Local Food Infrastructure Fund: Step 1. What this program offers

Step 1. What this program offers

The Local Food Infrastructure Fund (LFIF) is a 5-year, $60 million initiative ending March 31, 2024. It was created as part of the Government of Canada's Food Policy for a healthier and more sustainable food system in Canada. The LFIF is aimed at community-based, not-for-profit organizations with a mission to reduce food insecurity by establishing and strengthening their local food system.

The fourth intake of LFIF took place from June 1, 2022 to July 22, 2022 and will focus on projects that either create a portion of (or expand) a food system or implement an entire food system. Projects must be infrastructure specific and be community-driven, dedicated to improving access to healthy, nutritious and local foods for Canadians at risk of food insecurity.

The third intake of LFIF took place from July 12, 2021 to September 3, 2021 and mobilized an additional $10 million announced in Budget 2021, to provide rapid-response grants to help prevent hunger through investments in infrastructure needs. The impact must have been targeted and immediate, and must have been directly related to addressing food insecurities and increasing the accessibility of healthy, nutritious and ideally local foods within their community(ies).

The second intake of LFIF took place from June 9, 2020 to February 12, 2021, and along with simpler infrastructure requests noted above, included more complex, multi-year projects that strengthen local food systems.

The initial intake of LFIF took place from August 15, 2019 to November 8, 2019, and was aimed at small community-based organizations to allow them to improve their infrastructure and purchase equipment directly related to the accessibility of healthy, nutritious, and ideally, local foods within their community.