1 in 8 households, and 1 in 6 children are food insecure, don’t have access to or are unable to afford healthy food. It’s worse in Indigenous and Black communities. We need to move people out of poverty so they are able to eat well, and have culturally appropriate food. People across Canada have some of those solutions which are culturally appropriate and help combat climate change.

Research from PROOF on national food insecurity: https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/

Waterloo Region on food insecurity in the region: https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/living-here/affordable-food.aspx

Discussing how climate change affects people’s food supply, affected by stewardship of the land. Through the Handpicked Podcast researchers are sharing information across communities in new ways.

Talking about reslience at the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, including dealing with Covid-19. Dr. Theresa Schumilas and the Open Food Network offers a new way to participate in food markets, allowing people to pivot and respond to the pandemic. It’s totally Open Source and socially just. Allows both producer to retailer, and direct to consumer, eg. Bailey’s Local Food.

Talking about researchers in the field, eg. Dr. Schumilas, looking at food sovereignty, people’s right to food, and linking that with technological sovereignty, the right for people to control their own data. Building trust relationships with communities, determining what research will meet their needs. Working in “Participatory Action Research” or “Community Driven Research”; the Centre works on several projects, amongst them FLEdGE (Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged), international projects in Brazil and Kenya, as well as policy work at the national and global levels.

Talking about the City Region Food Systems toolkit, including pandemics and Covid-19 response. Using the UNESCO chair to build more robust networks in Waterloo Region.

Working with the Waterloo Region Food System Round Table.

Urban encroachment on rural areas? Perhaps in the more food-insecure areas.

Dr. Alison Blay-Palmer is working with CC-UNESCO, other universities, on how to recover from Covid-19, keeping the environment and food systems in mind. The Building Back Better task force, and position papers in iPolitics. How/where to spend recovery money to have the biggest effect. Prioritizing equity, social justice, and the environmental in the recovery.

Funding for LCSFS comes from Laurier University for operational costs; research is funded through grant writing, some from SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), government support (some international). No industry funding, so no conflict with research.

Handpicked: Stories From The Field is the LCSFS podcast. There are six episodes in the first season, hosted by Amanda Di Battista and Laine Young, available on all the regular podcast outlets. Telling the stories of the researchers at the LCSFS. This is a way to get the research out into the public, directly from the researchers themselves. Quick synopsis of some current episodes, and next season. Talking about Season 1, Episode 6, the Open Food Network, activist coders, Open Source Software, and the Free Software resources in Waterloo Region.

Talking about Hold The Line celebrating municipal legislation and protecting rural areas from urban encroachment. How other municipalities imagine their roles in sustainable food systems.

Podcasts as a research tool, provides open access to research. Podcasts bring research to life.