On the heels of the “Understanding our Food Systems” gathering held in January 2019, Charles and colleague Jessica McLaughlin (co-ordinator of the Indigenous Food Circle), penned this article to help spread awareness of food sovereignty issues in Canada. Click on the image below to increase the size for easier reading or click here to access a PDF version.

This article shares some of the knowledge gained in Phase I of CFICE through on-the-ground research projects in the food sector. Check out the abstract below, or .

Abstract

This article is situated within nascent debates on the role of academics within food sovereignty movements. Drawing on insights from a collective autoethnography, we report on our experiences conducting three food sovereignty research projects in different contexts and at different scales. We suggest that that the principles and practices of food sovereignty translate into a food sovereignty research praxis. This consists of three pillars focusing on people (humanizing research relationships), power (equalizing power relations) and change (pursuing transformative orientations). This article discusses these pillars and analyzes the extent to which we were able to embody them within our projects.

Post-secondary institutions have specific timelines, long processes for things like ethics approval or grant applications, and generally speaking, a complex power structure that can involve some firm top-down governance.

These factors can easily complicate a campus-community partnership, particularly if the community partner is unsure or unfamiliar with how the academic environment functions. In CFICE’s year four summary reports, community partners from multiple hubs expressed their frustration with the “mismatched timelines between academic and community partnerships.”

Charles Levkoe, an academic co-lead with the CFICE project, said that his community counterpart often talked about how everything changed once they understood how the academic cycle worked.

It’s important for academic and community partners to be on the same page as much as possible in order to ensure an effective and fruitful partnership. For community organizations who have limited experience working with academic institutions, here are some things to expect when entering a partnership with a post-secondary institution.

First steps when working with a post-secondary institution

Dr. Charles Levkoe, academic co-lead with the CFICE project.

For those that have never partnered with an academic institution before and are completely unsure of what to expect, Dr. Levkoe suggests finding a broker organization as a first step. Broker organizations can sometimes be housed within post-secondary institutions themselves, and it is their job to be well-connected with the institution and with community organizations.

Additionally, ensuring that your community organization finds the right person or people to work with is all about doing the research ahead of time, something Dr. Levkoe said a broker organization can be really helpful with.Ìę

However, if you have your own relationships with people within a post-secondary institution, it might be best to start there instead. “A lot of the best community-campus engagement work I’ve seen goes through people,” Dr. Levkoe said. “They know how I work, I know how they work, we have a trust that’s built up. And those things don’t come overnight,” he added.

Similarly, CFICE’s year four summary reports echoed the importance of previously existing personal relationships as being important building blocks for any partnership.

Have realistic expectations about timelines

One academic partner in CFICE’s Violence Against Women hub said that often, community organizations have “fairly unrealistic views of how quickly it can happen
They don’t know how long it takes to get ethics approval and they are frustrated by the delays. From their point of view it is just ‘why don’t you just get on with [it] and just do it!” The academic partner here echoed concerns of a “timeline mismatch” between the community and academic partners, but also acknowledged the unique time limitations that community partners experience, where “people are so busy, so overwhelmed” that the slow pace of academic research “makes them less interested in the actual research.”

Figuring out expectations and timelines are part of any good project.

When discussing how community partners can manage their expectations when entering into a partnership with an academic institution, Dr. Levkoe said that understanding the university structure is a good place to start.

“The university can be a very top-down institution that has a certain way of doing things. Faculty have some freedom within that structure but most are already involved in a range of work. For example, if someone asked me to do research with them, even if I love the project, I have classes I teach, I have students I’m supervising and it’s not something I can easily add to my plate. I need to plan ahead, I need to make time, make space, sometimes I need to apply for grants, and that can take up to a year.”

Academic timelines and community-campus engagement (CCE) projects

In most universities, the academic timeline consists of two main semesters of teaching, the first being from September through December, and the second from January through the end of May. Often, academics have more time to conduct research, or participate in CCE projects, during the summer months, when their teaching schedule is much less demanding.

There are additional factors in academic timing that could impact when a grad student is hired for a research assistantship, for instance. And when it comes to sharing CCE project work, academic articles undergo a peer review process that makes publishing a lengthy process—often up to two years of editing and revising before an article makes it to print.

Exactly how these timelines could impact a project will vary depending on the institution and the academic partner, but being aware of the possibility that this four-month semester schedule could affect the flow and speed of a project can help to manage expectations.

Ethics = longer CCE timelines but enhance research quality

All projects are beholden to the project management triple constraint triangle. Projects can only adhere to two sides of the triangle at any given time.

What is ultimately important to remember is that the reason a lot of things move slowly through academia is because there are high standards of rigor and ethics.

“I think ethics is a good thing,” Dr. Levkoe said. “It’s not perfect; there’s lots of challenges
but it helps to ensure there are checks and balances”.

As someone who has also worked in the non-profit sector for many years, Dr. Levkoe said in that sector, “you write a grant, you often find out relatively quickly [if you were successful], and then the program goes ahead or it doesn’t. But academia works a bit differently.”

One way to effectively manage expectations is through outlining limitations and potential restrictions right off the bat. Partners in the Violence Against Women hub said that the first step in the partnership needed to be coming to a consensus about the structure, process, and goals for the hub. In this particular instance, because the CFICE project is funded by SSHRC, there were certain guidelines and pre-determined parameters on the process of the project that needed to be met. Clearly identifying these factors in advance was important to the community partners in this hub.

Community organizations partnering with an academic institution should keep in mind that depending on where the grant or funding is coming from, asking questions and having a clear idea of any limitations the grant might have on the project can be very helpful to do in advance.

Partnerships often extend beyond the ‘community-campus’ dichotomy

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

“We have to be careful about talking about communities and academics as being two separate things,”ÌęDr. Levkoe said. “As academics, we are also community members.”

He said his engagement with the community involves sitting on boards, working with organizations “not necessarily as part of my research program, but as part of my service to the community, as part of my application of the stuff I’m reading and writing.” And, often times, he said he is the one who approaches community organizations to engage in a partnership.

“This relationship is really dynamic and evolving, it’s not straight forward at all,” Dr. Levkoe said. But being “realistic about what can happen” is a good place to start.

We recently had an extraordinary opportunity to discuss what is happening on food policy with European experts and organizations, as well as colleagues from around the world, in events in Brussels (29-30 May), Budapest (30 May-1 June) and Brighton (June 4-5). Here are some of the highlights of those events with some of the resources for people who are interested in knowing more.

EU Food and Farming Forum by IPES-Food Explores a Food Policy Council Model

Peter Andree and Diana Bronson participate in a panel at the EU Food and Farming Forum in Brussels.

The first event was theÌęÌęin Brussels, organized by IPES-Food—the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food.ÌęÌęis, in some ways, the international counterpart of Canada’s (FLEdGE) research group, and one FLEdGE co-investigator, Molly Anderson from Middlebury College in Vermont, is an active member of both groups. IPES-Food has published a number ofÌęÌęsince 2015 on the role of international governance mechanisms in the transition towards sustainable food systems.

Designed as ‘participatory democracy in action,’ the EU Food and Farming Forum attracted over 250 representatives of civil society organizations, social movements and governments from across Europe. Participants prepared a series of proposals designed to form the basis of a Common Food Policy for Europe. Launched in 1962, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been criticized by food analysts and activists alike for being expensive—almost 40% of the EU’s total budget—unsustainable and highly damaging to developing countries where subsidized exports are dumped below their real costs. Replacing the CAP with a Common European Food Policy is being championed by, amongst others, Olivier de Schutter (former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and Co-chair of IPES-Food). Much like the conversation in Canada around the proposed Food Policy for Canada, the EU’s Common Food Policy is proposed as a way to break down policy silos and build a more healthy and sustainable food system that is equitable, especially to the people involved in growing or otherwise making the food we eat.

The room was full for Peter Andree and Diana Bronson’s panel on Building Integrated Food Policies at the National Level.

Sustainable food system advocates in Europe are watching Canadian developments in food policy with interest. We were invited to speak on the opening plenary, along with organizations working on food policy and food system transitions from England and the Netherlands. It was striking to see the similarities in the issues we are facing, and to see the same debates among civil society actors that we have: How can we ensure sustainable food is accessible? What issues should be tackled first? How can we get more traction for a joined-up food policy and bring more actors around the policy-making table? How, as civil society organizations, can we have better access to decision-making and reform governance of our food system? How do food sovereignty, the right to food, and the sustainable development goals fit into food system reform? At the end of two days of discussion, many organizations endorsed a proposed European Food Policy Council, drawing from theÌęÌęthat Food Secure Canada (FSC), alongside many other stakeholders, endorsed for Canada.

Living Knowledge Network Examines Partnership Power Dynamics

We then went on to the beautiful city of Budapest for the 8^thÌębiennial conference of the Living Knowledge Network (LKN). The LKN is a gathering of academics and civil society organizations committed to community-based research. Three days of discussions, poster sessions, and workshops examined the power dynamics between researchers and community groups. We heard many examples of innovative partnership models where communities are truly equal partners in research. For the past six years, Food Secure Canada (FSC) has been a core partner in theÌęCFICE Project, so we shared how we have been working through this partnership to support knowledge co-creation and policy change towards a more socially and ecologically just food system. The CFICE project is now launching a permanent network of academics and practitioners who are committed to working together to improve research practices and evidence-based interventions. In Budapest, we were able to share details on this emerging network, calledÌęCommunity-Campus Engage Canada, with colleagues who have developed similar networks in Europe and around the world.

Institute for Development Studies and IPES-Food Discussed Political Economies of Sustainable Food Systems

The Institute for Development Studies and IPES-Food host discussions on the political economies of sustainable food systems.

Our last stop was the beautiful sea-side town of Brighton, UK where the Institute for Development Studies and IPES-Food co-hosted two days of academic discussions on the political economies of sustainable food systems. This workshop provided an opportunity to examine the complexities of food system reform with some of the world’s top thinkers. It was heartening to see that this list included a disproportionate number of Canadians, many of whom are connected with the FLEdGE and CFICE networks, among them Cecilia Rocha (Ryerson), Charles Levkoe (Lakehead), Harriet Friedman (University of Toronto), and Paul Uys (Guelph). The goal of the workshop was to help IPES-Food further their analysis of the political ‘lock-ins’ that inhibit movement towards sustainable food systems, and to explore various approaches for identifying the levers that can bring about change. Discussions were wide-ranging and included topics such as food riots, agroecology, alternative food cooperatives in China,Ìę, and resilience theory.

Central to the discussions at all three events were questions of power and practice: How can we best work together across our own silos, disciplines, professions, and geographies to redesign food systems badly in need of reform? We learned that the work we are doing in Canada to address these questions – both what we do and how we do it – is being watched closely by allies in Europe and beyond. Thanks to the support of CFICE, FLEdGE, and IPES-Food we were able to share the important food policy work of FSC Canada and others to meaningfully contribute to sustainable food systems dialogues in Europe and beyond.

KEY FINDINGS

• There is no single definition for food hubs.
• The different goals and objectives exist on a continuum that describes pathways to change, from enhancing food supply chains to challenging the negative outcomes of the dominant food system through social and ecological justice.
• The tensions that emerge between and within food hubs and the mainstream food system are often productive, helping food hubs to see new ways of being food hubs.

SOURCE DETAILS

Based on: “” in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, volume 8, issue 2 (summer 2018), advance online publication.

Date published: June 1, 2018

Lead Author: Charles Z. Levkoe

Co-authors: Colleen Hammelman, Luke Craven, Gavin Dandy, Jeff Farbman, James Harrison, and Phil Mount

Affiliations: Lakehead University (Levkoe), University of North Carolina Charlotte (Hammelman), The University of New South Wales (Craven), Everdale; The SEED Community Food Hub; University of Guelph; and Fleming College (Dandy), Wallace Center at Winrock International (Farbman), The Food Project (Harrison), and Wilfrid Laurier University (Mount)

Author contact: Charles Z. Levkoe: clevkoe@lakeheadu.ca

Keywords: Academic, Food Movements, Food Systems, Practitioner, Social Justice, Sustainability

Permanent link to abstract and full PDF:

Publisher: Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems, Ithaca, New York

KEY LESSONS FROM THE ROUNDTABLE

Food hubs often struggle with complex logistics and accounting systems that can accommodate the diverse needs and capacities of suppliers and consumers and adapting these systems to their own needs. A commons-based peer production platform for hub technology could provide adaptable solutions that build on previous experiences shared by others—without having to repeat their mistakes.

There is a need to fund the social and community-based services provided by food hubs. A supply chain coordinator captures the many functions performed by those who facilitate food hub work. These functions, including matchmaker, educator, relationship-builder, policy thought-leader, and catalyst, are not easily reflected on a balance sheet. Investment in these functions will produce long-term economic and community development benefits. Academics and practitioners working together must find a way to clearly communicate the value of investment in the many functions performed by supply chain coordinators.

While research on food hubs has grown dramatically as the field has grown, many important areas for future research were identified during the roundtable. These included the need to better understand primary drivers for food hubs, food hub viability and scale, food safety, food hub responses to market signals, and the effects on community revitalization. Academics and practitioners can work together to convey the interconnected nature of these problems and solutions to policy-makers. Scholars can make valuable contributions to this work by facilitating connections and research.

Another critical area of further research centers around food systems as economic development. These include quantitative studies (e.g., exploring job creation, economic multipliers of a local food system, increases in farm viability) and qualitative measures relating both to the attractiveness of the area for non-geographically bound operations (e.g., technology) and to the impacts of a thriving local food system on quality of life.

STUDY BACKGROUND

This paper brings together the experiences of scholars and practitioners to share the results of sustained food hub research with the practical experiences of food hub operations and advocacy. The discussion presents a food hub continuum that describes different pathways to effect change, from enhancing food supply chains to challenging the negative outcomes of the dominant food system through a social and ecological justice approach. While the mission of particular food hubs may be aligned with one end of the continuum, they are often pulled in different directions by competing economic and social forces. This perspective problematizes typical descriptions by recognizing different goals and objectives as well as resulting opportunities, challenges, and innovations. While the authors do not suggest one end of the continuum is more important than the other, their analysis identifies a series of productive tensions that emerge. The discussion is structured around four central themes from the collaborative conversation: (1) descriptions of food hubs; (2) differing objectives; (3) navigating success; and (4) encountering barriers.

Bringing together the knowledge and experiences of scholars and practitioners can make an important contribution to understanding factors that contribute to a food hub’s impact. This paper, and the roundtable from which it emerged, bring these different perspectives into conversation to better understand ways in which academic research can contribute to addressing food hub challenges, in which practitioners can lend insights to gaps in the literature, and in which new avenues for academic-practitioner collaboration can be identified. This contribution is significant for bridging the overlapping conversation between scholarship and practice to ultimately better inform food hub development.

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?

Listen to the podcast below, or continue scrolling to read the full story! Download a PDF of the podcast transcript.

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 ·ÉŸ±ČÔ»ćŽÇ·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!

Abstract

Academic institutions and community-based organisations have increasingly recognised theÌęvalue of working together to meet their different objectives and address common societalÌęneeds. In an effort to support the development and maintenance of these partnerships, a diversity of brokering initiatives has emerged. We broadly describe these initiatives as coordinating mechanisms that act as intermediaries with the aim of developing collaborative and sustainable partnerships that provide mutual benefit. A broker can be an individual or an organisation that helps connect and support relationships and shares knowledge. To date, there has been little scholarly discussion or analysis of the various elements of these initiatives that contribute to successful community-campus partnerships. In an effort to better understand where these features may align or diverge, we reviewed a sample of community-campus brokering initiatives across North America, Canada and the United Kingdom to identify their different roles and activities. From this review, we developed a framework to delineate characteristics of different brokering initiatives to better understand their contribution to successful partnerships. The framework is divided into two parts. The first part examines the different structural allegiances of the brokering initiative by identifying the affiliation and principle purpose, and who received the primary benefits. The second part considers the dimensions of brokering activities in respect of their level of engagement, platforms used, scale of activity, and area of focus. The intention of the community-campus engagement brokering framework is to provide an analytical tool for academics and community-based practitioners engaged in teaching and research partnerships. The categories describing the differentÌęstructures and dimensions of the brokering initiative will encourage participants to think through the overall goals and objectives of the partnership and adapt the initiative accordingly.

Read the full PDF by clicking on the image below:

Engaging in community-first campus-community engagement (CCE) is an opportune way for faculty to achieve their goals as researchers and teachers. Charles Levkoe, an academic co-lead for CFICE’s CCE Brokering Working Group and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at Lakehead University, offers a good example of what can be accomplished with a community-first approach.

Listen to the podcast below, or continue scrolling to read the full story! Download a PDF of the podcast transcript.

Prior to entering academia, Charles worked in several community organizations, including non-profits and an agroecological farm. This activity was highly rewarding but also demanding. One of the biggest challenges however, was not having the time to ask the bigger questions about ‘why we do what we do’.

These bigger questions, in part, are what led Charles to pursue a career in academia. His passion for and experience working as part of various community organizations are what gave him the motivation and skills to put community first when engaging with communities from the other side of the community-campus engagement partnership. According to Charles, being community-first is all about maintaining a close relationship between professors and community partners that is ultimately mutually advantageous.

Charles has had the opportunity to take a community-first approach to all of his research, focusing on the needs and interests of the community. This approach is often extremely demanding; however, if done correctly, it can lead to greater impact. Being community-first allows both parties to build lasting partnerships, which can extend far beyond the short-term intentions of the initial research initiatives.

Being involved with CFICE has also helped Charles’s work as an academic. As an early career academic, CFICE has given legitimacy to his craft.

“With academia, you are often driven to address social needs,” explains Charles. “CFICE has given me the legitimacy to be able to say that this work means something, that it is valuable.”

Furthermore, the connections coming out of CFICE have provided a powerful network that helps Charles further drive community-first engagement.

Food Secure Canada team in 2016. ©Abra Brynne

An example of successful community-first practices in action can be seen with recent Canadian national food policy work. Charles led a team that worked closely with Food Secure Canada to help engage civil society contributions towards a national food policy to help support a healthier, more just and sustainable food system.

According to Charles, the community-first collaboration between community and academia has had a big impact on the project’s success. “Collectively, we have a lot of opportunity to move the needle on some of these issues.”

As for how other faculty members could take that first step in becoming community-first in their engagement efforts, Charles suggests starting with an issue that sparks passion within. “Being community-first is a serious time commitment, but it can be very rewarding. Take some time to think about how you can have an impact, what your interests are, and the skills you can mobilize. It’s not just a short-term endeavor, but something made up of longer-term relationships. It is all about working together to make a collective impact.”

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!

Podcast Sound Clips used underÌęCreative Commons Attribution 3.0:

(Also Credit Mike Koenig)

Dr. Charles Levkoe is a CFICE co-investigator as part of the CCE Brokering Working Group.

CFICE Co-Investigator, Charles Levkoe, recently published an academic article with colleagues Abigail Friendly and Amrita Daniere titled Community Service-Learning in Graduate Planning Education. Published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research January 2018, the article looks at how planning programs involving graduate-level students can examine learning outcomes to better describe the implications of community service-learning for graduate planning education.

Read through the abstract below, and access the full article through the .*

Abstract

Community service-learning (CSL) has gained popularity over the past decades in universities across North America.ÌęAlthough planning programs tend to involve more graduate-level community-engaged learning than other professional disciplines, learning outcomes have not been sufficiently examined. Based on a review of existing literature and analysis from four years of a CSL course at the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning, this article describes the implications of CSL for graduate planning education. We argue that CSL in graduate planning programs has a series of unique characteristics and thus requires distinctive pedagogical approaches.

*Note: Readers may need a subscription to the Journal or through an academic institution in order to access the full article.

To cite this article, please use:

Levkoe, C. Z., Friendly, A., & Daniere, A. (2018). Community Service-Learning in Graduate Planning Education. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 11(2), 0739456X1875431–12.

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 womenÌęand 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.Ìę 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 exploresÌęthe 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 .