Kettle Valley Food Co-op receives funding from Canadian government
By Contributor
In the name of the Honourable Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of Veterans Affairs, Minister of State (Agriculture), The Honourable Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway announced that the Government of Canada is supporting local food production with $17,700 in funding for the Kettle Valley Food Co-op. This project, funded under the Government of Canada’s Co-operative Development Initiative (CDI), will develop tools to recruit and train member producers and consumers.
“Co-operatives are used to address a variety of community needs,” said Minister Day. “They have a successful track record of lowering costs and opening markets – a great benefit to rural communities.”
The objective is to better promote the co-op to a wide range of potential members (producers and consumers) and to refine the co-op’s business model by developing and improving production and marketing strategies to promote the value of local food.
The Kettle Valley Food Co-op is one of many projects funded under CDI, a four-year, $19.1 million program that helps Canadians develop new co-operatives and experiment innovative ways of using the co-operative model. This initiative, which has been successful in making the co-operative option readily available to Canadians by improving access to advisory services, helping co-operatives gather funding and advancing research and knowledge development, is co-managed by the Canadian Co-operative Association and the Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité in partnership with the Government of Canada.
Since it was established in 2003, CDI has supported over 1,500 co-op projects and helped to create over 200 new co-operatives. The program has also allowed for testing new kinds of co-operatives and undertaking research projects to understand how co-operatives can contribute to regional economic development. The Agriculture component of CDI, put in place in 2006, was responsible for the creation of over 60 value-added agricultural co-operatives.
To learn more about the Co-operative Development Initiative, please visit www.coop.gc.ca.
