Context

In 2009 Ontario imported over $4.1 billion in food that could have been produced and/or processed in the province (1). According to a 2005 study for Waterloo Public Health, a significant quantity and variety of food that can be grown in Southwest Ontario is imported and has travelled, on average, about 4,500 kilometres to get to this region (2). Over the last several years, numerous research projects in the province have considered viability of local food supply, strength of the local food systems, and market opportunities for local food (3). The Ontario government has recognized the value of local food and is taking steps to support farming communities across the province. In 2009 it committed $24 million to get more Ontario-grown food into the province’s schools, hospitals, food service companies and other institutions(4). The government’s position is that having these institutions become large scale procurers of local foods will: 1) ensure a stable market for local sustainable products; 2) provide consumers more local food choices; 3) reduce environmental harm from shipping food unnecessary distances; and 4) retain more money in the local economy (5).

Local Food Research

Overall, research to date has identified that the development of market channels that increase access to locally-grown food has the potential to provide three main types of benefits: economic, environmental, and social/health. Economic benefits include improved livelihoods for local producers (6); a higher percentage of farming and food dollars in local communities (7, 8, 9); regeneration of market towns and economically depressed areas; greater trust and understanding between stakeholders (10, 11, 12); encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship (13) and raising the profiles of local businesses; greater access to healthy, safe food (14); supporting small business and enterprise, and job creation (15); reducing external costs to both the purchasing authority and its constituents; halting the decline in rural services and food and farming infrastructure (16, 17).

Increased institutional procurement and the development of regional-scale food infrastructure will result in environmental benefits, including reduced air pollution and greenhouse gases from the transport of food (18, 19, 20, 21). Social and health benefits include increased food security; strengthened relationships of trust; and improved local level democracy and economic conditions in rural communities (22). While the health claims of local food are difficult to support, there is a substantial amount of empirical evidence that nutrition is improved by consuming local food because stored fruits and vegetables lose nutritional value with time (23, 24). This appears to be especially true of vitamins A, C, and E (25).

Local Food and Healthcare

Healthcare providers represent a large share of the institutional market for local food. With 30,000 hospital beds at close to 100% occupancy rates (26), Ontario hospitals serve 32,850,000 meals to patients every year, and hospital cafeterias provide meals for employees and visitors. These numbers reflect the size of the opportunity for local food that is present in food purchasing for healthcare facilities, and that opportunity has already been explored to some extent. The 2012 Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care report, Local Food for Health Care, indicated that the interest in local food was present in health care facilities, but the facilities’ capacity to incorporate local food into their everyday operations was varied (27). Moreover, concern with cost, seasonality, and inconvenience of buying from small and medium scale local producers continued to impede growth of local food purchasing among healthcare facilities. Another report (28) indicates that Ontario’s hospitals and long-term care facilities “purchase the vast majority of their food through contracts or from local grocery stores”(p. 50), are sometimes unsure what “local” really means, and while most viewed local food in a positive light, integration of local food into food service was seen as a challenge. A literature review by the Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia examined notable global local food movements and found that a major issue with local food policies is inconsistent supply and pricing of food due to seasonality. They also found that local farmers tend to be loosely organized, which creates coordination and supply issues (19).

International Examples

A UK study led researchers to conclude that hospitals with their own kitchens have an easier time incorporating local foods because they have the capacity to receive food directly from farmers. As well, a voluntary approach is unlikely to achieve local food objectives since everyone will not share the passion and energy to create these changes (29). In the mid 2000s, the UK undertook the Hospital Food Project to test the practicality and feasibility of implementing sustainable food procurement policies in their hospitals. The success of the project was mixed, with some hospitals having an easier time implementing local food policies than others due to money and time constraints (30). More recently some hospitals in this Project have reported that they have exceeded their target of 10% local foods (31).
Brazil uses local food systems to strengthen food security and improve rural economic conditions. The Brazilian government also works to ensure that local farmers benefit directly from these efforts. Initiatives such as promoting direct milk and crop purchases have provided rural Brazilian communities with more stable food prices, and increased access to safe food of increased quality for consumers (32).

In the US, several Universities and government bodies, such as the San Francisco Department of Public Health, have created local food systems as joint efforts between students, professors, and professionals (such as chefs) (19). The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created a program called Farm to School, which seeks to provide local food to schools across the country (33).
In the US ‘Hospitals for Healthy Food Pledge’ includes support for local sustainable foods and has been signed by over 280 US hospitals (37) with the movement being facilitated by a local food for healthcare working group.

The Canadian Picture

Various scale Farm to School initiatives can also be found in Manitoba (34), and Ontario (35), whereas British Columbia’s Farm to Cafeteria program that supports Farm to School, Farm to Campus, and Farm to Hospital initiatives has recently become a national program, Farm to Cafeteria Canada (36). But most of the momentum in local food systems has been at a regional level. For example, the University of Toronto and the City of Toronto have both created local food procurement policies that target 10% local food and will take advantage of the vast green belt that surrounds the city (38). The Region of Waterloo Public Health has shown leadership in exploring and supporting the issues surrounding local foods (39). Several hospitals in Ontario, including St. Mary’s General Hospital in Kitchener, have hosted local food markets to teach and promote health and to show strong environmental leadership (40). Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay has, with the support from the Boarder Public Sector Investment Fund, positioned itself as a case study in greening hospital food services (41).

Other Institutions

There are also some initiatives that include food production on institutional sites. Numerous educational institutions now boast community gardens. However, the produce from those gardens is often not intended for institutional consumption or commercial purposes, although some exceptions are notable. The Food School Farm at Centre Wellington high school in Fergus, Ontario (42), is one of those exceptions as it uses food grown on site for the school cafeteria. With the help of FoodShare, the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health’s Sunshine Garden in Toronto (43) sells produce through its organic garden market in the summer, and St. Joseph’s Care Group’s Green Werks Garden at Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital in Thunder Bay supplies the Regional Food Distribution Network (44). In addition to the educational, skill-building and therapeutic benefits of these gardens, they also offer the potential to provide access to land and to generate revenue for growers working in partnership with the institutions. However, because the existing models have focused on the former benefits, the extent to which food production on institutional land could be financially viable remains to be determined.

The Farmers

Many examples show that opportunities exist for farmers who maximize productivity through intensive growing techniques. Ultra-efficient, high-production, low-cost methods that may improve viability in the appropriate circumstances include season extension (with hoop houses and high or low tunnels), succession-planting, intercropping, vertical planting and intensive spacing (45). One model that employs many of these methods is small plot intensive (SPIN) farming, which has been implemented by numerous small-producer and community initiatives across North America, and demonstrated consistently high returns per square metre (46, 47, 48).
SPIN farming and similar growing methods hold a great deal of potential for financial viability of utilization of institutional land for food production. Economically sustainable on-site production would not only offer all the other benefits of on-site food production (availability of low-cost fresh produce, therapeutic benefits, ecological services), but could also remedy the limitations to success imposed by financial and time constraints on some of the past projects. In this study we aim to explore the feasibility of making such projects financially successful through combining the lessons of successful institutional initiatives with the lessons of economically sustainable small scale production models.

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