Ontario's food banks turn to farmers for help

Monday, December 3, 2012

With food manufacturers cutting back on waste and the numbers of hungry Ontarians growing, the farming community is helping fill the gap. But the pork industry is lagging

by DON STONEMAN

While there are more hungry people in Ontario than ever before, donations to local food banks from food companies are falling off. The Ontario Association of Food Banks is looking to farmers to fill the widening gap, especially for protein.

According to an annual survey of food banks in Ontario, demand for assistance from those unable to afford to buy food continues to grow, says Carolyn Stewart, the provincial association's manager of operations and finance. A national annual survey, conducted last March, determined that nearly 413,000 clients used food banks in Ontario that month, up from 398,000 a year earlier. About 10 per cent were first-time users and 40 per cent of the recipients of food were children.

At the same time, donations are down from institutional donors as food manufacturers work harder to reduce waste by making their supply chains more efficient.

Food banks build hampers based upon Canada's Food Guide. Use of canned, non-perishable food is standard, but there is still a need for fresh healthy food, in particular for protein. "We are happy to be the contact point," between farmers and local food banks, Stewart says.

A couple of commodity groups are already making contributions. In 2012, Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) celebrated the 17th year of its dairy donation program. Thirteen million litres of milk have been donated by farmers and processors. Twice a year, DFO solicits farmers who agree to supply a certain volume of milk each month. Last winter, more than 300 farmers donated milk, which was processed by 13 participating fluid milk plants at no charge. Monthly donations average between 60,000 and 73,000 litres.

Ontario Pork's Donate-A-Hog program got off to a shaky renewal this year after a hiatus. In previous years, donations totalled $5,000 to $6,000. Donations to the program amounted to a mere $850 for the 2012 program which ran from March to September, says Keith Robbins, Ontario Pork's divisional manager of communications and consumer marketing. The pork board topped up donations to $3,050.

The financial trouble that the industry faces is only one reason for the poor donations. But Robbins points out that there are any number of other agricultural related groups making food bank donations, including local pork producer groups.

The Middlesex Pork Producers Association is an example. Lyle Hendrikx of Strathroy, chairman of the annual barbecue committee, says that this year the money raised bought eight hogs and pays for the processing at a local abattoir, and 2,000 pounds of processed frozen meat was sent to the London Food Bank. "We've been doing that for the last three or four years," Hendrikx says.  "It's about $3,000 worth of product, cut up." Another $3,000 from the barbecue supports other organizations with meat products.

The Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA) is also involved in local food aid. In 2012, associations in Ottawa, Dufferin, Dundas, Lambton, Kent and York all made donations to food banks.

In Ottawa, a producer-led initiative has been particularly successful. The annual Food Aid program raises more than $100,000 annually with proceeds going to buy meat for the Ottawa Food Bank. The program started in 2004, when cattle prices were depressed during the BSE crisis. Since then, more than $1 million has been raised and 750,000 pounds of beef have been donated to the food bank.

The brain child of Navan beef farmer Wyatt McWilliams, the effort is promoted by a local radio station and sponsored by local businesses. Buyers of a $10 meal get a burger, chips and a drink and free musical entertainment. The Canadian Meat Council supplies meat for a barbecue and a local bakery supplies the buns.

McWilliams says that, this year, a golf tournament raised another $50,000. The proceeds are used to buy cattle at a local auction which are slaughtered and processed at a discounted price, with the meat going to the food bank. Over eight years, the money raised bought 1,552 cows, as of the end of October, and another 198 cows were donated by farmers. "It is a community effort. The local radio station makes it work for us," McWilliams explains. The cattle buyer is a retired farmer "who bids as if it was his own money." The additional bidder at the weekly auction raises the return for other cattle at the market, McWilliams says.

He wonders why other communities aren't following the Ottawa model to get meat into food banks and direct money into the local community. "It's not rocket science," he says.

Another program for the Ottawa Food Bank is Community Harvest Ottawa. Three years ago, the bank got a Trillium grant from the province for a test site to run an agriculture program in the community, says Peter Tilley, the food bank's executive director. This year, its third, the program produced 75,000 pounds of fresh produce, including squash, beets, carrots, broccoli, cabbage and potatoes along with gleaned apples and sweet corn from orchards and fields.

Tilley says that more than 90 per cent of the people who use the food bank either rent or live in low income housing and also have to pay a utility bill to provide heat. So the cold months of January and February are a difficult time to make ends meet.

One proposal on the pork side is to collect ridgling hogs from swine farm gates and raise them in a community barn somewhere.

In western Ontario, a plan is being conceived to develop a sustainable constant supply of protein for food banks. "It is still very, very, early days," cautions co-ordinator Steve Thomas, a sales representative for Elanco Animal Health. The current proposal involves acquiring ridgling pigs, males that had undescended testicles and are often euthanized, and feeding them in a dedicated barn to produce a 75-85 kilogram carcass (the standard pig carcass in Ontario now is 96 to 98 kilograms). Intact males are not desirable in the pork supply chain, Thomas says. "We can get these animals free." Others in the pork production chain, such as veterinarians, feed companies and processors, need to be brought on board and to volunteer services and supplies, he adds.

In southwest Ontario, defined as west of a line drawn from Burlington to Meaford, there are 247,000 adult and 148,000 child food bank clients. Based on two 150-gram servings of protein per adult and one 75 gram serving per child, 170,000 pounds of pork per month would be needed to meet the need for protein. The calculation gives an idea of the need. "Obviously not all protein donations will come from pig meat," Thomas says. He is also talking to egg and chicken marketing boards about taking part in the food bank aid project.

The number of people going to food banks "is absolutely staggering and increasing," Thomas notes. Food banks have "all kinds of food" at Christmas "and almost nothing in February." BF

Donating direct
Farmers can make donations directly to a local food banks and the Ontario Association of Food Banks, based in Toronto, is happy to assist, says Carolyn Stewart, manager of operations and finance. The meat must have been processed at an inspected federal or provincial facility. Offers of hunted meat "are very generous but we can't accept it" because it hasn't been inspected, Stewart says.

Amanda King, associate manager of fundraising, communication and membership at the association of food banks, says farmers can be issued a charitable donation receipt when they deliver an animal for a food bank. Often they don't want one, she says, because Revenue Canada has ruled such donations must be declared as "a sale out of inventory," and for some producers claiming the charitable donation will move them into a higher tax bracket and there is no tax benefit.

"If they donate the beef, we give them a charitable receipt for the hanging weight based on a fair market value," says Peter Tilley, executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank. That "fair market value" is determined based upon a formula from three different potential buyers. Tilley says 95 per cent of the beef that the Ottawa Food Bank distributes is from cattle purchased at a sales barn. It isn't a donation. BF