Community Partnerships 2019-2020
Community engaged projects prepare our students through experiential learning, while providing partner organizations with a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team to work through a challenge identified by the partner.
The City of Guelph/County of Wellington is the successful winner of a $10M grant to implement a bold vision to create Canada’s first circular food economy. The graduate team is developing an inventory of criteria that will inform the definition of circular food business. Identifying and developing criteria will inform what data will need to be collected throughout measurement and evaluation to ensure Our Food Future is meeting its performance outcomes.
The SEED is a community project of the Guelph Community Health Centre whose goal is to eradicate food insecurity in Guelph by increasing food literacy and access to healthy food. The graduate team is participating in the pilot of the Fresh Food Rx Pilot by conducting surveys and interviews of potential clients. They are also supporting the pilot in data analysis, community and policy advocacy and future study design.
The graduate team will be a part of a larger pilot study to test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary impact of a Food Waste Reduction Toolkit for families. This project will involve developing intervention messages (ie text messages) to support food waste reduction, primary data collection from families, recruitment of families, facilitating parent /child cooking nights and education sessions, data analysis, and creating a variety of knowledge mobilization tools.
Semex is an international company that provides high quality semen from carefully selected elite sires for the dairy and beef industries. The graduate team is conducting market research and technology development services to propose a course of action for Semex in predicting the desired genetics for each region.
Through a series of case studies, the graduate team is examining environmental impacts of agritourism, including impacts due to overtourism. This information will aid CTA in determining how destinations prioritize environmental sustainability and how tourists value environmentally-friendly practices.
Ripple Farms is an Aquaponics Farm system balancing sustainability and innovation to grow high quality crops and Toronto’s freshest seafood and greens 365 days a year. The graduate team is conducting a market feasibility study involving qualitative market research in order to produce convincing communications.
Oreka Solutions’ mission is to harness the power of the black soldier fly to transform animal feed. The graduate team will support Oreka Solutions through mapping and identifying food waste streams in Guelph/Wellington area, and informing the creation of a management and tracking software system to track input at all levels (retail, processors, farmers, and brewers).