About FoodCycles

VISION

FoodCycles is a city farm not for profit in Toronto that inspires people to raise worms, make nutritious, vibrant compost and grow food. The vision is to create a just and ecological urban food system that encourages all people to come together to grow, learn about, and celebrate food in Toronto.

We established ourselves in 2007 with the aim of serving and representing all of Toronto. We will grow and expand to support all communities within the city and replicate the project in other urban areas beyond Toronto’s borders.

In summary, we want to engage and educate our city’s diverse communities, inspiring people to grow.

2010 Goals

The 2010 goals you can help make real:
TEACH: Reach and teach several hundred people about growing good, chemical free, fair food and soil
EARTH: Turn several tonnes of food waste into quality compost. This cuts down air pollution and weather changing gases by at least 22 tonnes per year.
FOOD: Expand the market garden to 42,000 square feet and start a small city CSA. Aim to raise fish and bees to diversify our farm products.

Long Term Goals

Provide employable skills to youth and at risk people – this includes construction, farming, management and starting a business. This includes practical math, biology, chemistry, geography and food politics.

Provide hands on training in construction of raised beds, worm-composting bins, composting bins, fish growing systems and more.

Create jobs in the community. Particularly for at risk, low income or people from different cultures.

Teach people about healthy eating and exercise.

Provide exercise for people of all ages through gardening and composting. This will help reduce diabetes and other food or diet related, preventable diseases.

Provide therapy to heal the mind, calm, stress relief and relaxation.

Show people the importance of soil and growing their own food. Allow people to learn about environmental stewardship and how it relates back to health and jobs.

Inspire people to take a leadership role in their home communities. This includes building confidence in themselves.

Give people a chance to make a difference in their neighbourhoods and a chance to express themselves through food and food growing.

FoodCycles Colour Information Poster

The FoodCycles Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.)

WHAT IS FOODCYCLES?

FoodCycles works to nurture urban agriculture (city farming) in Toronto by producing and providing access to quality compost (rich black soil) and good food. At the same time we will teach and motivate the people of Toronto regardless of their background, inspiring them to take charge of their food and lives.

(FoodCycles First Farm Planting Work Session Jun 23, 2009; Day 4) The Evergreen volunteers hard at work potting up the tomato plants.

We have started by setting up a greenhouse at Downsview Park (Keele and Sheppard, http://bit.ly/ATb3G).  FoodCycles will be growing a one-acre market garden plot, as well as beginning a worm bank. This year, we will produce a fair amount of quality organic vegetables and compost material. Eventually we want to create more FoodCycles setups in other at risk areas of Toronto and beyond.

From FoodCycles First City Farm Work Bee

(Mon, Jun 21, 2009; Day 2) Mike, Rebekka, Sharon, Caroline and David as we get ready to build the raised beds for the greenhouse.

WHAT’S THE GAME PLAN?

FoodCycles plan includes:
Turning food and kitchen waste into rich, healthy black soil compost to grow food.
Growing local, chemical free fruits and vegetables from local and heirloom organic seeds (passed down through families and history).

Growing fish that are fed with plants grown on the farm. The fish waste then feeds the plants so nothing is wasted.
Raising bees to produce honey with a unique Toronto city flavour (thanks to a wide variety of plants in cities).

WHY FOODCYCLES? CLEAN EARTH, LESS POLLUTION

FoodCyles was started by a group of community gardeners.  In the fall of 2007 over 60 people attended a compost conference† to talk about waste disposal in the city. Everyone agreed that the city green bin program didn’t do a good enough job.

Since community gardens need high-quality soil that the city couldn’t get right, we decided to create a mid-sized composting site to give rich, healthy soil to community gardens and gardeners at low or no cost. The idea is to create a local city farming movement which gives support and supplies the gardens in the city.

Local food and organic waste would be composted in Toronto (instead of Michigan and now New York). Local food would also be grown in that soil too. We would open a place for a soil co-operative, offering free, compost and worm castings (the best chemical free food for plants) to members.

HOW IT BEGAN: WHAT INSPIRED IT ALL?

Our work was inspired by Growing Power (www.growingpower.org/) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s a city farm organization that runs the last working farm in the city limits. In February 2008, our action committee traveled to the US to attend one of their workshops and was blown away.

From Growing Power – Rebekka’s photos

From Growing Power – Rebekka’s photos

Over 3 days, we were moved by this community-led operation that did food waste composting, worm composting, raising fish, animals and bees as well as greenhouse sprouts, herbs and flowers. They take in over 1 million pounds of wet waste from local businesses like breweries, grocery stores, and restaurants and turn it into black gold (soil for food).

They grow and sell food to residents at a low cost using the soil they make. Other organic, local, chemical free foods include unpasteurized honey, free range eggs, and grain fed goat meat.†

From Growing Power – Rebekka’s photos

From Growing Power – Rebekka’s photos

From Growing Power – Rebekka’s photos

Hands on training is offered to eager students like us, who then take this to their communities. When the trip was over, we returned to Toronto with a box of 7 different kinds of wiggling worms, bags full of nutrient-rich castings and an eagerness to bring our own kind of “growing power” to Toronto. We would eventually name ourselves “FoodCycles”. The motto? “An Urban Growers Movement.”

WHO SUPPORTS FOODCYCLES?

FoodCycles supporters include Toronto’s Live Green Community Program, Parc Downsview Park, Pearl Jam, Wayne Roberts of Now Magazine, Green Thumbs Growing Kids, Heifer International Canada (Ontario), Evergreen, Home Depot, FoodShare, the STOP Community Food Centre, the Toronto Food Policy Council, Enterprising Non-profits Toronto, Carrot Cache, Earth Day Canada, Sobeys, MetroAg – the Alliance for Urban Agriculture, Matt Biderman LLB, Bernard Gropper Barristers and Solicitors and Nick Dumitru of ThinkBasis.

Download Our Info Flyer! (click here)

FoodCycles Information Handout Cards 2010e Version

ABOUT THE TEAM

ASHLEE COOPER

Ashlee Cooper coordinated the Eglinton Park Heritage Community Garden, conducting education sessions and developing ecological garden programming for children and adults as well as English as a second language classes for New Canadians.

She completed an internship in organic agriculture at a community supported agriculture farm in Guelph, Ontario in 2008 (Ignatius Farm http://bit.ly/xFO7u). Ashlee also trained at Growing Power Inc.

Sunny Lam

A Change Agent

Sunny helps people and groups in the social justice, environment and food sector to succeed at what they’re doing — making the world a better place. He does this by guiding people through planning their projects or businesses; helping them with promotion, communications, personal branding and brokering or helping people experiment with new fundraising strategies. These days a big focus is on social media.

A Maverick

Sunny has co-developed, planned and promoted a local food system initiativewith 10 core organizers and over 100 volunteers thanks to a $90,000 grant from the Agricultural Management Institute (AMI). It included executing a 4 part speaker series, workshops and a Local Food Summit with over 1000 people in attendance and 6 keynote speakers.

Sunny co-founded and promoted a monthly university farmers’ market over 2 years that provided special food retail services to 20,000 people (Queen’s University no less). Sunny has experience managing a community garden with over 70 supporters in a low income neighbourhood and working on 3 organic farms including Growing Power Inc. He is also the board member at large andweb manager for Canadian Organic Growers Toronto.

Sunny is also co-founder of FoodCycles food and agriculture learning centre at Downsview Park. He has helped to manage everything from sprout production, business and operations planning, budgeting, communications (includes Twitterand Facebook), bookkeeping and event planning.



REBEKKA HUTTON

Rebekka Hutton is the Community Development Program Manager for Evergreen’s Common Grounds Program. Rebekka brings 20 years of community and customer service experience in the arts, travel, and hospitality sectors, as well as four years connecting diverse communities with nature through the growing of food.

Her involvement with FoodCycles is driven by her passion for community building and knowledge of the food cycle. Rebekka has also trained at Growing Power Inc.

Ian Aley

Ian Aley is FoodShare’s (http://www.foodshare.net) Community Food Facilitator and supports urban agriculture projects across the City. He also acts as a Food Animator at FoodShare, building capacity for new community kitchens, fresh food markets, and community gardens in low-income neighbourhoods.

Ian has worked on both rural and urban farms including Growing Power Inc. He has also educated youth about environmental issues and engaged communities in neighbourhood-based environmental initiatives.

Susan Butler

Susan Butler is a long-time staff member of FoodShare Toronto, and founding board member of Green Thumbs, Growing Kids, and of FoodCycles. She is also board member of Toronto Educational Opportunity Fund.

She has worked in Toronto schools since 1996 as a resource person improving access to healthy food for families through student nutrition programs and food gardens.

SUNDAY HARRISON

Sunday Harrison is Executive Director of Green Thumbs, Growing Kids (http://www.kidsgrowing.ca/), a hands-on urban agriculture and environmental organization that works in school food gardens. She brings over 10 years of experience in community development and composting to the project.

David Wild

David Wild

David Wild set up and ran a successful medical writing business before developing a passionate interest in food production and soil conservation. David is also highly skilled in building relationships for FoodCycles.

He has worked on an organic farm in Ontario growing gourmet vegetables (Cookstown Greens; http://bit.ly/9qaZG) and has volunteered at Growing Power, an innovative urban agriculture project based in Milwaukee.

MIKE NEVIN

Mike Nevin is recognized as Toronto’s top expert on composting, running FoodShare’s composting operations and educating hundreds of people a year through workshops at FoodShare and City of Toronto Environment Days as well as through site visits and consultation work.

Mike keeps himself up to date with new research in composting and continues to develop new techniques and pass this knowledge on to others.

Check out the Contact Us page.