A Fine Balance

In an effort to better understand the impediments to growth for the local food sector, the Consumers' Association of Canada, Manitoba Branch, examined three key areas of interest from which the concerns and interests of producers, processors, consumers, regulators, and retailers could be identified: food safety regulations, marketplace accessibility, and access to food production and processing fa [...] Legislation from Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia was featured in the provincial legislation analysis in order to investigate the roles of government, community and industry and the effects of their support and participation on the design, flexibility and accessibility of food legislation and regulations. [...] With the assistance of the stakeholder advisory group, CAC Manitoba provided several recommendations for addresing the challenges of the local food sector including, reviewing legislation, examining and addressing the growing trend of increased production and processing centralization, and developing and administering promotion and labelling programs. [...] The groups’ tasks were to: describe the small scale food production and processing sector in Manitoba; to characterize the benefits of small scale food production and processing in Manitoba; to lead conversations across the province to help the public and established, new and potential 
small processors and direct farm marketers to move forward and take advantage of the market opportunities; and t [...] The sector needs a mechanism to represent their collective interests to government, to other parts of the agriculture and food sector and to the public (SSFM, p. 46).