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On local procurement, school meals, and what it would actually take to build a resilient urban food system in Toronto.
Earlier this year I had a meeting with the Mayor's team — specifically with staff working on poverty reduction and inclusive economic development. I prepared carefully. I wrote talking points. I thought about what I wanted to say and what I wanted to leave them with.
What I wanted to leave them with was this: there is a local food system growing in this city. It is small, underfunded, and operating largely on goodwill and determination. It could be something much larger, if the City chose to be a partner rather than a bystander.
The Ask: Local Procurement That Actually Means Something
Toronto has a school food program. It has nutrition mandates across its youth and community services. It runs camps, after-school programs, nutrition initiatives. Every one of those programs sources food. The question I put to the Mayor's team was simple: how much of that food is coming from local farms, and is there a commitment to change that number?
At Zawadi, we grow food that is ready to supply institutional programs. We have the capacity, the relationships, and the values alignment to be a meaningful partner. What we need is a guaranteed market — not charity, but a contract. A pilot. A procurement commitment that gives local farms the demand stability we need to invest in production.
Every institutional meal sourced from a local farm is two things at once: a nutritious meal for a young person, and a vote for the kind of food system we want to build.
The Infrastructure Gap
One of the recurring conversations with the City team was about infrastructure. Cold storage. Distribution hubs. Processing facilities. These are not glamorous asks, but they are the difference between a farm that can supply an institution and one that cannot.
Small farms cannot individually invest in the infrastructure required to serve large institutional buyers. This is where the City has a role: not in telling us how to farm, but in building the shared infrastructure that makes it possible for local farms to participate in the food economy at scale. A regional food hub, with cold storage and aggregation capacity, would transform what local agriculture can deliver to Toronto's institutions.
The Land Question
I also raised land access. Toronto owns land. The city has vacant parcels, underutilised lots, rooftops, community spaces that could be growing food. Every year that land sits idle is a year the city is importing vegetables that could be grown here.
The Zawadi Farm lease at Downsview Park took years to negotiate. For Black-led and community-led farms, land tenure is often the most significant barrier to scale. The City has the tools to change this — subsidised leases, urban agriculture zoning, long-term agreements that allow farms to invest in the soil. These tools exist. They need the political will to be deployed.
What I Left Them With
I left that meeting with a clear sense of where the alignment is and where the gaps remain. The City is genuinely interested in local food systems. The Poverty Reduction Strategy names equitable access to food as a priority. The school food program is an opportunity for local sourcing at meaningful scale.
What I am watching for is whether that interest translates into procurement decisions, into infrastructure investment, into land access policies. Good intentions matter. But in a food system, what gets grown is what gets supported.
I will keep showing up to these conversations. That is part of the work too.
Much love and light — Jessey Njau, Founder of Zawadi Farm
