{"id":35859,"date":"2023-05-14T13:17:30","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T16:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=35859"},"modified":"2023-05-14T13:17:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T16:17:30","slug":"ndp-premier-ignoring-rising-costs-of-food-cuts-farmers-market-coupon-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=35859","title":{"rendered":"NDP: Premier ignoring rising costs of food, cuts Farmers&#8217; Market coupon program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;105&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;188&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HALIFAX:<\/strong> The N.S. NDP say the number of families that can\u2019t afford healthy food in Nova Scotia is now at 22 per cent, up from 17 per cent last year. But while more Nova Scotians are struggling, the Houston government is refusing to support programs that could help.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsndp.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/letter_to_premier_ministers_dunn_and_morrow-_chender.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NDP Leader Claudia Chender wrote to the Premier<\/a>, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage calling on them to approve bridge funding to support the Nourishing Communities Food Coupon Program as requested by Farmers\u2019 Markets of Nova Scotia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u201cThe bridge funding that\u2019s being requested would prevent this organization from having to cut potentially hundreds of participants from the program during a time when 1 in 4 Nova Scotians is struggling to buy healthy food for their family,\u201d said Chender. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;34&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;126&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is exactly the kind of investment Tim Houston should be making to support families, and local growers and producers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This is the time to be fully supporting programs like this, not cutting them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a press release last week, Farmers\u2019 Markets of Nova Scotia explained that the program saw its member farmers\u2019 markets provide \u201c$397,440 worth of food coupons \u2026 to 585 households in 33 communities across Nova Scotia\u201d in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;194&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;31&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the same release, Justin Cantafio, Executive Director of Farmers\u2019 Markets of Nova Scotia said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe trouble is that the demand for our program is skyrocketing yet proposed budgetary increases can\u2019t be guaranteed until the Province launches its Food &amp; Beverage Strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With market season starting as we speak, we\u2019re faced with the harsh reality of needing to reduce program participants when food insecurity rates have never been higher.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Investments to keep this program going would be a small price to pay to help Nova Scotia families afford healthy, local food, added the NDP in the release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;148&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;188&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;105&#8243;] [adrotate banner=&#8221;188&#8243;] HALIFAX: The N.S. NDP say the number of families that can\u2019t afford healthy food in Nova Scotia is now at 22 per cent, up from 17 per cent last year. But while more Nova Scotians are struggling, the Houston government is refusing to support programs that could help.\u00a0 This week, NDP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[957],"tags":[3124,4948,50,48,1378,4949],"class_list":["post-35859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-claudia-chender","tag-farmers-market-coupon-program","tag-halifax","tag-n-s","tag-n-s-ndp","tag-rising-costs-of-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}