North American Food Systems Network (NAFSN)’s Post

At #Food4Farmers beekeeping was identified as a strategy to connect farming families with opportunities. It fits into the landscape of the farm and promotes environmental resiliency, contributes to food security and livelihoods, and serves as an effective safety net for families affected by coffee rust, low coffee prices, and high food costs. Learn more about our programs at food4farmers.org

Thrilled to see this important article in print - civil society organisations have a vital role to play in #foodsystems #governance in Australia, not least because the Australian food system - like systems everywhere - is entering a period of intensifying polycrisis. What we need are more transparent, participatory and inclusive processes that have as their goal food system transformation - not merely mild reforms to the destructive and inequitable status quo, where some eat well and growing numbers of others do not. The abstract describes it well: "As social, environmental, climate change, and public health challenges mount, there is growing recognition that many of the roots of these con­temporary crises are to be found in the nature and trajectory of the dominant food and agricultural systems. Consequently, a growing number of Australian civil society organizations (CSOs) seek to engage in processes of food system governance to address concerns of health and wellbeing, sustainability, and resilience. This paper summa­rizes a case study that explored the characteristics, values, and activities of seven food-related CSOs and identified the factors that enable or hinder their work. The results revealed that while the abil­ity of CSOs to influence food system governance has been modest to date, some progress is being made, particularly regarding food systems govern­ance processes at the local government level, point­ing to the possibility of more participatory forms of local food system governance developing." Full article online: https://lnkd.in/g6Nvzni7 This article is the final one in the collaborative ARC Discovery Project led by Belinda Reeve at USyd, with fellow Partner Investigators Karen Charlton and Amy Carrad (see the full project outputs here - https://lnkd.in/gMphf3ye). My Sustain colleague Beth Ciesielski and Rebecca Smits also worked on this final publication. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with this wonderful team over many years and I'm proud of all this project achieved, advancing the cause of food system transformation in Australia.

To read later!

Prioritizing local food and producers is a great way to re-invest in your community. If you're looking to learn more about locating local food, the agriculture of your community, and farmer's markets, check out our SparkMap webinar "From Farm to Table: Prioritizing Local Food." Watch now: https://lnkd.in/gFNYtmwY

🌿 Exciting News! 🌿 Get ready for the second episode of our "Policy Nexus" series, titled "Securing Food Futures: Engaging Stakeholders for Change." Join us as we delve into the critical role of stakeholders in shaping the future of food and agriculture. Discover how diverse stakeholders, from government bodies to community groups, can collaborate to drive meaningful change and ensure food security for all. Stay tuned for more updates on our upcoming episode! #PolicyNexus #FoodSecurity #StakeholderEngagement #SecuringFoodFutures

🌱 Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Building Indigenous Food Sovereignty "From the Ground Up" 🌱 Led by Dawn Morrison, the "From the Ground Up" Toolkit brings together over a decade of insights and teachings from the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty. This evolving resource is designed to foster ethical spaces of engagement, guiding the complex intersections of Indigenous food sovereignty with mainstream agricultural systems. Supported by the Indigenous Food Security and Sovereignty Fund, this toolkit empowers First Nations communities, organizations, and businesses in BC. Learn more about this vital initiative at https://lnkd.in/gVM2DMBD. #IndigenousFoodSovereignty #FromTheGroundUp #DecolonizeFoodSystems #IndigenousFoodSecurity #NewRelationshipTrust

💡This week’s Spotlight shines a light on Sonia Strobel, CEO and co-founder of Skipper Otto, an innovative seafood subscription service that connects home cooks directly with independent fishing families in British Columbia. Sonia has been a passionate advocate for local food systems and social justice for over two decades. SNEAK PEEK: VFR: Sonia, tell us about yourself and your journey to becoming the co-founder and CEO of Skipper Otto. Sonia: I’ve always advocated for local food systems and social justice. Since the 1990s, I was a member of Community Supported Agriculture Programs; and for over a decade, I worked as a high school teacher, always striving to uplift students from marginalized communities. Over 20 years ago, I married into a fishing family, and at that time, I couldn’t understand why most of us couldn’t access local seafood. Back then, it was common for everyone in British Columbia to know a fishing family personally. They would get their fish from these families, supporting their small fishing businesses and keeping money circulating within their communities. Also, for 10,000-15,000 years before settler colonization, Indigenous peoples fed themselves from the bounty of the seas and traded fish with communities as far away as the Rockies. So why isn’t that the case today? I came to realize that we don’t have a functioning local seafood system here. What we have is a colonial resource extraction system, designed to extract resources to enrich a distant empire and distant shareholders. And it’s really good at that. However, if we want local people to eat local seafood and if we want to prevent the disappearance of a small-scale, community-based fishing way of life in B.C., then we’re going to have to design a different system. Click the link to read the full article! https://lnkd.in/gSaUWRk8

Check out some new ideas on #preservation in this GALACTIC paper! Innovation by fermentation is the way to go 🚀

We're thrilled to unveil a blueprint for necessary changes developed by Farm Sanctuary in collaboration with the Center for Biological Diversity. This groundbreaking Food System Shift Roadmap offers practical strategies to improve our food system for animals, people, and the planet. Our current industrialized food system harms animals, farmers, workers, public health, and the environment, and federal programs have supported this through perverse incentives. Shifting away from this destructive system toward one that nourishes families, farmers, and communities is critically important and growing more urgent every day. Building on the first White House food summit in over 50 years, we engaged with over 2,500 organizations and 150 Congressional offices to identify three key strategies for food system transformation. Read more about The Food System Shift Roadmap here: https://bit.ly/4ePrZwb

A wide range conversation of almost two hours- second episode will follow soon- with Henry Dimbleby, founder of Bramble Partners, a venture capital firm, that invests in businesses seeking to improve food security. Before Bramble Partners, Henry co-founded LEON Restaurants and the The Sustainable Restaurant Association and also served deep in the heart of the UK government as he was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We dove deep into: 👦🏽 Why every future food system is made of by children and teachers eating together system dynamics 🍟 Junk food cycle 🍦 Difference junk food vs ultra processed food 3️⃣ Three-compartment model of farming 🚜 Land use, what to do where and why? https://lnkd.in/dpD7tfYJ