For Immediate Release
TORONTO, August 12, 2016 – The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance has expanded their Golden Horseshoe Asset Mapping Project with a newly-released report that includes findings across the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH), an area that accounts for roughly 65% of the total agri-food jobs in the province of Ontario.
The analysis of the GGH food and farming sector has re-confirmed that it is a diverse and dynamic sector that contributes significant benefits to the region and overall economy.
“A key part of the Grow the Cluster pillar of our Action Plan, the asset mapping project was initiated to establish an understanding of agri-food assets in the area, and to help municipalities gather data on the agri-food value chain in their respective areas,” explains Jamie Reaume, Chair of the Alliance. This tool, which builds on a project released last year on the Golden Horseshoe, is now available to participating municipalities.
The report analyzes over 50,000 assets from the asset mapping database, including farms and agri-food businesses in the GGH. The agriculture value chain in the database includes a full spectrum approach, from primary production agriculture through to food services such as restaurants and institutions.
The centralized data has allowed for an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of existing assets, while identifying present gaps and profiling emerging economic opportunities within the regions’ food and farming cluster. The report offers four strategies that point to significant growth opportunities for the food and farming sector in the GGH Region.
Opportunities to grow the cluster are based on an overarching theme of increasing employment, investment and production value on this high-value land base, in a sustainable manner.
This GGH expanded analysis also uses non-spatial datasets on employment trends and industry size with support from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, as well as Statistics Canada.
The GHFFA is a partnership between the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, the Friends of the Greenbelt, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the regional municipalities of Niagara, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham, and the cities of Hamilton and Toronto. The collaboration works for an integrated and coordinated approach to food and farming viability in the area.
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Contact:
Janet Horner
Executive Director
Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance
519-925-5975
| janet@whitfieldfarms.com