Part 2 of 6 | Where Did All The Money Go?

Part One of Five: Kathleen Wynne and the Millions Promised to Ontario’s Local Food System

Let’s go way back.

And before everybody starts arguing about Liberals and Conservatives, let me make something perfectly clear.

I don’t care which political party you support. As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to our food system, Liberals and Conservatives are, in my opinion, two sides of the same coin.

Different colours. Different slogans. Different politicians standing behind podiums announcing millions of dollars in funding.

And somehow, we’re still having the same conversations.

Local food. Food security. Sustainability. Food sovereignty. Supporting farmers. Strengthening communities.

We’ve been hearing these promises for decades.

I was already working in food security when many of these announcements were being made.

I remember them. I remember the conversations about all the wonderful things we were supposedly going to accomplish. And I remember starting to question where all this money was actually going.

Even back then, I could see the disconnect between the amount of funding being announced and what was happening on the ground.

More than a decade later, I have considerably more questions.

So I’ve decided to start following the money.

Let’s Start With Kathleen Wynne

In 2013, Kathleen Wynne became Ontario’s Liberal premier. She also served as Minister of Agriculture and Food.

That same year, her government introduced the Local Food Act, intended to strengthen local food economies, increase awareness of Ontario-grown food and create new opportunities for producers.

Then came the money.

In September 2013, her government announced $30 million over three years for the Local Food Fund.

The funding supported marketing, regional partnerships, equipment, processing, distribution and other local food initiatives.

According to Ontario’s 2016-17 reporting, approximately $21 million was invested in more than 150 projects, leveraging over $98 million in total investment.

The province’s 2014-15 report alone identified $9.7 million in funding for 79 approved projects.

And that was just one program.

In October 2015, the Wynne government announced another $6 million over three years for the Greenbelt Fund, a nonprofit supporting local food access, institutional purchasing, education and market development.

By 2016-17, $3.8 million had been allocated to 77 projects, with an additional $1 million announced for 2017-18.

There were other programs, too.

Foodland Ontario, Growing Forward 2, the Rural Economic Development program, agricultural innovation initiatives, food-processing investments and various funding opportunities administered through provincial agencies.

These programs weren’t all exclusively about local food, and their budgets cannot simply be added together. But they demonstrate just how many different funding streams were operating.

Millions upon millions of dollars directed toward strengthening Ontario’s agricultural and food economy.

And Guess Who Else Received Funding? Grocery Stores.

Here’s something I find particularly interesting.

In June 2015, the Ontario government announced up to $446,138 in Local Food Fund support for Longo’s, an established grocery retailer.

The funding was intended to help promote Ontario farmers and processors, improve online shopping functionality and develop an in-store sausage program.

Another $948,025 was approved for VG Meats to expand beef processing and packaging, with the objective of supplying more than 25 Longo’s grocery stores.

Now, supporting Ontario meat processing is a worthwhile objective. But this raises a much bigger question.

When public money is being invested to strengthen local food systems, how much is going toward building independent infrastructure for small farmers, and how much is helping established retailers expand their existing operations?

And why should an established grocery retailer receive nearly half a million dollars in public support for marketing and business development?

I’d like to know what those investments accomplished, what financial contributions the recipients made themselves, and how the benefits were shared with Ontario farmers.

Because when we’re talking about food sovereignty, who owns the infrastructure and who controls the market matters just as much as where the food was grown.

What Did We Actually Build?

Where are the permanent regional food hubs connecting small farmers directly to their communities?

Where are the affordable processing facilities?

Where are the independent distribution networks that allow small producers to compete without surrendering their margins to an increasingly centralized supply chain?

Which organizations received funding? What did they accomplish? How many projects are still operating?

The original Local Food Fund ended as scheduled in 2016. The Greenbelt Fund’s provincially funded Local Food Investment Fund expired in March 2019.

The Greenbelt Fund reported positive results, including increased local food sales. Some investments clearly produced some benefits.

But how much of this funding created infrastructure capable of supporting itself over the long term?

A successful grant application is not the same thing as a successful food system.

Meanwhile, Food Bank Use Has Exploded

According to Feed Ontario’s 2025 Hunger Report, more than one million Ontarians accessed food banks between April 2024 and March 2025.

There were approximately 8.7 million visits.

That’s an 87% increase in people accessing food banks and a 165% increase in visits compared with 2019-20.

Let those numbers sink in.

We have spent years discussing food security, announcing programs, distributing grants and building charitable responses to hunger.

And more people are depending on emergency food assistance.

Of course, housing costs, inadequate incomes and “inflation” contribute to food insecurity. Local-food funding alone cannot solve those problems.

But I think we need to examine the difference between continually financing emergency food assistance and investing in the infrastructure that could make healthy food more accessible and affordable.

Food banks provide an essential service. Yet emergency food assistance is not the same thing as building a resilient local food economy.

And after years of funding announcements, I think it’s reasonable to ask how much progress we’ve actually made.

The Nonprofit Question

I have nothing against nonprofit organizations. But I have serious questions about how public money is distributed and how success is measured.

How much goes toward administration, consultants, studies, salaries, marketing campaigns and short-term pilot projects?

How much reaches farmers?

How much builds physical infrastructure?

How much creates businesses and assets that can continue operating when the funding runs out?

And how many organizations are competing for grants to address different pieces of a problem that ultimately requires a functioning economic system?

These are questions worth investigating, and I intend to look more closely at actual recipients and their results throughout this series.

What I’ve Learned Building Small Scale Farms

After years of working in food security and building Small Scale Farms, I’ve come to understand just how much of this problem comes down to infrastructure.

Farmers need customers. Customers need affordable food. Both need a distribution system that works.

We need regional warehousing, processing capacity, independent retail markets, transportation, home delivery and practical education.

We need systems that allow small farmers to compete and communities to participate directly in their own food economies.

And we need economic models capable of surviving without another government cheque.

That’s what I’ve been working to build through Small Scale Farms, our food hubs, Red Maple Farm School and the broader network we’re developing.

There is an enormous difference between creating another funded program and creating an economy that can sustain itself.

Thirteen Years Later

Ontario introduced the Local Food Act in 2013.

Here we are in 2026, still talking about food security, strengthening local supply chains and the urgent need for regional infrastructure.

And now Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced another major round of federal commitments.

His National Food Security Strategy includes a proposed $1 billion Food-Link Fund over ten years, with plans to expand food terminals and create up to 40 commercial food hubs. It also includes $1 billion in agri-food project financing, a $150 million equipment fund, $100 million for food innovation and $750 million for greenhouses and hydroponics.

Some of those commitments are financing rather than direct grants, and we’ll examine the details separately.

But that deserves an entire article of its own.

For now, I want to know what happened to the money Ontario was spending more than a decade ago.

Who received it?

What was built?

What survived?

And what can we learn before committing billions more?

At some point, we need to stop measuring progress by how much money governments announce and start measuring what that money actually accomplishes.

Food is infrastructure.

And a community that cannot meaningfully participate in producing, processing and distributing its own food is not nearly as independent as it thinks.

To be continued.

FOLLOW THE FOOD MONEY - PART ONE OF FIVE SOURCES & REFERENCES

Ontario Government - 2013 Local Food Fund Announcement ($30 Million)

Ontario Ministry of Agriculture - Annual Reports and Local Food Fund Expenditures

Ontario Government - 2015 Greenbelt Fund Announcement ($6 Million)

Ontario Government - June 2015 Local Food Fund Recipients, Including Longo’s ($446,138) and VG Meats ($948,025)

Greenbelt Fund - Funding Update and Program Expiration

Feed Ontario - 2025 Hunger Report

Prime Minister of Canada - National Food Security Strategy, June 2026