Launch of Guide "Fresh from the Farm, Cooking According to Season"

Collective Kitchens in Quebec are encouraged to buy their produce from a local organic farm

Montreal, April 4, 2007–Équiterre and the Regroupement des cuisines collectives du Québec (RCCQ) today launched the guide "Fresh from the Farm, Cooking According to Season - a Practical Guide for Collective Kitchens". The guide encourages collective kitchens to purchase organic produce directly from farms in their area as a way for more people to have access to healthy food grown using environmentally friendly methods.

An Enjoyable, Easy-to-Use Guide

Presented in the form of a yearly calendar, the guide outlines the steps to follow, season by season, for building a relationship with a local farmer. It contains numerous practical tools, such as memory aids, a partnership agreement, evaluation grids and tons of tips and ideas for educational activities and recipes.

"Fresh from the Farm, Cooking According to Season" is the result of a two-year pilot project initiated by the RCCQ and conducted jointly by the RCCQ and Équiterre in the framework of the "Citoyennes et citoyens... À votre santé!" project. The aim of the project is to encourage Quebecers to adopt healthy eating habits. Based on the actual experiences of 60 participants, which indirectly impacted 200 people (family, friends, etc.), the project allowed the testing of supply partnerships as entered into by twelve collective kitchens and twelve organic farms.

Let’s Benefit from the Earth’s Bounty!

"The project contributed to making organic produce better known, and much more accessible and affordable than people thought possible. Participants were able to cook organic meals at a cost ranging from $0.50 to $1.57 per portion", says Germaine Chevrier, RCCQ director. "Moreover, this initiative has led the participants to add local organic food to their own home food stocks, to eat more fruit and vegetables, and to create a special relationship with a farmer ", adds Nadine Bachand, project coordinator of Équiterre’s ecological agriculture program.

"It’s another excellent way to experience our collective kitchen values of solidarity, democracy, equality, social justice, autonomy, and individual and collective self-sufficiency. It’s also an opportunity to get involved in one’s community, and to make progress toward greater food autonomy and a better quality of life", states Germaine Chevrier.

For more information, download the English version of the guide « Fresh from the farm - Cooking According to Season ».

The production of this guide was made possible thanks to funding from the Population Health Fund of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Équiterre is a non-profit organization whose mission is to contribute to building a citizens movement and promoting ecological and socially just individual and collective choices.

The RCCQ is a provincial non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the creation and consolidation of collective kitchens in Quebec.