Program

The schedule for Bring Food Home 2011 will be posted on this website in the coming weeks, and will include exciting tours, informative and skill-building workshops, dynamic round tables, collaborative planning meetings, films and engaging, exciting speakers.

Workshop streams

• Farmer to Farmer Training: Both new and experienced farmers will have lots to gain from these interactive workshops that span everything from marketing to livestock production and everything in between. Workshops will include:

• Community Food Security: Learn about innovative successful approaches that are transforming food systems from the ground up. Informative and engaging workshops and presentation cover everything from urban chickens to social enterprise from the back yard to city hall.

• Rebuilding the Middle: A sustainable food system includes producers, consumers, and the groups that connect them through distribution and processing – the middle. Communities and businesses are creating innovative and promising approaches to processing and distribution while others are fighting to stay in business. Learn about successful approaches and learn how to help to create this fundamental link in the food chain.

• Outreach and Education: Across Ontario people are getting engaged in thinking about food and in changing the food system. Learn how media, marketing, school programs, and community initiatives are getting people involved in the food system. Learn some of the tricks of the trade and share your own ideas through these engaging sessions.

• Building Our Capacity: There are many skills that we need in order to prepare the ground for a sustainable food system. While the other streams provide great examples and ideas for how our food system can be recreated, workshops in this stream provide opportunities for attendees to build some of the skills necessary for success. Workshops will cover the areas of research, policy, advocacy, communications and evaluation .

Meetings and Round Tables

Throughout the conference groups will be meeting to work through challenges and plan next steps to build a sustainable food system. These meetings are for those who want to connect and take action on province-wide issues and who are willing to do some preparatory reading before the conference and to potentially collaborate after.

Films

Throughout the conference we will be screening food films that shed light what’s happening in our food system.

Speakers

Bring Food Home 2011 will be graced by knowledgeable and experienced speakers from across the globe. Speakers include: Raj Patel, Mark Winnie, Jeanette Longfield, Dawn Morrison, and Jon Steinman.

Tours

Tours will include visits to innovative food projects at Trent, community gardens in Peterborough, the history of red fife wheat, and more.