Halifax Council to vote if mobile food market will get use of transit bus

Halifax council will decide today if a new mobile food market will receive the one thing it wants: a city bus. 

The Mobile Market Project team is asking the city to approve a one-time, in-kind donation by letting them use a Halifax Transit bus for 21 weeks. 

"We can start to put healthy, affordable food in neighbourhoods that don't currently have it or have limited access," said Aimee Carson, community food coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre.

• Halifax considers mobile market to bring fresh food to 'food deserts'

If approved, a Halifax Transit bus will bring healthy foods to areas dubbed food deserts by the city. That includes Spryfield, Fairview, North Preston, East Preston, north-end Halifax and Dartmouth north.

"Cost and availability are two big issues," says Halifax Mayor Mike Savage.

"[The project] doesn't require a lot of money from the city. It requires some cooperation with transit, but we're not taking a bus off an already-serviced route."

"Everybody's trying to get at this idea of of food security," he added. "We know in Halifax that there's a lot of food insecurity" 

'A diverse array of foods'

The project has unanimous support from the city's Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee. 

Community groups like the Ecology Action Centre have been been trying to get support, funding, and resources. 

Carson says they will soon have support from a corporate grocery chain and a local food supplier. 

"So many of the communities were expressing interest in having a diverse array of foods, but foods that really reflected what they wanted to and what they were used to eating in their own communities — be it from Canada or from afar," she says.