Sometimes it’s hard to trace the direct impact that government programs have on our communities. This is partly because on-the-ground projects leading to community change often receive funding from many sources, including private donors, industry partners, foundations, and various levels of government. In the end, the question remains: Who gets the (most) credit for project outcomes and impacts?

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The Food Secure Canada team poses for a picture. ©Abra Brynne

In Food Secure Canada’s (FSC) case, a partnership through the government-funded has had a direct impact on their ability to contribute to consultations on building a Food Policy for Canada. With the Government of Canada’s extremely short ·Éľ±˛Ô»ĺ´Ç·É— to be exact—having a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow provided FSC with additional policy and research expertise at just the right time.

“Being able to hire Amanda Wilson through Mitacs has given FSC the capacity to increase the number of voices being heard in the Government of Canada’s consultation process,” says Diana Bronson, Executive Director of FSC. “Amanda’s efforts, our partnerships with entities like and CFICE, along with the work of the FSC team as a whole, have lead to a much more robust engagement process around national food policy.”

According to the Mitacs website, the goal of the Accelerate program is to put “talent to work with an organization that needs it.” They do this by matching community or industry partner funding for research projects that include a postdoctoral student, a supervising professor and a partner organization. The project submitted by FSC, in collaboration with Amanda and supervising Lakehead University professor Charles Levkoe, was titled .

Amanda Wilson worked as a post-doctoral student for Food Secure Canada.

“Our goal with this project was to increase the capacity of community and academic partners to contribute to a national food policy process,” explains Amanda. “We wanted to experiment with different ways of collaborating and sharing resources for policy impact, all with the goal of pushing for more just, healthy and sustainable food policy.”

Through the project, Amanda has been able to take the lead on developing policy briefs (notably FSC’s and their ) and engaging with FSC members and academic partners to generate and refine policy recommendations. This included outreach to academic allies of FSC, as well as targeted engagement around New Farmers and Northern Food.

FSC has a long history of community-academic collaboration. A partner in CFICE since the beginning of Phase I, FSC creates space and opportunities for academics, non-profits, and community organizations to work together on research and advocacy for a just and sustainable food system.

“From day one, working with Food Secure Canada has been a bit of a whirlwind,” recalls Amanda. I’ve been involved in so many different events and processes. But it’s been a great opportunity to build relationships with community organizations and academics across Canada and to hopefully have a real impact on the government’s policy-building process.”

Attendees at the Ottawa Food Summit. ©Food Secure Canada

While the results of FSC’s advocacy efforts are not yet fully available—the first draft of A Food Policy for Canada won’t be out until mid-2018—the impact of having matching funds for Amanda’s position are clear.

“We wouldn’t have been able to generate the same depth and breadth of policy analysis, or connect with our members to the same degree without Amanda’s help,” says Diana. “The Mitacs funding has really increased our ability to meet our core goal of supporting the food movement to engage in meaningful policy change. The best part is that the funding lasts for two years, which allows us to breathe and really maximize Amanda’s contributions to our organization.”

As for Amanda, she’s happy she’s had the opportunity to work on such a high-profile policy process that incorporates so many of the crucial issues facing our food system. “Working in a community context, there’s a tangible impact of the work I’m doing that you don’t get in a strictly academic context, which is something I really appreciate.”

With another year of funding left for Amanda’s postdoctoral position, this collaboration is sure to continue generating important policy insight that contributes to a stronger food movement in Canada.

Become more community-first!

To learn more about how to make your work more community-first, check out our list of actions for all community-campus engagement practitioners!

These resources include:

• Curriculum Guidelines from the province of Saskatchewan;
• Curriculum resources (links to examples, unit plans, and other resources); and
• A unit plan on #foodcrisis.

Check out the resources and let us know what you think!

Sharing the Table Manitoba is a CFICE community partner whose relationship with CFICE developed within the . It is a network of individuals ranging from food producers such as fishermen and women and farmers, to food consumers, with the aim of creating a space for discussion and change around food policies.

Sharing the Table Manitoba emerged from a number of causes and for multiple reasons. Its existence can in part be contributed to the Real Manitoba Food Fight, which is an organization that works to develop alternative food systems in Manitoba. While both organizations share a great deal in common in their aims of creating alternative food systems, Sharing the Table Manitoba’s focus is shifted slightly to have a greater emphasis on food policies. In an interview with Colin Anderson, a Participatory Action Researcher at Sharing the Table Manitoba, he expressed the organization’s shift in focus away from food policy in urban and northern Manitoba towards rural Manitoba as an effort to fill the gap in rural food policy and establish a space for conversations between farmers, chefs, and citizens.

Colin attributes the as the catalyst that sparked events for mobilizing the food movement in Manitoba, and, ultimately, the start-up of Sharing the Table Manitoba. “During that raid I was there with a few students as part of a course called Live in Rural Communities and Environments. And we videotaped the confrontation between the food safety inspectors and the Cavers and made a video out of it.  And it really created an opportunity and highlighted a lot of the problems around police and regulations in the province. So it brought people together in a highly politicized moment to really start to articulate what those problems are and to push back and try to open up the political opportunity to create change around those issues in the province.”

Jeanette Sivilay, a farmer, community organizer, and coordinator with Sharing the Table Manitoba added that the raid led many farmers to feel tentative about speaking out against food policies, which is where Sharing the Table Manitoba comes in. ”We hope that this can be considered a kind of safe space or that if all of a sudden punitive action were to be taken against these small farmers, that we would have this network that would mobilize quite quickly to provide resources, come to their defense, and bear witness to this situation in such a way that small farmers feel that they have allies.”

This advocacy role is part of Sharing the Table Manitoba’s mission statement and its function within the community. The mission statement also includes educating the public, conducting research and analysis, and working to change policies and regulations.

Sharing the Table Manitoba partnered with CFICE after Colin’s involvement with the Canadian Association for Food Studies where he was able to foster connections with people in CFICE. Colin and Charles Levkoe, the Academic Co-lead for the Community Food Security hub at CFICE, have been familiar with each other’s work for quite some time and as Colin describes it, CFICE was a good fit for Sharing the Table Manitoba.

Both Jeanette and Colin describe the work CFICE has done for Sharing the Table Manitoba as being really valuable for the network.

“The conferences that CFICE supported me going to, has helped us really start to connect with farmers outside of the province to realize that there are examples of where there are especially young and new farmers that are coming together to talk about the more political aspects of our food system, which has been really encouraging and exciting and has brought energy to what we’re trying to do in Manitoba,” said Jeanette.

CFICE’s involvement has allowed Sharing the Table Manitoba to refocus attention and contribute to the change that the organization is seeing to date, which has included work on a report that explores the role of government regulations, policies and programs in shaping the development of local sustainable food systems in the Province of Manitoba.

This work, along with providing platforms for discussion and getting the conversation started, has built confidence among community members that may be hesitant to speak up in fear of backlash from government officials and regulators. The government has also initiated a roundtable for discussion in response to food sovereignty organizations calling for change.

“I also think it has created an opportunity that would be far less developed if we hadn’t had the support of CFICE,” Colin said.

From a community perspective community-campus engagement projects like CFICE’s have a lot of potential. As Jeanette explained, “I think that any time we can get academics out of the university and into the community and really listening well to community members and focusing on what the community needs are, I think that’s important. I think that’s really where the relevance and importance of universities come in.”

Sharing the Table Manitoba welcomes individuals to . You can access information about their organization via their and .