Northern Healthy Foods Initiative Evaluation

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Northern Healthy Foods InitiativeEvaluation
Shirley Thompson, Paul Fieldhouse, kimlee wong,
Asfia Gulrukh, Shauna Zaharuik, Myrle Ballard

Funded CIHR
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OVERVIEW

• What the heck is the NHFI?
• What evaluation?
• What results so far.

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Northern Food Prices Report 2003 mandated by the
Healthy Child Committee of CabinetSummary
Recommendations

• 1. Northern Food Self-sufficiency
• (building community capacity for greater food
  self-sufficiency)
• 2. Milk Price Review
• 3. Northern Food Business Development
• 4. Northern Community Foods Program (food sharing
  programs)
• 5. Northern Greenhouse Pilot Project
• 6. Northern Gardens Initiative
• 7. Northern Food Prices Survey

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COMMUNITY PRIORITIES
Food system change to sustainable local food
production
Education
Better access to healthy foods
Local production (GROW NORTH)
LOWER PRICES
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Applause for lack of jurisdictional boundaries

• A CBO representative commended the lack of
  jurisdictional boundary and funding of Provincial
  northern affairs communities and federal First
  Nations and credited this largely to the late MLA
  Oscar Lathlin and Eric Robinsons insistence on
  making a difference by putting food on the table
  in all northern communities.

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Operationalizing the Report

• Commenced 2005
• Cabinet approved priorities
• Northern gardens
• Local food self-sufficiency
• Nutrition awareness
• Local food business development

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NHFI community grants budget
2005/06 2005/06 2006/07
Description Description Description ( 000) ( 000) ( 000)
Regional projects 66 66 66 135 135
"Grow North" grants 47 47 47 67 67
Agricultural support 30 30 30 67 67
Education grants 9 9 9 90 90
Special community projects 5 5 5 90 90
Program administration 22 22 22 30 30
Total Total 179K 179K 179K 479K
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NHFI community grants budget
2007/08 2008/09 2008/09
Regional Partners 120.0 140.0 140.0
Grow North Agricultural Support 67.0 47.4 47.4
"Grow North" Material/Equipment 88.4 28.0 28.0
Education grants/projects 63.3 82.2 82.2
Special Community Projects 265.3 287.2 287.2
Subtotal 604.0 584.8 584.8
Program administration 30.0 30.0 30.0
Total 634.0K 634.0K 614.8K
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Evaluation methods to date

• Six hour focus group followed by a feast with 25
  NHFI community members
• 25-30 interviews with community members
• 3 hour focus group with NHFI team
• 6 interviews with NHFI and government
• 8 Interviews with CBO staff or board
• Community visits
• Workshops with Frontier School Division and
  Burntwood Regional Health Authority

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Evaluation Methods in Future

• Household food security surveys (CCHS 2.2 method)
• Community visits
• Food costing in local northern food stores
  (healthy food basket) 2 carried out to date

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Household food insecurity rates in Manitoba

• Manitoba average 9.4 (First Nation reserves not
  included), close to the Canadian national average
  (Health Canada, 2007).
• Sub-population groups much lower
• Lowest income adequacy quintile (55), social
  assistance recipients (62) and Aboriginals
  off-reserve (33) (Health Canada, 2007 Shields,
  2005).

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Service Delivery Model
MAFRI
Healthy Living
NHFI TEAM
Healthy Child
Aboriginal and Northern Affairs
FNIH PHAC
Conservation
Community based organizations
Other Depts
Regional Health authorities
Communities
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NHFI Community Based Organizations

• Northern Association of community councils
• -gardens
• Greenhouses
• COMMUNITIES South Indian Lake, Brochet ,
  Sherridon , Granville Lake/Leaf Rapids and Berens
  River

• Four Arrows Regional Health Authority
• Gardens
• - Freezer loans
• - Cold storage at airports
• -hunting program?
• COMMUNITIES Wasagamack, Garden Hill, St. Theresa
  Point, and Red Sucker Lake including Stevenson
  Island

• Bayline Regional
• Roundtable
• Chicken production
• - community gardens
• -greenhouses
• - Freezer loans
• COMMUNITIES Cormorant, Wabowden, Thicket
  Portage, Pikwitonei, Ilford and War Lake
  FN,Bunibonibee FN Nelson House

LOWER PRICES

• Frontier School Division
• -Veggie Adventure Curriculum
• Germination kits in schools
• - Greenhouses
• Gardens in the Community

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Community ChampionsLocal Capacity

• BRRT pays community champions to pass on the
  gift of gardening Ag Tech funds pay community
  experienced gardeners to mentor new gardeners in
  the community. We just have to engage experienced
  gardeners, offer them some supports and let them
  teach. That is what we did with our Ag Tech
  resources again this year.

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Community Gardens

• We were going to have a community garden but for
  vandalism reasons we have decided to help people
  do their own garden instead. Going to receive
  1000 worth of fruit trees through NHFI to give
  away. Workshops will be given on how to care for
  them and will encourage people to share produce.

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CBOs pushing for Policy changes

• We are still trying to work with Family Services
  and Housing to have freezers identified as an
  essential appliance for northern families.
• We also took the initiative from the BRRT to
  get permission from CMHC and Manitoba Housing to
  cultivate the land, to put up gardens on these
  rental units . And they gave us the permission.
  Where before people were scared and weary to
  garden on land that wasnt theirs they were
  just tenants.

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Importance of Community Champions

• One representative from a CBO stated that some
  people want us to do the entire garden and
  unless people take responsibility the gardens
  are bound to fail. Although most communities
  have a community champion, if it is only one
  person, an illness or family issues can result in
  progress halts or reverses.
• Volunteers versus non-volunteers

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Growing Gardening Clubs Mel Johnson school,
Wabowden

• The gardening club grew from ten students in the
  first year to 45 in 2008.
• Each student received an 8 foot by 4 foot garden
  box complete with plants and soil built at the
  school.
• Each week over these summers, Ms. Woitowicz
  visited the childrens homes to encourage
  children to care for their gardens and found the
  children and their family had lots of questions
  and positive experiences.

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Leaf Rapids students harvested from school
garden and made a soup they shared.
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NHFI accomplishments

• Communities 28
• Gardens 420
• Freezer loans160 (95 being processed)
• Greenhouses 8
• Refrigeration Units3
• Other Chicken Goat Farming15 families
• Education events 3 Veggie Adventure workshops, 3
  Northern Harvests, local food preservation and
  gardening workshops in most communities
•  

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Grow North Activities
Northern Greenhouse
Veggie Adventure Curriculum
Other Local Agriculture
Special Projects
Gardening
8 Communities This is year one Best practices
Frontier schools Germinating in 22 schools
28 - 30 Communities Large knowledge Deficit
4 Communities Chickens Goats 15 Families
160 Freezers in Communities 3 Refrigeration
Units
Total
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Healing and Motivating CED

• Doing gardening is very healing for the
  community, because theyre seeing something
  positive, something that grows, you can put a
  seed in the ground and it will grow and thats a
  positive thing. And if people start working
  together and thats what were talking about with
  community development.

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Increasing Community Cohesion

• The program is really popular in the
  communitiesI think that it brings a lot of
  community togetherness in the program because
  theyve developed their own kinds of programs
  based off gardening. They do community feasts,
  community meals on wheels. Theyve really
  expanded and come together.

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What are people from communities saying?

• Need community to work together and to use
  people who know how to farm, talk to farmers and
  ask them if they could help person to teach how
  to cultivate that land so that they can expand
  and teach others or the farmers donate / rent
  tillers. We can produce our own food and thats
  what we need to do.
• Im hearing that people need to be educated and
  I agree with that, our main staple is pasta there
  is so much sugar in pasta and macaroni, that is
  where a lot of diabetes starts, we need to
  educate.

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Sustainable food Back to traditional ways

• Going back to traditional ways of living, eating
  off land and gardening, we have lost that and now
  are recapturing it. We can teach future
  generations to live off land like our ancestors,
  this is how we started getting chronic diseases
  by using things we never used before. Ancestors
  gardened, smoked meat and fish etc. Elders are
  passing on and are taking that knowledge with
  them.

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Not only gardens were being grown but the
expertise of gardeners

• NHFI has been operating for four years and we
  now have a couple of local experts in gardening
  I can see progress. I have spoken to people who
  will till the ground and will garden in spring.
  There is progress, which will mushroom over the
  next few years Will only go forward not
  backward.