Food & Water First Campaign Details

Details

Published on Saturday, 16 March 2013 11:25

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Why have we launched this campaign?

Although the Mega Quarry application has been withdrawn, our food and water is still at risk.The existing Aggregate Resources Act (ARA) and our Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), still allow similar applications to be approved. We are continuing to demand changes to the ARA and PPS ensuring that Prime Farmland and Source Water regions are protected.

How do we "demand" changes to the government's current legislation?

With the use of social media (emails, letter writing, Facebook, Twitter) and visual media (Food & Water First signs, events to raise awareness), we plan to flood our representatives with messages, plant Food & Water First signs throughout the province and continue to raise awareness to this issue. We will make our voices heard loud and clear to our officials who we elected to represent us!

As individuals, how can we become involved in this campaign?

Take the Pledge.

"Plant" your Food & Water First signs on your lawns, bumper stickers on your cars (all these will be available through our sign depots and participating organizations and communities), answer our Calls to Action, sign up and participate in Food & Water First Facebook and Twitter, attend our awareness events and spread the word. Keep up to date by visiting www.ndact.com and the Food & Water First website.

What are Food & Water First Communities and Organizations?

Organizations and communities that have signed the Food & Water First Pledge, have agreed to the program and become Food & Water First participants.

The pledge and details of participation (the Food & Water First package) can be viewed at:

http://www.ndact.com/images/fwf/fawf-overview-final%2017mar13.pdf

Summarize the details of the Food & Water First package.

Firstly, in order to get our message of Food & Water First spread throughout the province, we need to involve other communities and organizations that value the prioritization of preserving Ontario's prime farmland and source water regions.

Those willing communities and organizations are presented with The Food & Water First package.

Participants sign the pledge stating:

I  promise to protect Ontario’s prime farmland and source water regions. I will make every effort to preserve the land and water that sustain us now and for future generations. I will put food and water first.

Next steps:

• Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask for the "Toolkit"
• They become "partners" and their logo is posted on the Food & Water First website partners page.
• They provide a weekly "agri-fact" - the importance of food and water and post it on their website/Facebook/Twitter
• They purchase Food & Water First signs with their website on the bottom and distribute the signs to their customers for "planting" to spread the word
• The Food & Water First website will include a blog with updates as well as links to their partners facbook and Twitter accounts where information and calls to action are shared with the FB and Twitter communities
• All this will help drive provincial policy change

I am an organization or business that would like to participate, how do I become involved?

1. Open up the presentation and read it. if you have any questions, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

2. Read and sign the pledge.

3. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask for the "Toolkit".

You will be emailed the "Toolkit", which has easy to follow instructions.

Announcement of our Food & Water First Campaign

Details

Published on Tuesday, 19 February 2013 15:56

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What's next for NDACT?

Round 2 of 2

So what is next?

First:

Diplay your Food and Water First  signs in spring.

The FOOD AND WATER FIRST campaign is in full swing and needs your help. We are close to being ready to ask every organization and business that earns its living from agricultural production to print the same FOOD AND WATER FIRST signs as NDACT does, put their own website address on the bottom and have their members plant them this May.

Those websites will have a “FOOD AND WATER” button on them and that button will open a page that shows the pledge everyone will make and each organization will put a single fact up, a new one every week, about what economic impact agriculture has on their business.

We will link this to Facebook and twitter and a “FOOD AND WATER” website. The goal is to show everyone how fundamentally important agriculture is to the economic well-being of the province, and that that well-being depends on the protection of the very land from which all this prosperity is generated. Politicians and bureaucrats will KNOW that we, the people, are not going away but that we will see this through until we get meaningful changes in the ARA and the PPS.

So how important has every single person’s participation been? Can one really make a difference? You bet!! First, touring around with politicians and ministerial staff, the second comment in the conversation always was on how they have seen “Stop the Mega Quarry “ signs everywhere they travelled in the Province, no matter where they travelled, from Windsor to Ottawa, St. Catherines’ to Sudbury and, of course all over Toronto. So please pick up your FOOD AND WATER FIRST signs on your way out and display them this spring. They send a huge signal that change is needed, and that solutions have been proposed, it is time to dust off the ARA review and put changes into play before the next election. And those signs serve another purpose in rural Ontario, which is solidly blue. These signs will demand from our Conservative representatives that they help us in the quest for the preservation of Prime Farmland and Source Water Regions, those signs will signal that we are united in this and that we need a policy statement from their leader that he is committed to supporting the economic preservation of the provinces livelihood, committed to the protection of Prime Farmland!!!

Second:

Respond to our Call to Actions - flooding our representatives with emails gets their attention

Second, when our group met with Jim Bradley, Ontario’s Environment Minister, he had assembled senior staff from all over the city and gave us twice the amount of time normally made available to delegations. Donna T, Harvey Kolodny and Dave VANDER Zaag did a very convincing job, highlighting agriculture, Culture and Tourism to him and his staff. When we were all done, I got up, shook his hand and thanked him for the attention to, and knowledge off, our file and concerns. He winked at me and said” Well done young man, you did alright, what made me really pay attention to your message were the 700 emails we got in the last couple of days asking me to pay attention!!!”””

So, the lesson here is simple, the “Calls to action” from the NDACT website work, please, keep checking the website, and engage, we need you again, every one of you and the contacts that you have, to see this through to the end.

This is not an everlasting battle, just round 2 of 2!!!!

Carl Cosack, NDACT Chair

Taken from his speech delivered Sat. Feb. 16, 2013

To see photos of the evening, click here.