Day One: October 18, 2009

Dr. Edith Callaghan stated the Food Summit goals, pointing out that the first three goals can be reached naturally, while the latter two will occur in part through the compiled notes from the Summit. Dr. Callaghan encouraged all present to pass on comments to the Summit rapporteurs so that they can be included in this report.

Dr. Callaghan asked the audience to step outside of our comfort zones, acknowledge that one’s perceptions will shift depending on where one stands and that we have in the room a diverse audience from many backgrounds. Dr. Callaghan urged us to keep these things in mind as we begin to seek solutions and also to introduce ourselves to one another in the spirit of learning and the cross pollination of knowledge. Dr. Callaghan commented that we have people who love food here from many areas of the community and that we can learn from each other.  Dr. Callaghan offered thanks to our politicians and local leaders as they were invited to come to the stage.

Fred Whalen, Warden of Kings County was quick to note that we need to develop a “Made in Nova Scotia” policy for our region; we do not have time to waste. Warden Whalen suggested the formation of a council that would speak for food in Nova Scotia, through which “we would have a voice for the government as a system of advisement”. We have to stay alive with the Summit.

Minister Ramona Jennex, Cabinet Minister and MLA for Kings South, welcomed all participants to the Summit and suggested that we have a reputation in this region for all of our foods; that we are all playing a role to keep the industry working. “I know this is going to be thought provoking for all of us”. Minister Jennex is very proud of her responsibilities with the government most proud to be the MLA for King’s South. Minister Jennex commended Linda Best, Alan Stewart and Dr. Edith Callaghan for creating this forum, with its promise to be “thought-provoking and delicious!”

President of the King’s County Federation of Agriculture, Patricia Bishop, is also an organic farmer and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmer.  Bishop stated that this Summit is “so timely”, a sentiment echoed by all panellists and participants of this Summit.  Bishop shared her concern for the many farmers who wonder, “Can I carry on until next year?” Bishop pointed out that the public needs to be involved and that we must all work together to establish a food network that works for all. Bishop concluded by welcoming “all of us here to get the work done.”

Panel and Discussion - Identifying the Pieces

Moderated by Dr. Edith Callaghan

Keynote speakers:

Chris Power, President and CEO of Capital Health; Lori Stahlbrand, founder and President of Local Food Plus; Ray Ivany, President of Acadia University and Dr. Ralph Martin, Director of Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada and Nova Scotia Agricultural College professor.

Chris Power, President and CEO of Capital Health said that she has been looking through the health lens but we now need to focus on food.

Power’s presentation included the following points:

w  Capital Health provides health care and services to 400,000 people and provides additional levels of care to the 2 million people throughout the Atlantic Provinces, spending on average $2 million a day on patients.

w  Capital Health has a “people-centred health, healing and learning” mandate that influences everything we do as a provider of health care services and a promoter of healthy living.

w  We are facing a health care crisis of epic proportions – a perfect storm created by illness, age, poor health practices, lack of physical activity, poor eating and economics.

w  “The vast numbers of people we treat are there because of lifestyle choices”.

w  Fundamental changes need to be made: nearly half of Nova Scotia’s budget is spent on health and by 2021 the costs of health could triple - clawing back the entire Provincial budget.

w  There is a fiscal imperative for changing the healthcare system because we are spending a lot but we aren’t getting healthier overall.

w  Nova Scotia has the highest rates of cancers and respiratory disease, one of the highest rates of chronic health and the second highest rate of diabetes, and among the highest rates for circulatory disease.

w  Most of Nova Scotia’s poor health is preventable.

w  Capital Health recently conducted a Community Health Assessment Survey of 2800 people that revealed a clear correlation between behaviours and health status: 44% of our citizens are inactive; 62% of our citizens eat below the fruit and vegetable requirements; 62% of our citizens are overweight.

w  Capital Health does not just want to be a repair centre, and we came to the realization we were a poor role model for healthy eating. We looked inside of our walls and saw that the foods being offered in our staff cafeterias were not healthy.

w  To remedy this, we took actions to change the facilities and the menus in our cafeteria, and to phase out unhealthy food and source local food.

w  In August we turned off the deep-fryers. The expected outcry didn’t happen!

w  It is our belief that we have to do better. We have to:

}  Phase out unhealthy foods

}  Emphasize the benefits of healthy eating

}  Use local food suppliers as much as possible

w  One of our challenges was “pushback” from employees who told us, ‘we are adults and that we want to make choices for ourselves.’ However, Capital Health is committed to being leaders in this regard and we are working to satisfy staff’s desire to make their own choices, while still meeting the goal of phasing out unhealthy foods.

w  Our goal is to have all healthy food choices within the next two years.

w  We are talking about the benefits of healthy foods.

w  We particularly need to get healthier food into our schools.

w  One in three Nova Scotia children and youth are overweight or obese.

w  This is the first time children may not live as long as their parents and the first time school children are developing chronic diseases such as diabetes

w  One contributing factor to nutrition-related problems in low-income families is the cost of healthy food.

w  Capital Health now hosts a weekly farmers’ market, which not only helps to educate staff but also provides a valuable service to the local community.

w  Capital Health is proud of our farmers’ market. From April until October we ran a market on the grounds of the VG site. The market helped staff and citizens in the area to learn about healthy local foods. One comment from a nurse was that Friday night was “wing” night but now it is fish and salad.

w  Healthy food choices will make a better society and we cannot afford an unhealthy society.

w  We in this room need to work toward this together, for our society’s health.

Lori Stahlbrand, former CBC broadcaster and founder of Local Food Plus, began by stating that the Summit comes at a time when we are at a turning point – we’re facing huge financial challenges at exactly the same time that our dependence on petroleum-based resources is becoming too much for the planet to bear. Both of these are going to have a dramatic effect on our ability to feed ourselves. But they also provide an opportunity to rethink how we feed ourselves – especially when 1 in 7 Nova Scotians is employed in the food system, and “we all eat”, though a small percentage of us actually produce food.

Stahlbrand made the following points:

·       Our current system is unsustainable in every sense – environmental, global supply chains, fossil-fuel based synthetic fertilizers and pesticides – the food system is responsible for almost 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions.
·       The average item on your dinner plate has travelled 4000 km.

·       It’s unsustainable when our class A farmland is being covered with subdivisions and offices

w  Why are we importing food at the height of the growing season?

w  It’s unsustainable when we’re degrading soil, polluting water, and decreasing diversity.

w  It’s unsustainable economically when farmer’s incomes have dropped steadily over the last 50 years, when the average age of farmers is now close to 60, and very few young people are willing to farm because they just don’t see a future in it.

w  Who can blame a farmer for wanting to sell their property when their children don’t want to farm. When land is a farmer’s pension plan, who wants to become a farmer?

w  It’s economically unsustainable when much of our food is grown by peasants around the world who can barely fed themselves and who must grow food for international markets to barely stay alive.

w  It’s socially unsustainable - Canada has the cheapest food in the world but there are children in Canada who still go to school hungry.

w  On average we spend 10% of our income on food. By comparison people in Western Europe spend about 15 – 20%, and Japanese spend about 30%.

w  Food here is too cheap; this is why farmers are going in debt, rural areas are becoming depopulated and urban and rural people are living very separate lives and they’re not talking about these issues.

w  But there are solutions and one of the best ways to generate solutions is through Food Policy Councils.

w  I’m very excited to see that the idea of creating a Provincial Food Policy Council is on the agenda here – you will have the opportunity to create the first Provincial Council in Canada.

w  I think you should go for it!

w  Food Policy Councils can be a very powerful tool for positive change.

w  I have been involved with the Toronto Food Policy Council for a decade now.

w  TFPC was founded in 1991 and Dr. Rod McRae, originally from Truro, was the first to head it up and it’s now run by Dr. Wayne Roberts

w  The council provides the community with the mechanisms to come up with solutions and develop food system changes for problems rather than dealing with each issue individually.

w  The TFPC is part of the Department of Public Health and has a staff of two, who are permanent employees of the City – this means that the citizen members of TFPC are not burdened with fund-raising

w  TFPC is perfectly situated to advise government on a wide range of food policy issues – healthy, poverty, environment, justice, land-use – anything that pertains to food is the mandate of the Council.

w  The TFPC is comprised of 30 “citizen members” who bring a wide range of expertise

w  All are citizen members rather than representatives or stakeholders in the food system and that’s a really important point that you might like to consider. TFPC is deliberately not a stakeholder organization – the members are all ‘citizen experts’ who sit on the Council as individuals who are committed to working with others to find solution.

w  So, for example, the Council would want to have someone knowledgeable about food retail but not necessarily, and not preferably, someone who would represent big retail or small retail.

w  The point is that all Council members are committed to the mandate of TFPC, rather than to their own sectoral interest.

w  TFPC has a Food Charter and that acts as the mandate of the Council – that is an essential means for getting consensus – everyone who joins the council members knows what they’re working towards.

w  An example of the kind of mandate that could work here: that a Provincial Food Policy Council would help the Province implement policies that further a food system that is health-centered, environmentally responsible, socially just, and stimulates meaningful employment in the food sector. That’s all you need to get started – something you all believe in and that’s broad-based enough that you can start the discussion about the issues.

w  The TFPC becomes a bridge for dialogue between people who may not be used to talking to each other, and is solution-oriented rather than polarizing - meeting around one table catalyzes relationship-building.

w  At a TFPC meeting in 2005 when I was making a presentation to TFPC about local food systems, I met Mike Shreiner who was receiving the Local Food Hero award that evening for starting a successful local food box company. We talked about how to help scale up production and distribution of local sustainable food, and engage public sector purchasers.

w  All of the alternatives to the mainstream system – organic sales in retail outlets, farmers markets, community supported agriculture, etc. only accounts for less than 4% of total food purchases.

w  The other 96% of food purchases are through mainstream retailers and large food service companies ( Aramark, Sodexo and Compass Foods are the three big food service companies on the world serving most major public and private institutions)  and local food is not a focus of their work.

w  As a result of the conversation Mike came to work with me to found Local Food Plus which has been operating for about three years and now has about 200 local sustainable farms and processors and about 45 purchasers including some major public sector institutions who previously didn’t have local food on the radar – such as U of T (20% last year aiming for 25% this year), and the city of Markham (15% last year aiming for 20% this year) .

w  LFP farmers are selling to retailers, restaurants, caterers, etc. – all relationships that LFP has brokered.

w  According to the organization’s website, Local Food Plus is a “non-profit organization that nurtures regional food economies by certifying farmers and processors for local sustainable food production and helping them connect with buyers of all types and sizes. LFP Certified Local Sustainable farmers and processors reduce or eliminate pesticide use, treat their animals well, conserve soil and water, protect wildlife habitat, provide safe and fair working conditions, reduce energy use, and sell locally wherever possible.”

w  I’m very excited about the possibilities here in NS especially considering how much work has been done.

w  I congratulate you on holding this Summit and offer my assistance in helping you achieve your goals.

Ray Ivany, President of Acadia University, is a self-proclaimed non-expert in food and agriculture. Ivany did not believe at first that he had anything to contribute to the Food Summit but soon learned that he really did have a perspective on the issues relating to food and food systems and that there is great urgency here. He talked about the role of education, food system issues, and Acadia’s role in this.

Ivany’s presentation contained the following points:

w  In times when there have been difficult transformations such as we’re in the middle of, you would expect the role of education to be that of a lead agent but it has been seen that education clearly followed rather than leading.

w  Education often follows widespread social and economic change (e.g. the Industrial Revolution), but sometimes leads revolutionary periods.

w  This current situation exemplifies a failure to be adequately prepared – we thought we had it under control and we were wrong.

w  With these global changes, we have learned that orthodoxy fails us; it comes apart.

w  As an educator, I wish we were already playing a bigger role.

w  There is a generational change underway--our students lead us a lot. It is advisable for us to follow our young leaders.

w  I do believe that there is a role for education to lead but history will tell us how.

w  Previously I had the opportunity to work with the Federal Task Force on the demise of the cod fisheries. My reconstruction of that was that if the policy makers had listened to the local fisherman with their connection to the sea and sustainability, we would not have had a collapse of this industry.

w  As it is, globally we’re going one species at a time towards extinction.

w  The analogy here is listening to the farmers. They are on the front lines with an understanding of the markets and the land. The fisheries policy makers all lived in Ottawa and did not have a connection to the cod, and their solutions haven’t worked.

w  In the same way policy made at a distance can get removed from reality. It would behove all us to listen, and listen deeply to the farmers and others connected to food.

w  If anyone is smiling from beyond the grave, it’s Max Weber – the sociologist who studied bureaucracy – when we’re doing something good we want to do more of it so we go from micro-scale to something larger, we organize systems and processes, then the system gets too big we end up wringing out the very good that we wanted to do.

w  The food system is extremely complex – how many policies have already been created by people working in silos – working on little pieces on their own.

w  To deal with built-in dysfunction in something as complex as the food systems we need to have very effective strategies to make sure the pieces work because there are so many connecting points that if you don’t get them right it will fall apart.

w  Here in the Maritimes we have all the requisite pieces but so far we can’t seem to get the pieces fitted together properly, and the need to do that, whether for health or economy or other parts, is not in fixing the little pieces, it is in getting the totality right.

w  Collaboration is difficult – it takes an honest, open, respectful dialogue, and an understanding of differences and a willingness to pursue solutions together rather than going on alone.

w  I thought I was aware of food and that I was eating sustainably, but I have a different understanding having lived here in the Valley for the past six months. There is a level of abstraction that comes from buying at the supermarket that in many ways mitigates against what we’re here to discuss.

w  Eating locally has made me feel more connected – this feeling is important to the kind of awareness you’re working here to achieve.

w  Acadia University has had deep roots in the community since 1838. Geography does matter. What happens to agriculture communities in this Valley means something to Acadia and I hope Acadia will mean something to the communities. Acadia has similar challenges to other Universities across Canada but many communities do not have the kinds of resources that we have: universities, community colleges, health authorities focusing on health.

w  Here in the Valley we have the opportunity to do an inventory of the pieces that exist and figure out how to combine them so they can work together more effectively.

w  We have successes – the Arthur Irving Academy, the Acadia Farm, and the local links that Chartwells is making, and we have many faculty who have many partnerships with the community.

w  I’m a fan of the land-grant universities that were set up in the US in the 1800s with a call on them to be relevant to the communities they served – they’re repositories for skills, knowledge and research capacity not just inside their walls but also in the wider community, and I think that Acadia was founded on that same spirit and connection to community.

w  We need a return to that connectedness with local community and make it as relevant now as it was when Acadia was founded 171 years ago. 

w  I do think there’s some urgency here. If we want find solutions ourselves rather than have others foist their solutions on us, then we must act urgently.

w  Quoting Hegel, “Hell is truth, seen too late.”

Dr. Ralph Martin is an educator and a researcher who focused his presentation on the question, “What Problems Have Brought Us to the Need for a Food Summit?” Dr. Martin began his presentation by repeating what he saw as key phrases in each of the other panellist’s presentations:

w  Chris Power, “In August we turned off the deep fryers”

w  Lori Stahlbrand, “U of T is almost at 25% local food.”

w  Ray Ivany, “Listen to the farmers.”

Dr. Martin’s presentation included the following points:

Problem: The “Diversity” of our Diet

w  I would first question the “diversity” of our diet. We have 200,000 species of food that are suitable for human consumption but we choose to eat only 300 of these species and 17 species provide 90% of human food.

w  We have so much given to us in nature but have narrowed our diets down to so little: wheat, rice, corn make up 75% of what we eat.

w  The diversity in supermarkets is basically wheat, rice and corn reconfigured.

w  We seem to be entrenched in a very specialized agricultural system.

w  Worldwide, we have 6.8 billion people, we waste about 40% of the food we grow, one billion people eat too much (we need about 2500 calories and many in North America eat around 3700) and one billion people do not eat enough.

w  Quoting J. Lovelock, “We as humans are a pestilence on earth, causing problems for the ecosystem.”

w  We have to grow up – we’ve acted like teenagers and it’s time for us to rethink how we treat the earth.

Problem: Displacing Dignity and Capacity

w  I am concerned about the dignity of local farmers, as they try to make a living, who have a right to be proud of the work they do in feeding us, and who are being displacing by the industrial food system.

w  Capacity: We have students at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College whose parents are telling them not to become farmers. 

w  A fifth generation farmer had his grandfather tell him, don’t become a farmer, farming is not a way to earn a living.

w  When the third generation of a farming family tells the fifth generation not to farm, we’re in trouble.

Problem: Cheap Food

w  Cheap food creates many problems, globally. We are losing the capacity to feed ourselves because of cheap food flooding local markets.

w  However, as fuel costs rise, so too will the cost of food.

w  But with rising oil costs also come rising input costs that will make it more difficult for farmers.

w  The trick is for us to get from here to there – where farmers will be paid appropriately for their work. Somehow we have to hang on to our capacity until then.

w  We need an interim solution with regards to dignity and capacity, until we reach a point as a society of paying the right price for food.

w  At the same time there are people who can’t afford food even at the cheap prices. Who is benefiting from the current system?

Problem: Importing Food

w  There is a misguided conception that by purchasing imported foods we are “helping poor farmers in the south”.

w  If we buy bananas and flowers from the south, we support them, right?

No, mostly wrong:

}  Most of the money goes to wealthy landowners (not to the farmers themselves)

}  The best land is generally used for exports (not to sustain local residents)

}  The amount of land available to use for food crops is declining.

}  Trade within S. America has decreased.

}  Professor visiting from the South said – “I wish we would cut ourselves off from you – our debt to you is increasing - more money going North – just leave us alone.”

}  In short, by buying food from other countries we’re not necessarily helping farmers there either.

Problem: We Worship Energy

• Currently in the industrial food system there’s about ten times as much energy going into the system as we get out in calories.

w  We have a reliance on nitrogen-derived (Haber-Bosch method) fertilizer for food production.

w  About 48% of people depend on this for their food; by 2050 this number could rise to 60%.

w  Loss of excess nitrate to waterways and nitrous oxide (330 times worse than CO₂) to air with accompanying problems.

w  Making N-fertilizer uses 1/3 of the global agricultural energy budget.

w  We have to become less dependent on nitrogen fertilizer.

Solutions: Local and Organic Works

w  In 1945 it took 4 hours work to buy a bag of groceries: today it takes 2 hours.

w  We need to invest in the farmers wherever they are

w  By buying local and organic food, you might be paying 10% more.

w  But you may end up spending the same amount of money as a person who does not buy local - those who pay more waste less. (Respect for food = less waste)

w  Wayne Roberts proposes a 4-day work-week to allow people to work 1 day a week to grow and preserve food.

Measures that we want and need

w  Healthy community, food and soil

w  Clean air and water

w  Biodiversity

w  Environmental service

w  Happiness and well being – community and trust and GPI measure
We need to help farmers to hang on until oil and other prices go up high enough so that farmers can make a living. Farmers are solution providers.  With their land, resources and know-how they can provide food security and energy security.  It’s worth a serious conversation to find out what they need from us to do that.