Farm tours provide a great opportunity for farmers to connect with their communities, and for community members to learn about how their food is grown. For students especially, farm visits and tours are excellent conduits for experiential education. Although on-farm visits have been put on pause due to COVID-19, farm and food education has been...Read More

The beautiful Comox Valley, is situated on the East Coast of Vancouver Island on the traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation. Farm to school programs and the salad bar model were first introduced in the area in 2012 at Huband Park Elementary School. Inspired by Huband’s success, École Robb Road Elementary and Lake Trail Community...Read More

Given all of the restrictions in schools due to COVID-19, school food champions in Ontario are doing what they can to figure out how to continue to advance food literacy programs. Sustain Ontario’s Edible Education Network hosted a lively webinar on November 17, 2020, to discuss School Food Programming in Ontario in a time of...Read More

School gardens are a powerhouse for education. This is beautifully demonstrated in the Gardening Project Map, which lays out 101 ways to connect learning to the garden, whether it’s through: Math, Art, Health, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, Music, and/or Language Arts. The map was originally published in 1982 in Life Lab’s The Growing Classroom,...Read More

George Brown College has released 2 new resources as a result of a 3-year partnership with Farm to Cafeteria Canada, Sustain Ontario and Ecosource:  A research paper entitled Generating Success for Farm to School, written by Gary Hoyer and Chinh Do. This paper explores the many benefits of the farm to school approach and illustrates...Read More

Photo: British Columbians have responded with enthusiasm for local food during the public health crisis. Can we build on what we’ve learned, and make it stick? Photo: Jamil Rhajiak, UBC Farm. We asked: What has COVID-19 shown you about making our food system better? If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught all of us,...Read More

Photos: At Loughborough Public School near Kingston, Ontario – a Legacy School identified by the Downie Wenjak Foundation for their work towards Truth and Reconciliation – students are learning how to grow and prepare their own food, while connecting with the land and their community. Through experiential learning, students are immersed in projects that bring...Read More

In Quebec, the buzz surrounding local food is growing, not only among citizens and institutions, but also within the provincial government. The province has been promoting healthy, local and sustainable food in public institutions for several years.   In 2018, nine Quebec schools received grants of up to $10,000 as part of the Farm to...Read More

Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash While COVID-19 calls for physical distancing, more than ever the world is socially connected, and a hot topic of conversation is food. The pandemic has ramped-up a growing movement in civil society to rediscover and reclaim food systems. Institutions like schools are front and centre because of the essential role they...Read More