2013 Food and Farm Justice Consultation

From March 8-10, 2013, FSC joined 50 organizations from Canada and the USA for a consultation on food justice. This event, a first of its kind, was organized by Oikotree North America and gathered secular and interfaith representatives. Among the Canadian delegation was FSC’s Nydia Dauphin as well as representatives from FarmStart, FoodShare Toronto, the United Church of Canada, GRAIN, Growing Food Security in Alberta and the National Farmers Union. The purpose of the gathering was:

1. To deepen understanding of and begin taking steps to strengthen food security, food and farm justice, and food sovereignty movements in North America.
2. To learn from effective organizing approaches used by various faith-based, grassroots and people’s movement groups and identify those which may be most applicable to the current context.
3. To identify common goals, strategies and concrete ways to support and strengthen grassroots-driven food and farm justice initiatives and campaigns aimed at reducing hunger and poverty by building just and sustainable local/regional food economies everywhere.

After a full week-end of discussions and workshops, the participants agreed on a commonly shared value: the sacredness of food, which happens to be the 7th Pillar of Food Sovereignty in Canada in the People's Food Policy.

As FSC understands food justice to be essential in our work , this experience was highly enriching. If you would like to hear more about this collaboration and possible next steps, contact Nydia[a]foodsecurecanada[dot]org