Farm To Fork

In early November, Food Banks Canada released their annual report for 2014 (Hunger Count 2014), and the stats presented were alarming. In a country as wealthy as ours, it's estimated that over 841,000 people will seek the assistance of a Food Bank each and every month. To put this into perspective, that's greater than the population of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and all three territories combined. At the same time, research has estimated that we waste upwards of 40% of all food produced. In fact, 30% of all fruits and vegetables never even make it to market because they are deemed not pretty enough.

Clearly we can do better.

Enter the Farm To Fork project.

Farm To Fork began as a 3rd year classroom project in the School of Computer Science at the University of Guelph. What does computer science have to do with hunger in Canada? On the surface - not much. But in 2012 thirty students were presented with the issue of local families struggling to put food on the table; some not seeing fresh fruits and veggies for months at a time. Partnering with local food security experts (the Guelph-Wellington Food Round Table, the Food Access Working Group, etc.), the students designed a website that would allow donors to:

   1. find and partner with a local emergency food provider (such as the Guelph Food Bank, Hope House, etc.).

   2. learn what foods were needed (because many emergency food providers can accept fresh fruits and veggies) through a weekly email delivered on the day the donor typically shopped.

   3. pledge exactly what was needed.

The response to Farm To Fork has been incredible. The team has heard from cities across Canada, the U.S., and beyond who want to use Farm To Fork to tackle insecurity in their communities. The Farm To Fork team wants to help by offering it free to anyone anywhere who can use it. Your donation will help by:

   1. expanding the program into other cities.

   2. finalizing the development and testing of the Farm To Fork mobile application, which will use location based technologies to alert donors of the real-time needs the minute they enter a grocery store or market.

   3. launching the mobile application for use in any community.

Thank you for considering Farm To Fork. If you have any questions, you can read more on the Farm To Fork blog (https://farmtoforkguelph.wordpress.com/), or visit the Farm To Fork website (http://farm-to-fork.ca/).