Serving Up Food Sovereignty in Toronto
Posted: October 20, 2009
Categories: Events / News from Sustain Ontario
Please Join Us For
Serving Up Food Sovereignty in Toronto
Cooking Up a Plan for Action
About the Conference
FoodShare and our partners and sponsors Heifer International, Sustain Ontario, and the Foodshed project of the University of Toronto and York University are pleased to invite you to the conference, “Serving Up Food Sovereignty in Toronto- Cooking Up a Plan for Action”, which will take place on October 29th at FoodShare Toronto from 9 am-7:30 pm.
This action-focused conference will involve speakers, discussion, and planning to help us in our collective work ensuring that all people have access to healthy food, produced in a way that sustains us all. At this conference, we will be looking at the concept of Food Sovereignty, discussing what value it holds for advancing the food movement in Toronto, and working to develop and strengthen coalitions for policy change.
This conference will bring together food producers, community leaders, academics, and agency staff who are involved in food issues. To keep the group small enough for meaningful collaboration, this event is by invitation only. We are inviting you because we think that you are an important part of the future of food in Toronto. We think that your unique perspective will add great value to the conference, and that you will make useful connections, both to ideas and to people there. If you think that there are others who should be at this event, or would like to send someone in your place please call or e-mail us so that we can invite them.
During this conference we will:
listen to speakers who will help us to understand Food Sovereignty,
explore how this idea relates to our work in Toronto,
discuss our common policy objectives,
build our coalitions,
plan action.
Featured speakers include Terry Boehm farmer and Vice President of the National Farmers Union of Canada; Cathleen Kneen, co-publisher of The Ram’s Horn and Chair of Food Secure Canada; F. Henry Lickers, a member of Seneca Nation, Director of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Department of the Environment for the past 32 years and Environmental Science Officer; moderator Colleen Ross, of Heifer International. Author Judy Rebick activist and author of the book “Transforming Power” will close the day, helping us to better understand how we can more effectively create change.
This conference comes at a key time.
The Food Strategy for Toronto has been drafted, and is being revised
Two complementary provincial food networks have formed, Food Net Ontario and Sustain Ontario
A national food policy project, the Peoples’ Food Policy Project, is under way
We want to make sure that Toronto food activists contribute to this momentum towards policy change. Our conversations at this conference will inform the direction and action at the municipal, provincial, and national levels.
This is a free event. Lunch, snacks, and dinner will be provided.
We hope that you can join us! Registration is limited. Please RSVP to urbanag@foodshare.net or by calling 416 363 6441 x222 by October 19th, 2009 so that we can confirm your spot at this crucial conference.
We hope to see you soon!
Ravenna Barker
Community Food Program Manager
FoodShare Toronto
on behalf of our partners and sponsors
Colleen Ross of Heifer International, Lauren Baker of Sustain Ontario, and Deborah Barndt of the Southern Ontario Foodshed Project