By Hamutal Dotan

As Torontoist reported recently, City Council has been considering a local food procurement policy, which would mandate increasing the proportion of food that city departments purchase from GTA farmers. Though the proposal that made it to council was substantially more modest than the version first proposed by city staff, it too faced some resistance. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong seemed rather worried that the policy would lead to children in daycare being denied oranges, for instance. So great was his concern that he felt compelled to introduce a motion (ruled out of order by Mayor Miller) that the city first implement the policy at City Hall rather than in daycare centres, presumably so that councillors could show solidarity with the toddlers as they too went without their oranges at lunch. Interested citizens everywhere will be relieved to learn that the local procurement policy passed easily, and staffers assured the anxious councillor that oranges would remain available nonetheless. In even better news for local food advocates, Councillor Jenkins (possibly acting on the recommendation of the Toronto Environmental Alliance) successfully introduced an amendment calling for the city to investigate the feasibility of setting a target of purchasing 50% of its food locally (the rate is currently at about 20%).