Fighting food insecurity

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2023 (798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Food insecurity is a huge problem in Manitoba. Now is the time to do something about it.

According to a recent Free Press article, Vince Barletta, Harvest Manitoba’s Chief executive officer, indicated that in May, “46,000 Manitobans relied on a food bank to meet a portion of their monthly household food needs.” With the rising cost of groceries and most incomes failing to keep up with the cost of inflation, many Manitobans are having a hard time putting food on the table.

In May, we might be hard-pressed in Manitoba, as individuals, to source additional food to meet our province’s needs. We can donate from our pantries but little grows outdoors that early in the season. In the middle of the summer, everywhere I go, I see fruit trees loaded with fruit or backyards, front yards or community gardens loaded with verdant garden growth.

Manitobans know how to produce food. Even in Winnipeg, we’ve got a lot of produce growing.

However, food waste is a real issue. It’s not going away. We often read about restaurant and grocery store food waste, and these are issues that can be fixed. Food rescue stores sell food that is still good but past its “best buy” dates. Some restaurants regularly donate their leftovers to food shelters. If you’re not running a restaurant or a grocery store, perhaps you feel this effort doesn’t apply to you. Think again.

We can all avoid food waste by using what’s in our refrigerators and pantries, and donating what we don’t need. There’s still more that we can do.

All over Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba, our apple, apricot, and pear trees are coming ripe.

My family’s raspberry bushes are covered in ripe berries. We picked sour cherries at a neighbour’s tree last week. Nanking cherries, those little gems peeking out of hedges all over the city, came ripe early this year. Harvesting from these trees and from our gardens is well within our capabilities. Perhaps, if you’re already mindful of this, you’ve been harvesting extra produce all along. For those who haven’t, here are some tips on how you can make a difference.

Perhaps you have no troubles personally with food insecurity but have a fruit tree, planted long ago, in your yard. Don’t cut it down!

Making use of that food is the best way to honour those elders who planted your tree long ago. If you can use all that fruit, that is great! Dehydrating, canning, freezing and eating fresh fruit are all ways to make use of your garden’s treasures.

If you’re not interested in the fruit but besieged by wasps due to a fruit tree, the fastest way to resolve it is to harvest that fruit.

Compost the waste on the ground or put it into yard waste. If you have far more produce than you can use, you have options. Consider asking your friends and family to share the produce. Put up a sign inviting neighbours to pick the fruit. Post online on Nextdoor, Kijiji or wherever you feel comfortable and invite others to come pick and share your bounty.

Using this approach, my family has made many connections with neighbours and friends, along with dehydrating apple chips for school, making applesauce, chutney, and all sorts of other jams and delights.

I enjoy cooking, and putting up summer produce for later saves money and time. In winter, I love taking the jars from the shelf and tasting summer sunshine on a snowy day.

Yet, if your efforts result in many more apples (or other fruit and vegetables) than you can use, make use of Harvest Manitoba’s drop off.

One year, we picked too many apples for our use, and after we gave some to a daycare, a senior centre, and to friends, we drove to the drop off site. We drove up to the right bay, put the produce into a bin, and filled out a single line on a form. It was a great lesson in sharing for my kids. For me, it was much more.

Looking into that bin and reading the form brought me to tears. Some lines had people’s names on them, but many more said “anonymous.”

In the donation bin that day, I saw squash, cucumbers, apples, and other fresh produce. On the form, there was a question about what was being donated and why. Over and over, in many different handwriting scrawls, I saw “Excess garden produce” or “More than I can use.”

As I pulled my car away from the food bank, I had compose myself to drive home. Thank you, fellow Manitobans, I thought. I was truly moved by what I saw there at the food bank, and I didn’t even go indoors.

Mayor Bowman invited people a year or two ago to “Grow an extra row” in their gardens to help others during the pandemic. While we’ve got a new mayor and different public health guidelines now, the advice is still sound. Everyone can help with our province’s food insecurity by avoiding waste.

Every extra apple or zucchini you pick or grow can provide nutrition on somebody’s dinner plate if we share. A food bank, daycare, senior centre, homeless shelter or a place of worship might be waiting for your call.

Please, don’t let that fruit rot this summer… step up and help out by sharing what’s already in our gardens, on our trees, and in our hearts. Let’s fight hunger together.

Joanne Seiff is an opinion writer and author from Winnipeg.