Food program for families, farmers is at risk

A program that helped supply families with fresh food and local food producers with income for the last two years is teetering on the edge of oblivion.

The Manitoba Community Food Currency Program is an initiative of Direct Farms Manitoba, an organization dedicated to supporting farms and farmers’ markets.
In 2020 and 2021, the program has handed out coupons to families that act as currency at any of the five farmers’ markets partnered with Direct Farms Manitoba.

After its pilot year, the program grew by more than 60 per cent, thanks to funding from the Manitoba Building.
Sustainable Communities Program and the Winnipeg Foundation.
“Last year, we distributed $69,000 worth of community food currency, and we had a 98.5 per cent redemption rate,” said Kristie Beynon, Direct Farm Manitoba’s executive director.

That stocked the pantries of 242 households, a number that represents only a fraction of interested families, Beynon said.

With the “overwhelmingly positive” response from both participants and farmers’ markets, the organization was hoping to expand the program to include 700 households this year.

In order to fund the expansion, the program would need “direct provincial investment,” Beynon said.

Beynon pointed to similar programs in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, which enjoy provincial support. In B.C., that support rings in at $2 million per year, and in Nova Scotia, the population of which numbers nearer to Manitoba’s, it runs the province $400,000 each year.