About

Contact
Colin Anderson
204 474 7949
c_anderson@umanitoba.ca

Farm to Fork Research

The modernization of agriculture, transportation, food processing and trade has resulted in a globalizing agro-food system (GAFS) that arguably benefits multinational corporations (McMichael, 2006) at the expense of producers and consumers around the world. Society at large has increasingly committed to the GAFS, which has provided an unprecedented abundance of ‘cheap’ food to those who can afford it. However, even in the most affluent of countries such as Canada and the United States, the hegemonic logic of this paradigm is being called into question. Frequent food scares, such as listereosis, BSE and e-coli, have spawned a crisis of confidence in fordist-industrial modes of food production (Griffiths & Wallace, 1998) and in the ability of industry and government to effectively manage the risks of modernity (Rosenberger, 2009). The GAFS system is also widely criticized for its adverse environmental impacts (Pirog & Benjamin, 2003; Pretty, et al., 2005) and inability to mitigate widespread poverty, as evidenced by an ongoing global food crisis. Even within the most affluent countries, millions of citizens go hungry, highlighting how the systemic injustice in our agro-food system transcends scale, geography and time. Finally, the main focus of this research is centered around the troubling corollary of an increasingly industrialized and concentrated GAFS whereby the ability of family farmers to earn a livelihood off of the land is under ongoing threat.

These shortcomings, in part, underlie a surging interest in participatory local food networks (LFN). LFNs are emerging world-over and include: farmers markets, community supported agriculture and farmer cooperatives. In LFNs, consumers are transformed from being passive consumers to active participants by negotiating the terms of agro-food networks with farmers and intermediaries.

This suite of research and education activities is being facilitated through the doctoral research of Colin Anderson under the advisory of Stephane McLachlan in the Environmental Conservation Laboratory at the University of Manitoba. However, this research has many contributors from both rural and urban Manitoba and is strongly supported through participation by members of the Harvest Moon Society Local Food Initiative.

The objectives of the project are to:

• characterize LFNs as a response to globalization
• assess the potential for LFNs to be scaled-up and have a wider impact
• identify the role of public policy in inhibiting and enhancing LFNs
• and assess the ways in which LFNs promote responsible citizenship

The research program is interweaved with action and has contributed to the development of the Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative – a collective local food marketing group made up of 12 farm families in Southern Manitoba. A documentary video, website (www.farmtoforkresearch.com), newsletter, research reports, conference presentations and active participation in grassroots food activism will allow us to effectively interface with research participants, policy-makers and food citizens in Manitoba and across Canada.

Contributors

Colin Anderson
I grew up on a grain farm just outside of Cypress River, Manitoba. This rural upbringing fuels my interest in rural and farm issues. Over the course of my childhood, rural areas changed a great deal yet this evolution went largely unnoticed to my young eyes. It was not until I moved into the city that I gained a new perspective as I reflected on these changes in retrospect. With a new set of eyes, I was able to recognize a growing set of interconnected problems facing family farms and rural communities. Declining services, a dwindling and aging population and the erosion of infrastructure in my own community was perhaps most recently manifested in the announced closure of the elementary school that I attended.

The issues plaguing rural Canada are complex, systemic and troubling. Yet family farming and rural communities are an integral part of our cultural identify, our natural environment and are fundamental to the food security of urban and rural residents alike. Further, rural communities are wonderful places to visit, to live and to raise a family in. We must not sit idle as we continue to lose family farms and erode the basis of our rural communities. I believe that a combination of individual acts and collective action can reverse the trend of rural and farm decline. As such, I have decided to undertake action research project that will at once work towards change and contribute to a deeper understanding of the farm/rural crisis by exploring possible solutions.

Stephane McLachlan
Stephane is the director of the Environmental Conservation Laboratory (ECL) and a founding member of the Harvest Moon Society. Over the last decade, ECL has developed an international reputation in research and education regarding rural issues across western Canada. This community-based research has explored vulnerability and adaptation in agricultural landscapes. More specifically, it examines how rural communities adapt to stressors and how social, environmental and economic capital contributes to resilience. The roles that volunteer networks, gendered activism, and cooperatives play in rural adaptation at individual and community scales of organization is being explored in most of the ongoing projects. Stephane and graduate students at the ECL have been key players in the Harvest Moon Society over the last decade, helping highlight the educational and outreach activities of both organizations and playing a key role in advocating for producers, sustainable rural communities, food systems and agriculture in Manitoba.

Clint and Pam Cavers
We farm with our three daughters in Southwestern Manitoba near the town of Pilot Mound. We raise beef cattle, goats, American Mulefoot hogs and pastured poultry. We manage our farm holistically and practice sustainable agriculture. The sun rises and sets on our land, big statement but true. We wake in the morning with the rooster crowing and the sounds of Mother Nature all around us. We are stewards of the land and strive to see that this great world of ours is cared for the way that it was meant to be. Clint and Pam are active participants on the Participatory Video Committee and are collaborating with this research team to produce a video about local solutions to the Global Food Crisis.

Jo-Lene Gardiner
Jo-lene is at once an active member of the Harvest Moon Society, a participating farmer in the Harvest Moon Society Local Food Initiative, an employee with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives and a resident of Clearwater, Manitoba. She is an “active farm partner” on a mixed farm that uses the Holistic Management approach to management. She is also involved in a number of local organizations including the Harvest Moon Society, Clearwater Women’s Institute, Clearwater Memorial Hall and the Clearwater United Church Board. Through her work, she is actively involved with farmers and communities, and troubleshoots and coordinates many of their activities/conferences/ workshops/events. In the past she has been involved with a “Youth and Community Wellness Committee” addressing issues such as teen depression and suicide, a group that proactively addresses mental/social/physical health issues in rural communities. Jo-Lene sits on Colin Anderson’s dissertation advisory committee and oversaw Phase I of this project.

References

Griffiths, S., & Wallace, J. (1998). Consuming Passions: Food in the Age of Anxiety: Manchester University Press.

Mcmichael, P. (2006). Global Development and the Corporate Food Regime. Research in Rural Sociology and Development, 11, 265-299.

Pirog, R., & Benjamin, A. (2003). Checking the Food Odometer: Comparing Food Miles for Local Versus Conventional Produce Sales to Iowa Institutions. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, Iowa.

Pretty, J.N., Ball, A.S., Lang, T., & Morison, J.I.L. (2005). Farm Costs and Food Miles: An Assessment of the Full Cost of the U.K. Weekly Food Basket. Food Policy, 30(1), 1-19.

Rosenberger, N. (2009). Global Food Terror in Japan: Media Shaping Risk Perception, the Nation, and Women. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 48(4), 237 – 262.