Canadian Organic Growers

Background

Canadian Organic Growers (COG) was founded in 1975 to promote organic growing in order to build healthy local communities and ecosystems.

As the largest Canadian organic association, with board members and members in every province and one territory, COG works to develop the Canadian organic sector by

  • encouraging farmers to transition to organic methods
  • creating consumer awareness through public education campaigns
  • encouraging governments to develop policies to support food organic systems

COG’s members are diverse and include farmers, gardeners, processors, retailers and consumers.

Grant Description

This grant supports COG’s A Healthy Start project, which contributes to sustaining farm communities and children’s health by creating markets for organic produce within daycare centres. COG has identified corporate and institutional daycares as potential “early adopters” because these centres usually operate on a large scale and often at more than one site. They also have the resources to invest in making this transition and often have the incentive to do so because of their existing social responsibility policies.

COG will select four communities with promising corporate, university or municipal daycares as partners for the initial demonstration program. COG staff and local chapter members will work with the daycare centres, local farmers and other community actors to plan and implement this program. The next step is to support learning and replication, with a long-term goal of local and organic food becoming the norm in Canadian daycare centres.

Canadian Organic Growers

Visit www.cog.ca for more information

Overview

  • 2006-2009
  • $ 388,800
  • Funding Type: Past Initiatives
  • Initiatives: General contributions