The Eco-Just Food Network is a network of households, communities, organizations and food providers dedicated to creating a resilient local, just and ecological healthy food system. We are committed to making good healthy food available for everyone who needs to eat and to reduce food waste in the system.
How Does the Network Work?
The Eco-Just Food Network groups individuals from households and communities into Food Corps teams which act as mobile farm and food work units that travel to different farms and food providers to help in the production and distribution of food.
Food Corps teams are limited to 10 members and each team will remain and work together for the duration of a growing season. This is not only to ensure safety during this COVID-19 pandemic (by creating a closed work circle) but also to foster genuine and deep relationships that are the bedrock of healthy communities.
Each team will have one or two team leaders who will coordinate the logistics of the team’s activities, including liaising with different food providers regarding work needed, transportation, scheduling and time accreditation.
Food Corps members will receive training in different farm and food processing skills — as well as leadership and life skills — and will work as a team with different food providers to ensure that crops are planted, harvested and processed.
Time Banking
The activities of the network will be coordinated and administered through its time bank, the Eco-Just Food Time Bank.
What is time banking? Click here.
Food providers in the network will post on the time bank the help they need. For example, a farm may post on the time bank that it needs help with garlic planting.
Food Corps team leaders will regularly monitor the time bank for work requests and shortlist those requests which are of interest to their team members. Together, each team will decide on the requests they will fulfill. Team leaders will contact and make arrangements with the food provider for the work to done.
After the work is completed, team leaders are responsible for ensuring that each team member is properly accredited for the work they have performed for a food provider. This is done again via the time bank. For every hour a Food Corps member has worked, that person receives a time dollar on their time bank account.
A person may spend their time dollar just like money within the time bank system. This means they can spend it on products offered by food providers or services which are offered by other members of the time bank. Time dollars cannot be converted to Canadian currency.