MAIN POINTS

1. People would have time to start food co-ops, community gardens, seed exchanges and to hold nutrition and food security workshops

2. More ability to buy local organic produce

3. Less tendency to hoard

FOOD - Quotes

A GLI would help with community gardens. There are lots of fruit trees in the neighborhood; people could work together. We could have people growing stuff on balconies or doing barrel gardens. To get people started, we would have to go back to doing food clubs. This would be easier to do with a GLI, because they would know exactly how much money they would have every month. -Mary C

It should produce a better quality of life, access to healthier food and maybe even purchase or rent plots of land to grow vegetables. So often we have to live in substandard conditions, and this affects health. Putting all your money into rent affects eating habits. You have to buy cheap processed food just to put something in your tummy, instead of healthy vegetables and organic food. -Dawn

If we had more money we could buy local organic. Local farmers are really on the edge. -Rita

Maybe digestion problems, which are on the increase, are because we cannot digest genetically engineered food. Pepto-Bismol (cherry flavour) is not the answer. Most of what is called food in our "supermarkets" is nothing but a chemical stew and should not be consumed. -Valerie

If I had enough money, I could buy the food I need to eat-vegetables and fruit and grain, all the expensive stuff-instead of depending on the food bank and eating white pasta. I'm on a white diet: white bread, white rice, white pasta-you can only eat so much of that before you bloat. -Donna

I think that a lot of local organic farming is done by people who are landless. People are sort of like serfs again. A GLI might give collectives the ability to purchase a small piece of land instead of each individually working on someone else's land. We could purchase good organic food in large quantities, but you do have to have the cash outlay. So if people knew they would get a cheque every month, then they could take those sort of risks. -Janine

I can see maybe people could get together in co-ops and purchase things in bulk because they would have the money to do that. Or groups of mothers could have a community kitchen. There would be more initiative to work together if there was a livable income; people wouldn't always be struggling to get by. -Dawn