Farm to Cafeteria Canada: A National Survey

Growing Farm to Cafeteria in Canada is an initiative funded by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and administered by the Public Health Association of British Columbia and has set out to conduct the first nation wide needs assessment and environmental scan of Farm to Cafeteria activities across Canada, establish a national Farm to Cafeteria Canada network,  and further Farm to Cafeteria activities across Canada. Farm to Cafeteria activities include: growing, harvesting, distributing, purchasing, preparing, serving, or consuming local food; composting food waste; or education, communication or policy relative to these activities. 

If your instutution is currently involved in Farm to Cafeteria activities, or is interested in participating in Farm to Cafeteria activities in the future, we invite you to participate in this first nation wide Farm to Cafeteria survey. 

 The results of the survey will be used to identify:

The survey will take less than 20 minutes to complete and consists of questions about your Farm to Cafeteria activities, if any; factors influencing your activities; needs and benefits; organizational aspects; and information about your institution. Your responses are voluntary and confidential. You may quit the survey at any time if you prefer not to participate. You may work with others to complete this survey. Data collected through the survey will be aggregated to a level (e.g., by province or territory) that will ensure that responses of participating individuals or schools cannot be identified. The submission of your survey constitutes your informed consent to participate in this survey.

At the end of the survey, we will be asking for if you: (1) Would like to receive the results of the survey; (2) Would like to have your email added to the Farm to Cafeteria Canada listserv to receive periodic updates from Farm to Cafeteria Canada; (3) May be contacted to share additional information about your Farm to Cafeteria activities and have your school's activities profiled in the final report; and (4) May be identified on the Farm to Cafeteria Canada's online map of Farm to Cafeteria programs. You may decline consent to any of the four actions. If you provide consent to (3), you may be followed up to participate in a telephone interview and may be asked if we may profile your school's Farm to Cafeteria program in our final report. This would include your school's name and any information you provide about your program. If you provide consent to (4), we may identify your school on a map of Farm to Cafeteria programs across Canada on the Farm to Cafeteria Canada website. Please be aware that by providing consent to actions (3) and (4), you may be compared by the general public to your province/territory's survey results that will appear in the final report. Data will be stored securely in a password protested file at the University of New Brunswick and will only be accessible to Dr. Mary McKenna and Roxana Suchorolski and destroyed after 5 years. The data will be used to generate public reports that will be shared at conferences and presentations. The reports may be used by the Farm to Cafeteria Canada Network, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the Public Health Association of British Columbia, and other partnering organizations to develop strategic plans to further Farm to Cafeteria activities across Canada.The data may also be used by Miss Roxana Suchorolski in her Master’s thesis report.

 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Dr. Mary McKenna, Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick or Roxana Suchorolski, University of New Brunswick at (506) 451-6872 or email farmtocafeteriasurvey@gmail.com. You may also contact Dr. Gabriella Tymowski, Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick at (506) 447-3231 email at tymowski@unb.ca if you have any concerns regarding any possible ethical issues.

This project has been reviewed by the University of New Brunswick Research Ethics Board and is on file as REB 2012-xxx.

 

We greatly appreciate you taking the time to complete this survey.