Below are the inspiring, informative and educational notes I wrote furiously during the wonderful Together at the Table event, held at 157 King Street East on October 20th, 2011. Sustaining communities and sharing knowledge was the medium and the message at the event.
Welcome, 9am:
- Joe Mihevc boasts that “ organizations have been mushrooming”
- Debbie Field is the Director of FoodShare
- City counsellor Joe Mihevc is proud to have both Wychwood Barns and Not Far from the Tree in his ward and explains, “ We as city counsellors need to learn to be facilitators”.
- Helen St.Jacques began working with the Toronto Food Policy Council through FoodShare. She urges anyone who is interested to sign up as a “friend” to the TFPC, and attending the monthly meetings ( which alternate week to week from formal to informal). Also of note is that the meetings are audio recorded at City Hall.
- Currently there are 4 standing committees representing the TFPC.
- Lauren Baker is a member of the food strategy team at Toronto Public Health
How Now Brown Cow: Milky Science for the Public Good, 9:30am:
- Rod MacRae was the 1st full time health food advocate embedded in government.
- MacRae suggested a number of articles including: Reducing Urban Hunger in Ontario: Policy Responses to support the transition from food charity to local food security, and Efficiency, Substitutions and Redesign.
- MacRae illustrated how the TFPC took its first big leap in establishing itself as a sturdy force driven by a mantra of transparency, holistic thinking and community involvement. In the 1990’s, When the TFPC challenged the r.B.H.G. case, the government chose to head the advice and reject the drug ( which had at that time, already been approved in the United States), and instead work with the Health Council and Agricultural Sector. For the first time a municipal body - functioning as subcommittee to Toronto Public Health - had an impact on the larger provincial and federal government, directed through Health Canada. To this day, MacRae reminds us that it is a big challenge in food policy to intersect and interact with governing bodies at decision-making levels.
Policy by Participation, 9:45am:
- Acting as moderator is Catherine Mah, who works at the Food Policy Research Initiative at the Centre for Metal Health and Addiction. She is also an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana school of Public Health at U of T. To Mah, ‘policy’ is a statement of “who eats what, when and how”.
- Nick Ferri is the Farmer and Chair of the GTA Agricultural Action Committee, a provincially started organization which developed a strategy/ “action plan” for “horseshoe agriculture” ( from Toronto to Hamilton).
- Tracy Phillippi began as an intern at the TFPC in 2009 and shortly after founded the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council (TYFPC). She is currently an apprentice at Black Oak, as an aspiring Brew Master.
- Barbara Emanual works with Toronto Food Strategy (Toronto Public Health), managing international development, social development and policy. She adds, “ public health policy is the full spectrum”: from health to the environment.
- Anan Lololi has been a TFPC member for 15 years. As executive director of the Afi-Can FoodBasket, Lololi supports urban agriculture and the adversity of food grown and sold in Ontario.
- Author of The Tyranny of Rights, Brewster Kneen begins by explaining that he was awakened to how humans are related to the world when reading The Economy of Sugar. In 1971 he farmed in Nova Scotia, where he remained until 1986, learning about how and why the metropolis benefits from reaping and rendering farms dry. In the 1980’s he acted as Food Chair, a precursor to the TFPC and appreciated how the community had to come together, forming “unforeseen alliances” during the Real Milk Campaign.
- Asked about a spectrum of participation, and whether citizens can really make an impact, Emanuel points out that many communities don’t have the proper information that is accessible, transparent and easy to understand. Once the communities demand - as they must, she adds - transparency from the Food Policy counsellors, they will have the means to move forward and participate.
- To the same note, Brewster adds that even if the government does issue information, it is to the tune of their agenda. For real facts, the structure should be more grassroots, including the statements and concerns of communities and farmers.
- With more inclusion during the decision making process, we are more likely to come to results that benefit each tier and their respective platforms. Ferri gives the example of the Greenbelt. While Toronto boasts a green nest on maps, farmers feel their voices have not been heard and worry about the implications of being told what to do with their land and fret about their retirement money being taken away.
- To help our farming neighbours, many Torontonians have taken to voting with their dollar: buying local produce to support local farmers who are forced to compete with companies south of the boarder who don’t have to face the same strict regulations and labour costs and can thus sell their product at a cheaper price.
- There are lots of ways to become involved: Phillippe suggests collaboration; entrepreneurship; simply asking organizations what they are missing; becoming an expert or by reciprocal mentorship.
- Lololi explains that the more people involved, the more food security attained. The government grants mobility to community ideas through the support of non-government organizations (NGOs). Emanuel discusses that in giving a small community the means to fund a community-driven food project the project was able to thrive and become highly successful, impacting council and policy making. The constant creative focus at the TFPC is fueled by events such as Together at the Table, where issues large in government scope are brought forth, discussed and solved city-wide.
