planning food production for a growing population in Waterloo Region

Author(s): Desjardins, E., MacRae, R. & Schumilas, T.

Year: 2010

Synopsis: Regional planning for improved agricultural capacity to supply produce, legumes, and whole grains has the potential to improve population health as well as the local food economy. This case study of Waterloo Region (WR) had two objectives. First, to estimate the quantity of locally grown vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains needed to help meet the Region of Waterloo population’s optimal nutritional requirements currently and in 2026. Secondly, to estimate how much of these healthy food requirements for the WR population could realistically be produced through local agriculture by the year 2026. Results show that a shift of approximately 10% of currently cropped hectares to the production of key nutritious foods would be both agriculturally feasible and nutritionally significant to the growing population. Findings were supplemented with agronomic considerations and community level strategies that would inform and support such change. The methodology of this study could be applied to other regions: more such analyses would create a broader picture of the diverse qualitative and quantitative agricultural shifts that could synchronize optimal land use with dietary recommendations, thus informing coordinated policy and planning.

Food consumption patterns in the Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada: A cross-sectional telephone survey

Assessment type: Cross-sectional survey on consumption patterns among Waterloo Region residents

Author(s): Nesbitt, A., Majowicz, S., Finley, R. et al.

Year: 2010

Synopsis: The objective of this study was to describe, for the first time, the food consumption patterns in a Canadian-based population from a food safety perspective, in order to establish baseline data on actual food intake of individuals. This report details a cross-sectional telephone survey of 2,332 randomly selected residents of Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. Results showed consumption of certain foods varied by gender and age, such as food considered high-risk of enteric pathogen transmission was more likely to be consumed by males and elderly individuals. Additionally, the majority of households prepared and consumed most meals at home, allocating an average of 44 minutes to prepare a meal. Baseline data on actual food intake is useful to public health professionals and food safety risk assessors for developing communication messages to consumers and in foodborne outbreak investigations.

Government action to promote food system sustainability (PDF)

Assessment type: Graphic based off of Dr. Steffanie Scott’s video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPTWkMyR0Ik

Author: Scott, S.

Year: n.d.

Synopsis: This graphic outlines key recommendations to promote food system sustainability through government action. This includes specific recommendations on developing a food strategy, Indigenous leadership and landback, promoting a circular economy, adopting regenerative agriculture for healthy soils and water, and food re-localization and a planetary health diet.