As part of the Central Okanagan Food Policy Council’s mission, we strive to share knowledge and education opportunities for everyone to learn about food security.
The 2018 Relaxa Kucha was a complete success!
This SOLD OUT event included 10 incredible presentations, delicious food by One Big Table, and wine from both Summerhill Pyramid Winery and Niche Wine Co.!
Our wonderful speakers and their topics:
- Jeanette Armstrong – Indigenous food traditions of the Okanagan Syilx Peoples.
- Jordan Marr – The cost of farmland in the Okanagan and farming strategies Jordan has implemented as a farmer who leases land to operate his farm, Unearthed Fine Veggies and Herbs.
- Kristi Tatebe – Kwatlen Polytechnic University’s Okanagan Bioregional Institutional Food Procurement Project.
- Jaleen Rousseau – The City of West Kelowna’s Westbank Centre Agriculture Plan.
- Giulio Piccioli – The idea of buying and supporting local as a daily practice and how One Big Table promotes this practice.
- Eva-Lena Lang – The value of networks to bolster the local food economy in the North Okanagan.
- Katrina Lehenbauer – The Central Okanagan Community Kitchen Project.
- Robyn Bunn – Temporary agricultural workers in the Okanagan, their importance to local food production, the challenges they experience, and how RAMA supports them.
- Nathan Pelletier – The complexities of our local food system and examples of local research at UBC Okanagan.
- Jill Worboys – A primer on the Central Okanagan Food Policy Council and the new Good Food Box project.
Thank you to all our event sponsors!
The Central Okanagan Food Policy Council brings together researchers, organizations, and community members to share their work with the community!
Research is a key part of learning about our food system.
Watch the recordings from the first event that was held 2016!
2016 program & presenter information
Stay tuned for our next event, to be held on May 31st, 2018!
There are so many different food security terms, what do they all mean?
Community Food Security
exists when all community residents have physical and economic access to enough healthy, safe food available through a food system that can be sustained for generations to come, and that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.
Household Food Insecurity
commonly refers to the inability to get (or uncertainty in getting) enough healthy food that is personally acceptable. Income is the key factor in whether a person may experience household food insecurity. Research shows that the best way to reduce food insecurity rates is for there to be a basic income guarentee program, which makes sure people have enough money to buy food.
Food security is not the opposite of household food insecurity. Food security is when all people, at all times can get the food they need to be healthy and active. This includes being able to afford healthy food that is within easy reach.
Food Systems
refers to the activities and relationships that make up and influence what we grow, catch, harvest, process, market, sell, distribute, share, prepare, eat, and dispose of.
Food Environments
includes features of the community, such as the number and kinds of food outlets in people’s neighbourhoods, also called geographic food access. It also includes the consumer experience, and kinds of foods that are available, affordable, and of good quality.
Food Literacy
refers to the ability of individuals to access, choose, and prepare foods that meet their needs and preferences. This idea has expanded to include the ability of individuals to know how to produce and share foods, as well as contribute to decisions that affect our food systems.
Food Justice
acknowledges that our food system is not neutral; we don’t have a level playing field. The rules, who gets to set the rules, and the functioning of our food systems contain oppressive and colonizing forces that create and sustain inequities.
Food Sovereignty
emerged from La Via Campesina, a global peasant movement, as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, as well as their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. To learn more about the seven pillars of food sovereignty in Canada, please visit http://foodsecurecanada.org/who-weare/what-food-sovereignty
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Central Okanagan Food Policy Council
PO Box 22001
Kelowna, BC
V1Y 9N9
cofpcs@gmail.com