Sharing Stories and Growing Food Justice in Toronto

By Caitlin Langois (October 2011)

Recently, I had the unique opportunity to work collaboratively with one of Toronto’s leading food justice activists, Anan Lololi, to create this digital story featured here: Anan’s Story: Growing Food Justice in Toronto. Anan is the Executive Director of Afri-Can Food Basket (AFB), a non-profit organization in Toronto addressing food security in Toronto’s racialized and low-income communities through urban agriculture and community gardening, africanfoodbasket.com. He is also a founding member of the Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI), a North American network that aims to critically examine, advance knowledge, and stimulate action in food justice by developing and sharing anti-racist and human-rights approaches to local and sustainable food initiatives. [click here for full story]

African Foodbasket set to feed Africa

By H.E. Professor Bingu Wa Mutharika,
President of The Republic of Malawi – in The African Executive (August 2010)

The 14th Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union decided that within a period of five years, Africa must be able to feed itself and that after that period, no child in Africa should die of hunger, starvation or malnutrition.

To realize the decision, I am proposing a new strategic partnership for the “The African Food Basket: Innovations, Interventions and Strategic Partnerships” that will initially be implemented in Africa, with potential to extend to other developing nations. [click here for full story]

Afri-Can FoodBasket: Urban Agriculture putting down roots in Toronto

Carrot Cache Community Resources Inc.

“Okra, longbean, different kinds of squash;” Anan Lololi, Founder and Executive Director of the Afri-Can Food Basket, is listing off vegetables that are hard to find in Toronto. “Callaloo. Have you ever tasted callaloo? Cook it with olive oil and garlic. It’s the most amazing leaf vegetable you could eat.”

Callaloo grows like a weed in Canada, but is hard to find in grocery stores and is expensive if you do find it. According to Lololi, this is because the majority of foods Ontario farmers grow are culturally specific to Europe. Callaloo, on the other hand, has roots in Africa. [click here for full story]