Gateway CERH Attends 2025 Ontario Food Summit

Food is essential for health! Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health research assistant, Sage Milne attended the 2025 Ontario Food Summit on April 11th, 2025 in the City of Guelph.

Sage Milne, Research Assistant

It was a wonderful opportunity to learn about the changing agricultural landscape in rural communities. As part of Gateway CERH, I have been involved in projects related to agricultural including the GREAT Local food project and Cultivating Memories. As part of this event, I attended two discussions: one on local food tourism and the other on food insecurity.

The GREAT Local Food project explored Huron County's local food landscape and a report was released in 2024 to wrap up the project. Huron County is an innovative food tourism hub and the presentation showed how other farms are implementing on-farm diversified land use.

Another key discussion was the growing amount of food insecurity within Ontario. A member of the new Ministry of Rural Affairs shared concerning figures on the growth of food insecurity. A Report by Huron-Perth Public Health showed that food insecurity has increased. They showed that in 2024, "the cost of groceries for a family of four [...] was $1,338 per month." Food charity is not a sustainable strategy for addressing large-scale food insecurity, innovative and targeted strategies need to take place to promote food security.

About Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health 

Founded in 2008 in the community of Seaforth, ON, Gateway CERH is a not-for-profit rural health research organization run by a community-based volunteer board of directors. Gateway CERH's main mission is to better the health and quality of life of rural residents through research, education and communication. Learn more on the Gateway CERH website at: https://www.gatewayruralhealth.ca/ and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube