Understanding the Role of Environmental Sustainability in a Social Economy of Food: A case study of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Ontario

M.A. Lemay, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Guelph
As a globally recognized sustainable agriculture practice, integrated pest management (IPM) represents an excellent case for better understanding the role of the environmental sustainability in a social economy of food.

_________________________

The IPM and Social Economy of Food case study is part of the Social and Informal Economies of Food Series, a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC): The Social Economy of Food: Informal, under-recognized contributions to community prosperity and resilience. It combines a profile of IPM in Ontario with analysis of the peer-reviewed literature to show how IPM could serve a social economy of food by building adaptive and resilient agro-ecosystems and increasing the social capital of the stakeholders who collaborate in successful IPM programs.

_________________________

 

Travis-2

Yellow sticky traps and weather station are used to monitor pest populations and weather patterns in an onion field in the Holland Marsh, Ontario. Photo:  T. Cranmer, OMAFRA

 

Worldwide, up to 40% of crops are damaged by pests.  Climate change is expected to increase crop losses from pests.  Protecting crops from a vast range of insect, rodent, bird, weed and disease pests is vital to food security, human health and overall social wellbeing.  Pesticides have played a major role in crop protection for the past 60 years. With the growing awareness of the detrimental environmental, health and economic consequences of indiscriminate pesticide use, sustainable methods of crop protection have become a priority.  IPM was introduced in the 1960s as a more sustainable approach to crop protection.  It is now the preferred method of crop protection and is seen as fundamental in the transition to sustainable agriculture.

IPM is an ecology-based approach to sustainable crop protection that combines biological, cultural, physical and chemical tools in ways that reduce the environmental, health and economic risks posed by pests and pest management practices. IPM integrates and applies knowledge of pest-crop-natural enemy, biology and interactions, ecosystem dynamics, local weather patterns and crop production practices. It is a data-intensive practice that involves regular monitoring of pest populations, crop damage and weather conditions to determine if and when crop protection interventions are necessary.

Sarah-4

Physical management strategies, such as yellow sticky tape and traps are used to mass trap pests in the greenhouse. Photo:  S. Jandricic, OMAFRA

 

Beyond the environmental and economic benefits of reduced pesticide use, IPM enhances the ecological resilience of agroecosystems. Applying IPM at the landscape or agroecosystem scale provides private financial benefits directly to farmers and public goods benefits, such as the provision of essential ecosystem services, protecting public health and rural economic development.  This multi-functional nature of IPM is crucial to its role in contributing to the overall adaptive capacity and resilience of the agri-food system.

E71-Flower-cover-middle-row-in-Quebec-vineyards-(Lasnier)

Cultural management practices, such as planting ‘cover crops’ between rows in the vineyard provides habitat for beneficial insects, enhances biodiversity and increases the capacity of the agroecosystem to provide essential ecosystem services. Photo: J. Lasnier, Ag-Cord Inc.

 

Successful IPM requires the cooperation of multiple stakeholders taking part in various activities (Table 1).  Crop monitoring, knowledge sharing, networking, training and research bring stakeholders together in collaborative relationships that build trust and reciprocity. The participatory nature of IPM, the reciprocal learning and the skills development are powerful means by which the social capital of all stakeholders is enhanced.

IPM Stake

Because it is accessible and available to all crop production approaches and can be practiced regardless of socio-economic status, IPM contributes to increasing prosperity for marginalized groups, specifically addressing inequalities by leveling the playing field between conventional production and alternative food production approaches that are advocated within a social economy paradigm.

Comani adults on mint searching for aphids

Parasitic wasps search for aphids on mint in a greenhouse. Biological control is the use of natural enemies to manage pests. Ontario’s greenhouse sector is second only to Europe in its adoption of biological control.  Photo:  J. Lemay, Eco-habitat Agri-Services

 

IPM is a priority in Ontario and supported by diverse stakeholders (Table 1), but the lack of a provincial IPM policy or strategy leaves Ontario at a disadvantage compared to other jurisdictions. The European Union’s (EU) recent pesticides packageincludes two Directives and two regulations, which makes IPM mandatory for state members. It has positioned IPM as The EU has also committed significant funding to the coordination of IPM research and knowledge mobilization among member states, which has triggered new initiatives that support the development and implementation of advanced, agroecosystem based IPM (Barzman et al 2015).

Envisioning IPM within a social economy of food has implications for several of OMAFRA’s current agri-food and rural policy priorities, including increased adoption of environmental beneficial management practices, innovation in IPM, the transition to sustainable production and the expansion of local food to improve the health of Ontarians (OMAFRA 2018).  Connecting policies for IPM and a social economy of food represents a novel policy approach for supporting the transition to sustainable agriculture through food production systems that are socially acceptable, ecologically responsible and economically viable.

Every Good Recipe Starts with a Seed!

IMG_7815

The Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network (ACORN)  helps to support local gardeners and farmers in growing healthy, nutritious food by providing them with good seeds, and information on research-supported farming practices.
In conjunction with The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, ACORN hosts seed field days, runs workshops on seed production, organizes seed mentorship programs, and supports research and seed collection projects that strengthen local seed libraries.
This new video, part of the Nourishing Communities Social and Informal Economies of Food video series, demonstrates the lasting value that lessons in seed saving can have in your community.

The long and the short of it: Motivations and realities for food hub actors in Ontario, Canada

LGF

In this new publication, Nourishing Communities researchers Alison Blay-Palmer, Erin Nelson, Phil Mount and Mike Nagy add depth to the results of the annual province-wide food hub surveys that you’ve seen on these pages over the last several years.

Drawing on more than five years of research into food hub innovation in Ontario, Canada, this chapter explores the limits to the aspirations of food hub actors in both logistical and structural terms. Specifically, the authors report findings from a 2015 survey of more than 185 food hub-related innovators as well as 22 case studies in Ontario.

While the goals for those working to develop sustainable local food values chains are in keeping with principles of fair, green, healthy and local food they are limited by a lack of resources including financial, infrastructure and network capacities. This chapter looks to both the Basque region and Scotland’s Good Food Nation approach as examples that can help to create more fertile ground in Ontario by providing models of scale appropriate policies that offer more financial resources, build relationality, and strengthen networked capacities for food hub innovation.

This chapter is part of Localizing Global Food: Short Food Supply Chains as Responses to Agri-Food System Challenges, the latest publication in the Routledge series Studies in Food, Society and the Environment.

Please contact the authors with any questions.

Inspiring Reconcili-action through Dialogue

“Genocide is complicated.” So begins Black Duck Wild Rice: The Resurgence of Indigenous Food Sovereignty within the Kawartha Lakes Region. This hard-hitting video lays out the challenges and possibilities of a manoomin revival as described by Black Duck Wild Rice founder James Whetung.

Black Duck Wild Rice, located in Curve Lake First Nation is a social enterprise involved with seeding, harvesting, processing and educating about manoomin or wild rice—a traditional food of the Nishnaabe people. Black Duck Wild Rice is enacting their Indigenous rights and is working to restore Indigenous food sovereignty for their community and within their traditional territory. These steps are taken as an antidote to the impacts of settler colonialism that the Mississauga Anishinaabeg have and continue to face daily in cottage country across the Kawartha Lakes Region, the Trent Severn waterway, and particularly in contested spaces such as Pigeon Lake. The resurgence of manoomin is an important step in the process of the reconciliation—and reconcili-action!

Please share this video widely!

Black Duck Wild Rice—Powerful New Case Study

“…the answer needs to be more active. Reconciliation needs to be a process. Nishnaabe people have shared, to the point that they are doing without the basic necessities, such as healthy traditional foods and the means to access them within their own traditional territories. So there has to be a re-sharing, sharing right from the top to the bottom. This is the process of reconciliation.

In the latest case study in the Social and Informal Economies of Food series, Paula Anderson and James Whetung explore the transformation of Black Duck Wild Rice from a small, private, for-profit business to a multi-faceted, community-integrated social enterprise sharing seed, knowledge and an element of control through community seeding, harvesting and processing of natural food resources.

Manoomin means the good seed or sacred seed in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway language). The Anishinaabeg have maintained a relationship with manoomin, caring for it, harvesting it, eating it, trading it, honoring it for generations upon generations. It is considered one of the central lifeways of the Anishinaabeg and in essence has defined who they are for millennia. Their intimate reciprocal relationship with this plant is affirmed in their ceremonies, songs and stories and integrated into their practices.

The case study takes you through the historical, geographic and social context of BDWR, and lays out all of the resources that have contributed to the development of this labour of love. Available to read online or download as a pdf

 

Levers for Food Systems Change: A Panel Discussion on Urban Food Security, Food Justice, and International Agreements

Tue, October 23, 2018
8:15 AM – 10:30 AM EDT

Balsillie School of International Affairs
67 Erb Street West
Room 142
Waterloo, ON

Over the last three years various international agreements have highlighted the need for greater coordination along the food chain and increased food justice in creating urban food security. These international agreements have set the stage for new urban food policy to emerge. At this panel discussion, food system experts from Wilfrid Laurier University, Carleton University, and the City of Toronto will explore how we can use the New Urban Agenda and other international agreements (SDGs and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact) as levers for changing the food system.

A light breakfast will be served.

Registration is required.

Panel moderated by:
Dr. Alison Blay-Palmer, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and Associate Professor in Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University

With panelists:
Dr. Patricia Ballamingie, Associate Professor Environmental Studies and Human Geography
Barbara Emanuel, Manager Toronto Food Strategy, Toronto Public Health
Dr. Theresa Schumilas, Postdoctoral Fellow, Geography and Environmental Science

Unable to attend in-person? We welcome you to watch the event via liverstream. Livestream details coming soon.

Presented by the Laurier Centre of Sustainable Food Systems

Workshop on Participatory Action Research, Planning and Evaluation

[…notice from Daniel Buckles of SAS2 Dialogue]

October 18-20 (Thursday-Saturday), 2018

Centre des practique creatives / Creative Practices Centre

Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa

451 Smyth Rd, Ottawa

The creation of knowledge “with” people and not “on” or “for” people is a critical challenge in today’s democracies. This applies to settings involving vulnerable or marginalized communities, the general public and the workplace where meaningful engagement is needed to identify priorities and develop policies, services, programmes and projects.

The three-day workshop is organized into modules that help you learn practical tools that can be adapted to design research projects that are action-oriented. We will also explore tools for participatory assessment of project impacts, and the use of digital tools. Learning is practiced in the context of participant projects and knowledge, making it possible to do real work while learning new skills.

REGISTRATION

The workshop is open to students enrolled in university or college (full and part-time), and to university and college faculty.

COST

Students: $350.00 plus HST

Faculty: $420 plus HST

Provides a total of 21 hours of instruction towards the SAS2 Dialogue certification program.

THE INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Daniel Buckles is an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and co-author with Jacques Chevalier of Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry, published by Routledge (second edition in progress).

For more information and to register see: Workshop Description

Connecting with the Land: Wellness through the Boreal Forest

Our Social and Informal Economies of Food partner Willow Springs has an announcement that will have you booking tickets for Thunder Bay!

Willow Springs Creative Centre is thrilled to be hosting the upcoming Annual Conference of the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association entitled

‘Connecting with the Land: Wellness through the Boreal Forest’

Please help us spread the word about this gathering of people who recognize the importance of people reconnecting with nature, using gardening and the land to help facilitate healing and wellbeing in everyone. Please consider attending the conference or supporting one of your staff members to attend!

Please post and share this brochure widely, with your colleagues and contacts.

CHTA Conference Brochure

If you have any questions or require additional information please do not hesitate to contact Judi Vinni, Coordinator, Willow Springs Creative Centre.

Hidden Harvest Ottawa has big dreams for a greener Ottawa. What are yours?

front
Imagine if every time you purchased $100 worth of groceries, your grocery store donated $25—or 1/4 of their ‘harvest’—to their local food bank. This is the scale of charitable benefits that Hidden Harvest supports in Ottawa.
Hidden Harvest‘s impactful new video describes the benefits of gleaning to the uninitiated, and follows with a series of recommendations challenging municipal political leaders to make their community’s future “the most sustainable future it can be”. The video captures the essence of the Nourishing Communities Hidden Harvest Case Study by Chloé Poitevin DesRivières, released earlier this year. The case study found that, along with benefits to local food access agencies and processors,
the services Hidden Harvest offers to the community and the city by creating alternate means to feed people, manage renewable resources, developing green infrastructure and diverting waste from landfills, speak to the aims of different city offices, including community and social services, energy planning, and forestry services.

This new video makes the case that the exceptional value in the public services produced through largely voluntary labour deserves the support of public officials.

2018 Vote on Food and Farming

From Sustain Ontario

Vote ON Food & Farming 2018

Good food has the power to make positive change. Food and farming policies and programs can grow Ontario’s economy, reduce our health care costs, improve our environmental impact, build stronger communities, reduce poverty, and improve educational outcomes. These issues are vital to Ontarians, as recent IPSOS polling has demonstrated. With this in mind, Sustain Ontario has surveyed experts working in food and farming sectors to bring important policy issues to the forefront of the conversation.

We encourage you to visit the Vote ON Food and Farming website (http://sustainontario.com/vote-on-food) to access resources that equip both MPP candidates and the public with information about the importance of Ontario’s food systems. As part of the campaign, we have provided background information and evidence, as well as a question card for citizens to use during public debates. We also invite you to share your commitment to healthy food and farming by tweeting with the hashtag #voteONfood.