Potatoes come from Prince Edward Island or Idaho, right? True enough, they do. But they also come from the Thompson area in Northern Manitoba. Same for honey.
Little Farm potatoes, Yukon gold and reds, are available from Barry Little for $13 for a 35-pound box. You can call him at (204) 778-7723 or (204) 679-5349 to ask about them, while Eugene Larocque, on Manasan Drive, and his son, Steven, have their locally-produced Northern Gold Honey, with a one-kilogram jar costing $15 or a 500-gram jar for $8. They can be reached at (204) 307-6217 or by e-mail at: ngoldhoney@hotmail.com
Little, known for his agricultural projects at the old Thompson Zoo, is also an inventor and innovator, who along with Shawna Henderson, Bill Beardy and Donna Lundie, and residents of Fox Lake Cree Nation, built a hoop-style greenhouse in 2011, used to grow tomatoes and cucumbers for local residents on the reserve out of recycled trampoline frames. Little developed the innovative idea for the greenhouse based upon using the available resources in the community. In this case, he searched in different dumps for materials to build growing structures. The total cost including hardware and lumber needed for the greenhouse was between $250 and $300.
Steven Larocque, who works for Manitoba Jobs and the Economy’s Apprenticeship Manitoba in North Centre Mall on Station Road, has been the Northern apprenticeship training co-ordinator for the last five years.
Food Matters Manitoba, a registered charity, which works to support local, affordable, nutritious food for Northern Manitobans in partnership with the province’s Northern Healthy Foods Initiative, has long been working to get the word out when it comes to promoting locally-grown produce from North of the 53rd parallel. The typical food item on a Manitoba table travels an estimated 2,200 kilometres before landing on the plate, the organizaton says. For a 100-day period from Sept. 1 until Dec. 9, 2007, 100 Mile Manitoba ran an “experiment in local eating … 100 people, 100 days, 100 hundred miles,” which attempted to get 100 Manitobans to eat food produced and processed within 100 miles of their kitchen table for the 100-day period.
During the Grow North Conference in Wabowden earlier this year, a kindergarten class from Cross Lake’s Mikisew School had the opportunity to see some baby chicks and learn the importance of where your food comes from and how to take care of it. Children from Cross Lake were able to participate in observing the chickens that were being raised for the Cross Lake Chicken project.
Mel Johnson School teamed up with the Bayline Regional Roundtable and co-hosted this year’s conference in Wabowden on May 22-23, with help from Frontier School Division, Food Matters Manitoba and Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. There were 263 participants from Wabowden, Ilford, Cross Lake, Cormorant, Pikwitonei, Thicket Portage, Cranberry Portage, Thompson, South Indian Lake, Winnipeg, Ponton, Setting Lake, Manigotogan, Moose Lake, Nelson House, Sherridon, Fox Lake, York Landing, Norway House, and Creighton, Sask.
Northern Manitobans were winners in two of seven categories at Food Matters’ 2013 Golden Carrot Awards, presented at the Manitoba legislature in Winnipeg on World Food Day last Oct. 16. This year’s awards in a couple of weeks are on the same Oct. 16 date (a Thursday this year) and location at 9:30 a.m. in the Rotunda Hall of the Manitoba Legislative Building at 450 Broadway in Winnipeg. The Golden Carrot Awards were started in 2006 to recognize work being done across Manitoba to ensure access to healthy food for residents across the province.
Last year, Andrea McIvor’s Grade 7-9 class at D.R. Hamilton School in Cross Lake were presented the Golden Carrot in the youth category after working together to raise 50 chickens for eating and 25 layer hens, watering, feeding and cleaning their litter before participating in the final slaughter and eating of the birds.
For several years, there was a Northern Harvest Forum, co-ordinated by Food Matters Manitoba, which took place in Thompson. The Oct. 22 and 23, 2009 “Northern Food from Northern Hands” forum included the Golden Carrot Awards.
The two-day annual event, which had taken place in Thompson since 2007, featured workshops that focused on hunting and gathering traditional foods; food preservation; gardening; grocery store and healthy cooking demonstrations.
Also, a World Food Day dinner took place at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 244’s Centennial Hall. Before moving to the Legion in 2008, the inaugural event in 2007 was held at St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Hall on Juniper Drive.
A two-day Northern Harvest Forum and World Food Day banquet, attended by Stan Struthers, then Manitoba’s NDP minister of agriculture, food and rural initiatives, was held Oct. 19-20, 2011 in The Pas.
In October 2007, the City of Thompson became the first municipality in the province to sign the Manitoba Food Charter during the two-day Northern Harvest Forum here.
Among the steps the city committed to seven years ago by signing the charter was to play “a more active role as the regional hub in promoting lower food prices in outlying communities” and Nunavut; and becoming a “staging centre for food distribution” through Canada Post’s Food Mail Program; and “lobby for the regulation of milk prices throughout Manitoba.”
The seeds for the Manitoba Food Charter were planted in 1992 with a document known as “An Action Plan For Food Security For Manitobans” created by the Nutrition and Food Security Network of Manitoba.
A decade later, in 2001 and 2002, a coalition known as FoodSecure Manitoba brought Rod MacRae, food policy analyst and former co-ordinator of the Toronto Food Policy Council, to Winnipeg in April 2002 for a “strategic visioning session.” Areas for concrete action were developed and the group made its first priority to be a “food security” two-day conference in 2003.
The Manitoba Food Charter project built on energy created a year later with the National Food Security Assembly in Winnipeg. During March and February 2006 a steering committee of volunteers crisscrossed the province listening to more than 70 groups of people and food security participants involved in various aspects of the Manitoba food system.
Seventeen per cent of the input came from Northern Manitoba and on May 10, 2006, more than 80 individuals from across Manitoba gathered in Winnipeg to engage in a provincial conversation on food. Community gardeners, academics, farmers, politicians, local food retailers, government folks, food activists, community health workers, neighbourhood residents, university students, and educators gathered to set priorities for future action for the Manitoba Food Charter project.
Funding for the Manitoba Food Charter project also comes from the Public Health Agency of Canada; the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; and Heifer International of Little Rock, Ark., a non-profit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance and sustainability. An American Midwestern farmer named Dan West, who was a Church of the Brethren relief worker during the Spanish Civil War, started Heifer in 1944.
In its own words, the “Manitoba Food Charter emerged from Manitobans’ common vision for a just and sustainable food system.
The charter provides a vision and a set of principles that will guide and inform strategic planning, policy and program development and practice in mutual effort toward food security and community development.”
The charter analyzes the current food situation in the province this way in part: “Manitoba’s food system has both strengths and weaknesses. We have a significant and diverse agricultural sector and many Manitobans can access the food that they want. However, agricultural communities are challenged by an increasingly urban and globalized economy. Many Northern, inner city, and low-income citizens have difficulty accessing quality food and realizing their fundamental human right to adequate food. Rural, urban and Northern communities are disconnected. Not all of our food is necessarily nutritious, not all information about our food is complete or accurate; and much of our food comes long distances.”
The “vision” the charter notes for “a just and sustainable food system in Manitoba is rooted in healthy communities, ensures no one is hungry and that everyone has access to quality food.”
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