More Local Food Coming to Northwood

Dec 09, 2022

A new pilot project will put more local fruit, vegetables, meat and fish on the menu at Northwood’s Halifax Campus, Atlantic Canada’s largest long-term care facility.

Agriculture Minster Greg Morrow announced the project today, December 9, at Northwood.

The pilot project with Northwood supports a transition from imported food to locally grown and produced food, allowing the facility to access up to $25,000 in incentives – $12,500 up front to help cover startup costs and up to $12,500 later, based on its increased spend on local food.

Northwood is working with its suppliers, including Gordon Food Service’s Atlantic division, based in Nova Scotia, to bring in more local food.

This project supports the government’s mandate to encourage local food consumption with a goal of 20 per cent of the money spent on food by Nova Scotians being spent on locally produced food by 2030.

Work is underway to expand the pilot program to more nursing homes, healthcare facilities, public schools, post-secondary institutions and correctional facilities.

Source : Novascotia .ca

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.