Bring Food Home 2015: More Voices, Collective Impact and Northern Hospitality
Posted: December 18, 2015
Categories: Events / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario
Coming together to put evaluation ideas on paper. Credit: Brent Gervais
On November 20, Bring Food Home 2015 officially kicked off in Sudbury with tours that set off to Manitoulin and to West Nippissing, and sessions that buzzed with excitement from attendees eager to dig deeper into business planning for new market farmers and think critically about the implications of unpaid labour in a food movement focused on justice and sustainability.
A snowy morning at Mike Meeker’s trout farm on Goat Island. Credit: Iain Storosco.
Over the course of the weekend, this cross-sectoral event gathered together over 270 individuals from across the province representing remote fly-in communities, dense urban centers and everything in between. The 90 diverse presenters led animated engagement on food production, distribution and marketing, local food economies, agriculture and the environment, food access and justice, health promotion, and edible education with local tours, panel discussions, farmer training, action-planning and networking. New ideas were sparked with participants bringing in perspectives from community food work, health and educational institutions, farming, local distribution, retail and hospitality, provincial and local government, First Nations communities, researchers and not-for-profits organizations. Perhaps this first-time Bring Food Home attendee said it best:
“The thing I liked about this conference, was the diversity of the people who came. You never knew where any session was going to go until you realized the backgrounds of the people in the room. Every session was a surprise. It was great.”
A team of talented photographers worked throughout the event and captured beautiful images of the workshops, tours, social time, and special guests. Flip through the album below or go to our BFH Flickr collection.
And with that size gathering, there has to be a Feast! The heavy November snow did not deter over 200 from journeying to Collége Boreal, site of the Feast of Flavours featuring ten delicious dishes prepared by local chefs partnered with local producers. Explore the Feast photos to learn more about the locally-sourced ingredients from producers in the region.
We are very grateful for the support of over 30 sponsors and partners who contributed generously to Bring Food Home’s success. Special shout out to our Sustaining Partners and Sponsors, Eat Local Sudbury, Land Food People Foundation, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation; our Growing Sponsor, the Greenbelt Fund.
We heard from many attendees that they regretted not being able to attend all of the sessions. We are happy to announce that Bring Food Home presentations are available and content is being added regularly. You can also enjoy the extensive print and broadcast media coverage from the event. We’re also shared some blog posts from attendees on our media page!
We asked attendees about what they will do differently as a result of attending BFH 2015. Here’s some of what they had to say:
- Encourage students to take more lead with garden activities
- Integrate new ideas and building new partnerships
- Implement/teach in-class cooking ideas learned at the conference
- Use cover crops more and practice much less tilling
- Share knowledge with community and other key stakeholders
- Use resources to promote sustainable eating, food literacy in the community (schools in particular!)
- Implement collective impact framework to existing and upcoming projects to have more concrete outcome measurements
- Connect with distributors and restaurants to promote agri-food networks in the province
- Work with the School Nutrition Program to utilize the power of bulk purchasing
- Look for heirloom seeds next time when gardening
- Consume local food to promote local producers and business
- Promote local foods through consulting with stakeholders
- Fundraise and write proposals to support food security work
- Understand more of logistical issues in food distribution and access in the North
- Approach local food and the local food system in different ways and invite people to talk about improving food access in the community
- Better able to articulate and brainstorm about multiple perspectives
- Implement innovative practices in food sectors
- Better equipped to work with municipal leaders
- Work collaboratively with other partners and helping community partners to take a lead in activities
Thank you to everyone who made Bring Food Home: Digging Deeper possible, especially to the spectacular local committee for their hospitality and community in Sudbury!