Our ethics are People Care, Earth Care, and Fair Share/Future Care. We are privileged to be able to commit a part of our daily, weekly and yearly energy and resources in the service of growing:
- Farmers and food growers;
- Building Gardeners, who can now register their gardens online;
- Community food access and food production opportunities;
- Livelihoods around food growing, urban agriculture, farming and permaculture;
- Seed, land and food sovereignty;
- Healthy local food systems and ecosystems;
- Community permaculture projects;
- Strategic collaborations in service of the above.
There is much to do to create an accessible, just and resilient food system. The social and ecological contexts are many and include climate change, massive biodiversity loss, and the widespread disparity in access to resources due to historic and ongoing racist, colonial and oppressive structures.
We are open to all collaborations, opportunities and feedback so we can better contribute and/or so we can explore new ways forward. We openly invite folks with privileged access to resources or power, to consider funding and contributing resources towards community food sector projects. If you would like to help find projects and/or people that you might support or learn from, please contact us and we’ll do our best to advise.
Here’s what we’ve been doing to serve:
Collaboration & Advocacy
- Collaborating to develop and implement a Mississauga Urban Agriculture Strategy and community, and contributing to the Peel Food Action Council and Peel Hunger Relief Network;
- Advocating for the inclusion of as much diversity (biological and human!) as possible in projects;
- Collaborative advocacy in support of Ontario community gardens and farmers markets;
Learning
- Listening to and learning from discussions, courses and talks by Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community colleagues, so that we can improve our capacity to understand, collaborate, create, and join together in the spirit of reconciliation;
- Listening to and learning from activists, leaders, and community colleagues of diverse backgrounds;
- Exploring new social, cultural and economic edges to learn how to grow socially just economic opportunities;
Mentorship
- Mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs to start businesses;
- Helping new farmers get to market;
Joint Programming & Collaborative Consultation
- Working with the City of Mississauga to offer winter food growing workshops;
- Teaming up with FoodShare & Toronto Urban Growers to support community gardeners;
- Consulting to and learning from a wide range of people in support of increasing urban agriculture leadership, livelihoods and projects;
- Developing and recording interviews on Local Food Systems, Regenerative Growing and “Grounded Cultural Change”;
- Co-developing and delivering zoom programs and videos in support of broadening access of information and opportunity;
Resource Sharing & Fundraising
- Growing food for community distribution and encouraging the community gardeners we work with to do the same if they can;
- Sharing seeds, design support, and other resources and to under-resourced groups and communities – working towards the establishment of a youth Seed Library in Mississauga;
- Fundraising for seed, land and food sovereignty projects; Seeking additional funding to support project initiatives in the areas above that are beyond our current capacity.
We are open to all collaborations, opportunities and feedback, so that we can improve our community service efforts, and explore new ways forward. We openly invite folks with privileged access to resources or power, to consider funding and contributing other resources towards the community food sector as it is under-resourced and there is much work ahead. We welcome groups with limited resources to connect with us as well. Reach us here.