Lifting the veil

Growing local conference seeks to raise awareness about healthy, sustainable, fair food

Food Matters Manitoba hosts its annual Growing Local conference February 28 - March 1, connecting producers and consumers much like our city’s summer Farmer’s Markets do.

Daniel Crump

Even with the agricultural background we have in Manitoba, many of us are still in the dark about where our food comes from and who produces it. The annual Growing Local conference, organized by Food Matters Manitoba, aims to educate people about our local food economy, and hopefully dispel some of this uncertainty. The conference runs February 28 to March 1 this year.

“The conference is such a great connecting point for people who are working on these local and sustainable food issues,” says Caroline Townend, Communications Coordinator for Food Matters Manitoba. “It’s a way to disseminate all this information and to gather and feel you’re a part of something bigger.”

This year’s conference includes over 35 workshops offering a combination of instructional and informative lessons about food policy, sustainable agriculture practices, DIY food/cooking skills, and northern and indigenous food issues, among other topics.

“Everything is meant to be really interactive for people,” Townend explains. “Coming to the Growing Local conference, they can take in skills and knowledge that can help them make positive contributions to the food environments that they surround themselves with, and participate in, on a daily basis.”

Tom Allen, Associate Professor and the CIBC Scholar in Entrepreneurship in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan, is the keynote speaker during the second day of the conference.

“Awareness is the first step in using food systems to improve individual and community health,” Allen describes.

“In the past we were all closely connected to the farm and had a good understanding of how food was produced and prepared. Today, people are several generations removed from primary production and they need to be reminded of the benefits of producing and consuming healthy food.”

Allen believes that events like the Growing Local conference can serve as such a critical reminder for everyone. “Too often we think of food production as only an economic activity and forget that food is more than just dollars – it is also history, culture, health, jobs and sense of community, just to name a few.”

Michael Moss, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, will kick off the conference with his keynote address on the evening of February 27.

“Moss talks a lot in his research about this veil that happens, where people don’t know necessarily where their food is coming from, how it’s being processed, or what’s in it,” Townend explains.

“A huge reason we are bringing him in is to lift that veil, and show people that by building relationships we can learn about what we are eating and where it is coming from, and how this really is a good way of bridging gaps and building a healthy food system in Manitoba.”

Published in Volume 68, Number 21 of The Uniter (February 19, 2014)

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