Speakers

Philip Ackerman Leist

Keynote Speaker

Philip Ackerman-Leist brings an international lens to the topic of rebuilding regional food systems. He works closely with groups in the US and abroad on the complex weaving of multiple aspects of a region-wide food system.

Philip is the founder and Executive Director of Regen by Design (RxD), a new education, media, & research organization focused on regenerative communities, with food and agriculture at the center. Philip is also the author of A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement; Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems; and Up Tunket Road: The Education of a Modern Homesteader. Prior to launching RxD, Philip served as Dean of Professional Studies from at Sterling College in Vermont, where he established the college’s first online educational initiatives and professional certificates. For two decades, Philip was Professor of Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems at Green Mountain College, where he established the college’s 23-acre organic farm, designed and launched the undergraduate program in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems, and founded and directed the nation’s first online graduate program in food systems. He has spent the past 35 years exploring sustainable agricultural practices both with his students and his family, framing his teaching and academic research with farming experiences in the Alps, North Carolina, and Vermont. He finds joy and inspiration in working with students of all ages and communities around the world, and he finds solace working in approximately 150 acres of pasture and woodland with his family and their heritage-breed cattle on a remote, solar-powered farm in Vermont. At home and as an educator, he tries to combine a farmer’s pragmatism with a teacher’s collaborative quest for the future. Sometimes it works.

Abra Brynne

Keynote Speaker

Abra Brynne is a nationally respected policy analyst and sustainable food systems advocate. She has been involved in community-based food systems work most of her life. With a background in agriculture, she began integrating indigenous food systems and sustainable fisheries into her work in 2006. She works throughout BC and Canada as an advisor, analyst, and mentor. 

Abra grew up on a farm in BC’s Okanagan Valley, where her family of 13 raised, harvested, processed, and stored a large portion of their food needs. Her family raised their own meat and were members of a local tree fruit marketing cooperative. This imprinted on her, from an early age, the glories and challenges of place-based food systems and the practice of eating seasonally from within one’s own foodshed. Since 1990, she has lived and been intimately involved in the food systems of southeastern BC. Her direct involvement in the meat sector, the grocery sector, and many years volunteering with local farm organizations means that her work is always grounded in the lived experience of those whose livelihoods are foundational to a healthy foodshed.  

Abra has a strong interest in value chains and the regulatory regimes that impede or support them. Abra’s passion is to problem solve in order to lower the barriers, both regulatory and otherwise, for small and medium-scale businesses to thrive in place-based food systems. She has worked on policy advocacy and transitions in the fisheries, meat, cannabis, and organic sectors, and on policy at the intersection of climate change and food systems. Abra is a founding member of many agriculture and food-related organizations, including the Central Kootenay Food Policy Council, the BC Food Systems Network, the Canadian Biotech Action Network, Food Secure Canada, and the Canadian Association of Food Law & Policy. 

Dwayne Boudreau

Food & Beverage Atlantic – Building a Better Tomorrow through Food

Dwayne will talk about how the evolution of FBA is benefiting all food and beverage companies with support programs to fit your needs. Anyone thinking of starting a new venture or having an established business (regardless of the size) will learn about tools and programs to help their business thrive. 

Dwayne has enjoyed success with well known brands like HJ Heinz, Cavendish Farms, Nestlé Foods, and Greco Pizza. As a resourceful and result-oriented professional with 30 years of experience in food processing, consumer goods, food service, and franchising, he’s an expert problem solver and critical thinker.

Andy Horsnell

Exploring the Potential for a HRM-based Food Hub Facility

Flourish is assisting a coalition of community organizations to explore the development of a Halifax-based food hub facility. The intent of this food hub would be to provide greater connection between producers in mainland Nova Scotia and commercial and institutional buyers in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The presentation will introduce the project and provide an invitation to participate in stakeholder focus groups.

For over 25 years, Andy has been helping people use entrepreneurship for positive change. He got his start working in rural Nova Scotia, providing coaching and training to help people start their own small businesses. In the mid-1990s, Andy started working with local non-profit organizations, helping them to start and grow social enterprises that used a business model to directly address important community issues. Since then, he has gone on to consult, train and volunteer with 100s of social entrepreneurs throughout North America. He is a regular speaker at national conferences, and is the vice chair of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada, and founding director of the Social Enterprise Network of Nova Scotia.

Melissa MacMaster

School Food and Local Procurement

Do we have enough local food supplier capacity for a school lunch program? Food For Thought Software Solutions is conducting a study in Antigonish to determine local food procurement needs for roughly 370,000 lunches to 1,915 students enrolled in Antigonish.  The objectives of the study, outcomes to date and how this model can be scaled in more communities across Nova Scotia will be discussed.

CEO and founder Melissa MacMaster is responsible for leading the development of the company’s short- and long-term strategies. She manages and implements Food For Thought Software Solutions’ mission of keeping vulnerable people fed while ensuring the company maintains high social responsibility wherever it does business.

Melissa’s professional background is diverse. With over 7 years of involvement in Atlantic Canada’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and start-up community, she has been a part of several successful ventures. Notably, she co-founded the Global Youth innovation Network in Benin, West Africa. Their global mission is to create an enabling environment where marginalized youth innovate to overcome poverty, fight hunger and build healthy communities. Her high caliber skill set and experiences has allowed Melissa to hone her skills in client management, allowing her to take a hands-on approach to address the unique needs of each and every Food For Thought Software Solutions clients.

Treasa Pauley

Optimizing Opportunities in Atlantic Plant Proteins

Plant-proteins are a growing area of interest for sustainability and health. Atlantic Canada does not produce as much as it could nor consume as much as is recommended. There are great opportunities to be tapped into for both regional production and consumption of plant-proteins.

Treasa is the Program Manager for the Eastern Canada Oilseed Development Alliance (ECODA), leading the Plant Protein Atlantic initiative looking at opportunities for our region to participate in the plant based food movement. Treasa has been a professional within the Canadian AgriFood industry for over two decades acquiring her Master of Science from Dalhousie University (AC). She thrives on the exchange of knowledge for the benefit of all.

Robert Cervelli

MODERATOR

Robert Cervelli is a Co-founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Local Prosperity. He was worked extensively with institutions across Atlantic Canada on localizing their procurement, building regional supplier capacity, and as an economic stimulus into local economies.

Robert has been a life science tech start-up entrepreneur for over 25 years, and understands the issues related to new business creation and the health of resilient local economies. He is also a Co-founder of of Transition Bay St. Margarets Bay, one of the first Transition Initiatives in the Maritimes.

As an experienced botanist and horticulturalist, Robert manages a two-acre ‘teaching centre micro-farm’ at his home in St. Margarets Bay. He holds a B.Sc. degree (Forestry) from Purdue University and a M.Sc. (Botany) from the University of Wisconsin.

Dawn Hare

Panelist

The Farm to School Approach – Increasing Opportunities for Local Food in Schools

Dawn Hare is the Program Coordinator of the Annapolis Valley Farm to School Snack program and the Nova Scotia Regional Lead for Farm to Cafeteria Canada, both under contract with Nourish Nova Scotia.  Over the past three years, she has also been an active parent volunteer at her local school, co-developing and co-managing a thriving PTA-run school cafeteria that employs a Red Seal chef. This presentation will focus on how schools are increasing students’ access to healthy, local food, food literacy opportunities, and connections to local food systems.

Dawn holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Nutrition (St. FX University), a Master’s degree in Health Promotion (University of Alberta), with international practicum placements through the Coady International Institute. 

Dawn is a mom to two beautiful teenagers and lives in the Annapolis Valley, NS.  She is also dedicated to local birth work, serving as a Birth Doula and Childbirth Educator.

Chaiti Seth

panelist

Growing Change: Facilitating shifts towards healthy, sustainable and just food systems

This talk will integrate insights from research and practice into facilitating shifts in institutional food systems. I will share key learnings from an inquiry into the factors and processes that support shifts towards more healthy, sustainable, and just institutional food systems, using Acadia University as a case study. This work is intended to support institutions to find creative and innovative solutions that contribute to building more sustainable and resilient communities through food systems change.

Chaiti Seth is a mother, farmer, researcher, and experiential educator from India currently living in Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia) and teaching with the Department of Community Development at Acadia University. Her research and practice centre around healing and rebuilding relationships as a path towards sustainable food systems. She has been involved with systems level change in Acadia’s institutional food system since 2015. 

Morgan Palmer

Panelist

Supply & Demand: Two Perspectives in Institutional Procurement

Morgan will discuss the institutional market opportunities research project she is conducting for the PEI Certified Organic Producers Cooperative and discuss both the complexity of institutional menu development and food preparation and what farmers can do to meet these demands.

Morgan Palmer is a Red Seal Chef and Registered Dietitian currently working with the PEI Certified Organic Producers Cooperative.  Her cooking expertise is seasonal, local menu development and has worked across the food service industry in hospitals, restaurants, and hotels.  More recently, she has supported childcare centres in menu development and policy adherence and led the development of an island-wide pay-what-you-can school lunch program. 

Brenda MacDonald & Andrea Penney

Panelists

Improving nutrition through local sourcing

Brenda is the Senior Director of the Nutrition and Food Services program at Nova Scotia Health where she oversees more than 1000 wonderful team members involved in clinical nutrition care, food services, healthy eating, and dietetic practicum internship in 43 facilities across Nova Scotia.

Brenda believes food is medicine and is focused on building a culture of nutrition where food and nutrition is recognized for its value in health, recovery, and healing. She is part of the Nova Scotia Food and Nutrition Program Advisory Committee and Canadian Malnutrition Task Force working group to enhance the health of Nova Scotians through sustainable food procurement focusing on local Nova Scotia food sourcing for public institutions.

Andrea Penney is the Manager of Food Services, Business Development and Commercial and Retail Operations at IWK Health. Andrea is a registered dietitian and a foodie at heart. She is a member of the Nova Scotia Food and Nutrition Program Advisory Committee and is passionate about local food. She is currently pushing the envelope at IWK to increase local, sustainable and environmentally friendly menu options and decreasing IWK’s carbon footprint one fork at a time.

Genevieve Drisdelle

Moderator

It was Genevieve’s interest in agriculture that first brought up concerns about food security. The more she learned about conventional methods, the more she sought regenerative techniques. The more she learned about growing food in harmony with nature, the more she learned about nutrients, minerals, and microorganisms. She wanted to know more and so she enrolled in a Holistic Nutritionist Certification program the same year her eldest started kindergarten. 

While her career as a RHN began, and her children’s studies continued, she grew increasingly aware of the importance of proper nutrition in those formative years and the growing gap between the education and availability of those foods in the public school systems.

Since joining Food For All NB as Project Coordinator, School Food has been the focal point of her efforts. Recently appointed New Brunswick’s Regional Lead for Farm to Cafeteria Canada, she hopes to widen the scope of her work as she supports school-led initiatives to reconnect students to the land and its offerings.

Gaetan Noel

Panelist

Really Local Harvest – Cooperatively Getting to Retail

Gaetan has a degree in psychology, from the University of Moncton. He has worked with young offenders for 7 years.  He went back to university to study law. After his diploma, he worked with unions and in labour law for 14 years. Wanting to have a life, he started his own Paralegal Firm and has been doing this for the last 10 years.

Why is he now working for the coop?  He comes from a small town in the north of New Brunswick called Lameque. He has always called Lameque the capital of the coop movement.  The town has coop stores, coop fisheries, Caisse populaire and in the past had coop farmers. So he grew up in the coop movement and when he saw this job opening he told himself, why not go back home….

Justin Cantafio

Panelist

Direct Sales, Renewed Connections, and Creating “Human Billboards” through Farmers’ Markets

Justin is the Executive Director of Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia, a non-profit cooperative of over 40 farmers’ markets, co-founder of Canadian Farmers’ Markets, Canada’s national farmers’ market coalition, and a Director with the Centre for Local Prosperity. He’s anchored by a steadfast belief in the power of small-scale, community-based businesses to build local and sustainable food systems. It’s what drove him to spend his master’s degree living and working on ten organic farms from Quebec to the Pacific Coast. He’s helped with managing Atlantic Canada’s first sustainable seafood subscription program through Off the Hook Community Supported Fishery, worked with the Ecology Action Centre to spearhead a Canada-wide program to promote locally sourced food in schools, universities, and hospitals, and connected small-scale fishers and aquaculturalists with high-value markets across Nova Scotia and beyond with Halifax’s Afishionado Fishmongers. When he’s not crafting up ideas to re-localize our economy and promote local businesses, you might find Justin running in the woods, cooking up hearty meals with friends, or relaxing in his off-grid cabin by the sea.

David Greenberg

Panelist

The Warehouse Market: And Now for Something Completely Different

The Warehouse market blends elements of a community supported agriculture pick up site, a farmer’s market and a conventional green grocer.  We will discuss what this model offers and what replication could look like in different contexts.

David farms and markets produce with his wife Jen and a dedicated team at Abundant Acres farm in Centre Burlington, NS and at the Warehouse Market in North End Halifax.

Rebeka Fraser-Chiasson

Panelist

Getting food to bellies: Diverse marketing channels at La Ferme Terre Partagée

La Ferme Terre Partagée, a workers’ coop in Rogersville, will discuss the variety of techniques employed to market their organic vegetables and farm raised meats-from CSA and farmers markets to food banks and restaurants.

Rebeka is a farmer and founding member of La Ferme Terre Partagée where she, along with the rest of the dynamic team, grows fruit and vegetables, raises livestock, hosts school groups, and organizes on farm events. With a degree in globalization and social justice, agriculture is much more than planting, weeding and harvesting for Rebeka and commits to agriculture as a political and social act that has the potential to change our communities.

Lisa Roberts

moderator

Lisa Roberts likes nothing more than working with collaborators to make good things happen, and is honoured to be the new executive director of Nourish Nova Scotia as of June 2022. She has previous experience as a non-profit executive director, and a Masters in Development Economics. Lisa has promoted local food as a journalist telling stories from school gardens and farms; as a community organizer planning meals and food safety training; and as the MLA representing Halifax Needham (2016-2021). Lisa is an avid gardener and is especially fond of edible perennials like rhubarb, chives and raspberries, which she sends her kids to pick.

Lindsay Corbin

Panelist

Nourish Kids Now

School food systems are part of local food systems from Coast to Coast to Coast. The Coalition for Healthy School Food (CHSF) is a Canada-Wide network with a new Advisory in Nova Scotia. Come hear about how the NS-CHSF is bringing together diverse stakeholders to advocate for a healthy and sustainable school food program.

Lindsay brings a background in public health nutrition to her advocacy work on healthy, sustainable school food programs with the Coalition for Healthy School Food. She utilizes participatory leadership and systems-thinking to understand and coordinate action on this complex issue. An eternal optimist, she believes that Canada will have one of the best school food programs in the world by the time her children graduate.

Rachel Schofield Martin

Panelist

Apprentice In Action – Educational Food Lab Inc.

Rachel Schofield Martin is a physical education teacher by trade. Presently she’s the educational leader in healthy eating and social entrepreneurship at the District scolaire francophone Sud in south eastern New-Brunswick.  

Mrs. Martin is a visionary, distinguished by her leadership, creativity, dynamism, passion and perseverance. The enthusiasm for the projects she oversees in the areas of education, health, social entrepreneurship and sustainable development stimulates the curiosity and interest of students, teachers and community partners. 

She is the initiator of the entrepreneurial cafeteria concept, a community project that got recognized at the provincial and national level through the Réseau des cafétérias communautaires. Recently, she co-founded Apprenti en action – Labo éducatif en alimentation inc. (Apprentice In Action – Educational Food Lab Inc.) a non-profit that fills a gap in the system. Action driven, she saw the potential of food as an education pathway by getting the students to grow, cook, taste and appreciate food threw experiential learning. Throughout her career, Rachel was recognized on numerous occasions for her work in the education world at the local, provincial and national level. 

She lives in the rural community of Cocagne, married and mother of two daughters.  A family of foodies, they all love to grow, raise and transform their food and share great meals with family and friends!  

Edee Klee

Panelist

Community Farm Model: The Key to Transformation

Human-scale, regenerative and relationship-based. Edee will share how Hayes Farm’s holistic community farm model focuses on creating multiple entry points for folks of all ages to meaningfully connect with and transform their local food system.

Edee Klee is co-chair of NB Community Harvest Gardens, a non-profit dedicated to “growing food, growing minds and growing community” through its two community gardens and Hayes Farm, a community teaching farm in Fredericton, New Brunswick.  Constantly searching for practical, holistic solutions to societal issues, Edee firmly believes that food sovereignty holds the key to addressing the majority of health, social, environmental and economic problems in New Brunswick.  As public awareness of our broken food system and desire for local, sustainably-grown food grows, Edee sees the Hayes Farm’s holistic community farm model as a critical component to addressing climate change and our collective poverty of purpose. 

Rebecca Sooksom

Panelist

Agriculture in the Classroom: Transforming the Way Students View Agriculture

Agriculture in the Classroom works nationally and in each province to deliver programs and resources to teachers and students that help them learn where their food comes from, the importance of agriculture, what modern farming entails, and the rewarding careers available in our sector. This presentation will discuss initiatives and reach in the Atlantic provinces with a particular focus on Nova Scotia.

Rebecca Sooksom grew up on a dairy farm in Masstown, Nova Scotia, and graduated from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College with a B.Sc. and M.Sc. before moving to Thailand for nine years where she worked with organizations and community groups promoting sustainable agriculture. She returned to Nova Scotia in 2009 and has worked for the Department of Agriculture in a variety of roles since then. She is currently Manager of Regional Programming and oversees the Department’s Public Trust and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work, among other files. She is also currently the Chair of Agriculture in the Classroom  – Canada.

Abra Brynne

Moderator

Bio under “Keynote Speakers”

Hana Nelson

Panelist

The Ocean as a Farming Space: Challenges and Opportunities in Aquaculture

We’ve had 10,000 years to contemplate the relationship of humans to our land; modern aquaculture has had a few decades. ‘Blue eating’ and the low carbon footprint of ocean farming are critical to our climate adaptation strategy, but how does that change our relationship with the water?

Hana Nelson spent several years working, travelling, and studying towards an MsC in Agroecology before finally returning home to Nova Scotia. In 2014, she founded Afishionado Fishmongers – one of the few seafood start-ups to be female led and managed in our region.

Her vision was simple: to celebrate all that the waters of Atlantic Canada had to offer and bring sustainable seafood to the tables of Canadians. Hana was named one of eight Ocean Wise sustainability leaders in 2021, as she continuously demonstrates incredible leadership in the sustainable seafood movement.

Hana and her husband Philip Docker own and operate an oyster farm on the North shore of Nova Scotia, called ShanDaph Oysters. ShanDaph is the only off grid solar powered operation in eastern Canada. When not working with seafood Hana can be found outdoors enjoying nature and playing sports with her children.

Karen Foster

PanelIST

Regulating for Resilience: How to make the local food system work for everyone

Dr. Foster will present the results of a study with Nova Scotia farmers and food entrepreneurs to understand their experiences with legal and regulatory challenges by identifying current barriers, the consequences of those barriers, and the response strategies of those who confront them.

Dr. Foster is a sociologist and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Rural Futures for Atlantic Canada. Her current research, supported by her CFI-funded Rural Futures Research Centre, includes studies of rural families’ paid and unpaid work experiences during the pandemic, the social relations of local food production in Nova Scotia, occupational succession in rural family businesses, social perceptions of climate change, and housing desires among adults with Autism in rural and urban communities.

Michael Isenor

Panelist

Working Together to Produce Food for the Maritimes

Working co-cooperatively maximizes our strengths. When you work together you get to know and respect your fellow farmers that you are working with, not competing against. All your knowledge and information and contacts are multiplied and you don’t have to do everything yourself.

Michael Isenor is a retired sheep farmer living in Hant’s county. He was part of a group of farmers that started Northumberlamb, a co-op created to market locally sourced lamb in Nova Scotia. Northumblamb created a stable market for farmers and as a result, the Nova Scotia lamb industry has grown to world-renowned for its quality. During his 40-year tenure as marketing manager/operations manager, Michael shepherded the transition from a provincially inspected plant to a federally inspected plan.

Phil Ferraro

Moderator

Phil Ferraro, is a founding director of The Institute for Bioregional Studies Ltd. He is also CEO of the PEI Farm Centre where he manages one of the ‘Legacy Garden, one of Canada’s largest urban farms. He is a board of Gifts from the Heart Inc. Phil is also an advisor to the Centre for Local Prosperity and the Director of an innovative program, Engaging Youth in the Era of Climate Change.

Phil’s masters degree, in Social Ecology, included a thesis on creating food and energy self-reliance in Northern climates with studies in renewable energy, organic agriculture, community development and social responsibility.

Over the past 2 decades, Ferraro has also become an accredited Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practitioner. He says he is busy helping entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into commercial realities that are also social, economic and environmental solution providers.

Sarah Crocker

Panelist

Community-led Food Assessment and Municipal Political Action

Through a community-led food assessment, the St. John’s Food Policy Council bridges a gap between survey results and municipal political action. This targeted approach shapes the response to critical food system issues, inspiring local action towards the kind of food system we’d like to see.

As a program coordinator with Food First NL, Sarah is the first point of contact for community organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador running food security initiatives. As a farmer and seed saver, sometimes delivery driver, Sarah brings a wide variety of hands-on experience to this role. With a special focus on the St. John’s city-region, Sarah coordinates Food on the Move, a pop-up affordable food market, and co-chairs the St. John’s Food Policy Council. She loves to explore how food can build community and tackle big issues.

Leticia Smillie & Anna Giddy

Panelists

JustFOOD Halifax: Towards Food Action and Governance in Halifax

JustFOOD Halifax is a regional action plan, being co-developed by Halifax Regional Municipality and the Halifax Food Policy Alliance through the principles of collective impact, food justice and food sovereignty. Leticia and Anna will highlight the evolution of JustFOOD Halifax and the exploration of governance models to guide positive change and ongoing collaborations to increase access to good food and strengthen the local food system.

Leticia Smillie is a food systems planner with the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), co-chair of the Halifax Food Policy Alliance, and member of the Halifax Mobile Food Market and the Food Communities Network Steering Committees. Leticia graduated from Dalhousie with a Master of Urban and Rural Planning, with a particular focus on community engagement in planning practice. Her recent work has focused on increasing community involvement and impact in designing communities that promote arts, culture, and health. Leticia is leading the development of JustFOOD Halifax: an action plan for the Halifax Region, which is being co-developed by the municipality and the Halifax Food Policy Alliance.

Prior to working for HRM, Leticia was an eco-entrepreneur, operating a cleaning company that used environmentally friendly products and practices as well as a cloth diaper service. When not working, Leticia’s personal life also focuses on community, creativity, and wellbeing. Leticia teaches Zumba dance fitness, creates wearable art through combining vintage textiles with wool, and is building a small house using as many repurposed materials as possible.

Anna Giddy is a third-year law student at the Schulich School of Law where she researches in the areas of regional food systems policy and collaborative local governance. She has a diploma in plant science from the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus, a diploma in viticulture and vineyard management from Niagara College and studied law, justice and society at Dalhousie University where she applied a food systems lens to political and philosophical concepts. Anna has worked in the restaurant industry, on farms and in wineries across Canada and internationally for the past 18 years. Originally from Lunenburg, she is thrilled to be home in Nova Scotia where she hopes to apply her love of food and law to help build resilience in the region’s thriving food scene.

Katrina Cristall

Panelist

Knowing What We Don’t Know: Undertaking a Food Assessment for Charlottetown

In collaboration with the Charlottetown Food Council, the City of Charlottetown has established an overarching vision for the local food system through the creation of a Food Charter. Through efforts to break these broad visions down into actionable goals, it has become clear that there are gaps in our knowledge preventing us from systematically identifying the community’s most pressing needs and what to do about them. To fill in these gaps, the City of Charlottetown and the Charlottetown Food Council have teamed up with a group of graduate students at the University of Guelph to undertake a food assessment for Charlottetown that will guide future food action and governance.

Katrina Cristall is the Sustainability Officer for the City of Charlottetown and the staff liaison to the Charlottetown Food Council. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Brandon University and completed her master’s degree in the health sciences at Queen’s University.

Her work with the City of Charlottetown has been broad in scope, spanning topics from sustainable procurement to active transportation. Most recently, she has been focused on addressing challenges within the food system. This work has included a project to divert surplus food from going to waste and the creation of a Community Garden Framework. She is also actively engaged in supporting the Charlottetown Food Council, a community advisory board to the City, on their current work to conduct a municipal policy review. Katrina is particularly passionate about community development and the way food brings people together. She is interested in the interwoven nature of the food system as well as how the many dimensions of her work intersect around food and can be leveraged to support one another.

Krista Tobin

Panelist

Supporting and Encouraging Institutional Food Procurement 

Krista joined the NS Department of Agriculture in July 2022 in the role of Manager, Institutional Procurement and will speak to her work to support and encourage local food consumption within Health Care, Long Term Care, Justice, and the Education sector.

Krista has worked in the Food Service industry for over 25 years in various capacities including institutional cooking & baking, food production, working for a leading distributor as a Health Care
Account Executive, Customer Service Manager and Produce Manager. The last five years, Krista has worked with The Province of Nova Scotia as a Procurement Specialist, leading the NS Food Program.
Krista welcomes the opportunity to share and collaborate with the local food community, farmers & producers and how we can grow together!

Joe Piotti

Moderator

Joe operates a mixed 200 acre regenerative farm/woodlot in Nova Scotia managing Belted Galloway grass-fed beef cattle, forest raised Berkshire pigs, pasture-raised poultry, pastured eggs, a certified organic haskap orchard, Christmas tree lot and woodlot.

Before farming, Joe worked in the banking and investment banking industries for over 35 years in New England. Joe’s other agricultural service work includes serving on the Council of the Federation of Agriculture of Nova Scotia, had been the past president of the Haskap Growers Association of Nova Scotia (representing farmers in NS, NB and PEI), past chairman of Haskap Canada (representing farmers nationwide), serves of the board of Organics Nova Scotia and is currently president of the Haskap Marketing Group (a Co-op consisting of over two dozen haskap farmers throughout the Maritimes).

Joe actively farms with his wife Stephanie, and two children (Luke & Sadie). The family feels blessed to be improving the land while producing nourishing agricultural products to help feed Nova Scotian families and contributing to food security in the region.

Robert Cervelli & Justin Cantafio

Panelists

Local Alternative Currencies & Nutrition Coupons

Bios under Workshop #1A (Robert) and #1B (Justin)

Linda Best

Panelist

Assisting Local Food Businesses through a Community Economic Development Investment Fund

Linda Best grew up on a farm in the Annapolis Valley, graduated from Acadia University, was involved with the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Halifax as a Medical Microbiologist, Gastroenterology Researcher, author and presenter, and Director of the Capital District Health Authority. She operated an apple orchard on weekends while working at the hospital and founded Frame Plus Art which grew to three stores, a production facility and 10 employees. Awareness of food-related health issues led to research into potential solutions for the decreasing production of food in Nova Scotia. She helped establish Friends of Agriculture and is a Founding Director of FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Limited, a Community Economic Development Investment Fund. In 2020 she was appointed to the Order of Nova Scotia and in 2021 was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Department of Agriculture. To date FarmWorks has raised $4,634,700 and has granted over 135 loans to food-related businesses across Nova Scotia.

Greg Gerrits

Panelist

Socioeconomic challenges, profitability, and economy of scale

Elmridge Farm continues to morph to remain relevant as social demands shape the economic landscape. Profitability is, in fact, the one common denominator that will determine the future of agriculture in our region. We need to be competitive in the world market to survive. Investment to achieve economy of scale is key.

Greg is a third-generation farmer trying hard to provide a future for the fourth generation. In the 1990’s Elmridge Farm was primarily a farmers’ market business. In anticipation of the over saturation of the farmers’ market scene the focus was redirected to wholesale to small independent retailers (no big box stores). The rapidly changing socioeconomic climate has completely swallowed what was a healthy profit margin so now on-farm food processing is being developed to give more stability in the face of economic and climate volatility.

Myles Baldwin

Panelist

Financing for small businesses: challenges and alternative avenues

Myles Baldwin is one of the owner-operators of The Narrows Public House on Gottingen Street, North End of Halifax. The Narrows is an 80-seat restaurant pub serving local and culturally familiar food and drink in an 1896 designated heritage home. The Narrows runs a scratch kitchen, showcasing local seasonal ingredients rooted in Nova Scotian tradition. It is designed to be inclusive, affordable and accessible to all of our community members and visitors alike.

Myles has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from St.Fx University and a Masters of Public Administration from Dalhousie. He has worked a wide variety of jobs with the bulk of his experience being in hospitality.  Myles is busy learning the many layers to running a business and enjoying time with his two young children and wife in East Lawrencetown. In the coming years, he hopes to continue to grow and optimize his business concept and work towards homesteading with his family on their property.

Dawn Matheson

MODERATOR

Dawn-Marie Matheson currently works at the Ulnooweg Education Centre as the Food Security Initiative Project Coordinator. She lives in Millbrook First Nation which is located just outside of Truro here in Mi’kma’ki with her spouse, 5 beautiful children and 1 fur baby.

Dawn holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Environmental Horticulture from Dalhousie University, as well as a Bachelor of Education from Acadia University. She has a passion for family, culture and food, so learning and sharing new things while gardening is a perfect match for her.

Patty Williams

Panelist

The Nova Scotia picture: Where are we now and what do we want?

Dr. Patricia (Patty) Williams is a Professor in Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she served as a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Food Security and Policy Change from 2007-2017. With a background in foods and nutrition, she worked for several years as a dietitian in pediatric and maternity settings in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland before completing a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia, and a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University. She is the founder and Director of FoodARC – the Food Action Research Centre, and has worked for more than two decades to create the conditions to address food inequities, in Nova Scotia, across Canada and beyond.

Guided by participatory leadership, participatory action research, and mixed methods approaches, Dr. Williams has led several ground breaking national and provincial studies on food-related policy change, including seven provincial cycles of a unique model of Participatory Food Costing, and the first comprehensive provincial wide studies of Community Food Security and the Consumer Food Environment in Nova Scotia. Grounded in long standing partnerships that span communities, universities and governments, and local, regional and national scales — where the voices of those experiencing food insecurity are at the centre, FoodARC received the prestigious CIHR Partnership Award in 2011. Dr. Williams’ current work focuses the experiences of stigma, shame, and social exclusion, particularly for women, living in poverty and struggling with food insecurity, and using innovative tools such as FoodARC’s ‘The Hand You are Dealt’ board game to shift thinking about food insecurity.

The highly collaborative, community-based research that Dr. Williams has led helps to bring those most affected by challenges within food systems into the forefront of addressing them through changes on all levels, from how we think and act, to how we are governed. She is one of the founders of the Canadian Association of Food Studies and Food Secure Canada, as well as the former Nova Scotia Food Security Network and Nova Scotia Food Policy Council. In 2019, Dr. Williams received the Canadian Association of Food Studies Award for Excellence in Public Service. She lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in Lockeport with her husband, Leigh.

Joshua Smee

Panelist

Shifting our food systems: lessons from Newfoundland and Labrador

Josh is the CEO of Food First NL, a provincial nonprofit organization that works with communities in Newfoundland & Labrador to ensure everyone has access to affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate food.

Passionate about systems change and the power of collective action, Joshua has taken a lead role in many coalitions and campaigns. He co-chairs the provincial Food Security Working Group with the Government of NL and sits on the province’s Health Accord Task Force.

Lesley Frank

Panelist

Feeding in the early years: Current threats and policy solutions

Dr. Frank will share findings from Canadian research on the relationship between infant feeding practices and household-level food insecurity, including implications for breastfeeding and physical and economic access to infant formula. Current social welfare and food systems threats to the food security of mothers, infants, and families, will be central as well as potential policy solutions for food insecurity in the early years.

Dr. Frank is a sociologist and Canada Research Chair in Food, Health, and Social Justice at Acadia University. Her research uses mixed-methods to explore maternal and infant food insecurity in high income countries, family and child poverty, second-hand baby food exchange via social media, household food insecurity and maternal stigma, food insecurity among post-secondary students, and rural access to maternity care. She is the author of Out of Milk: Infant Food Insecurity in a Rich Nation, published by UBC Press (2020).

Öykü Su Gürler

Panelist

Free food as a tool for activism and building community

The Loaded Ladle is a non-hierarchical, volunteer and student run food collective that has been providing free meals to students for over 10 years, made with care and locally sourced ingredients. Öykü will tell the story of how the Loaded Ladle was established, its unique position as a student society, and how it has become a resource for the community since its founding

Öykü Su Gürler (she/her) first arrived at K’jpuktuk from Turkey & Cyprus seven years ago. While completing a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Sustainability at Dalhousie University, she became a part of direct action groups on campus such as DivestDal and the Loaded Ladle. These organizations served as an antidote to the isolation of food insecurity and eco-anxiety she experienced as an international student as they fostered a community of people who acknowledged the short-comings of the current exploitative systems we (involuntarily) take part in and took action on it at their own capacity. 

She currently builds on this work by connecting communities by preparing, serving, and talking about free, accessible, and good food as a coordinator at the Loaded Ladle. Working with a wonderful group of students and staff, she is currently exploring ways to create spaces for the community that provide alternative solutions to exploitative food industries that are based in care.

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Linda Best

Moderator

Bio under Workshop #3A

Dayan Gonzalez

panelist

Growers Station: Building an efficient and dependable local food system

Dayan will talk about building stronger local and regional food systems by identifying areas of support for food producers. The launch of Growers Station, PEI’s first food hub, is an initiative to increase sales and reliability of local products.

Originally from Havana, Cuba, Dayan has a background in Law and Culinary Arts. He has lived on Prince Edward Island since 2011 and has been part of PEI’s Food Hub since its operational launch in June 2021. He is passionate about food, community, and sustainable living.

Máire Neville

Panelist

A multi-stakeholder co-operative creating a more vibrant local food economy

Máire will speak about securing funding and developing a processing facility at the Cape Breton Food Hub building in Bras D’Or, Cape Breton. She will address the need for such facilities, and the importance of institutions supporting local.

Máire Neville was born and raised in Limerick, Ireland and immigrated to Cape Breton in 2014. Her professional career is in Business Development and Leadership. She loves all things food related, creating new meals for her family and enjoys fresh and local ingredients. She is new to the role of Executive Director for the Cape Breton Food Hub, beginning in July of 2022, but is learning quickly the joys of working with the Cape Breton farmers and producers.

Rebecca Tran & Heather Lunan

Panelists

Value creation from diverted food waste, food by-products, and surplus food

Rebecca and Heather are co-founders of The Station, a purpose led business located in Newport Station, Nova Scotia. They believe in re-localizing the food system and the power of institutional procurement. The mission of The Station is to connect local farms, food and people using a business model that creates value from diverted food waste, food by-products, and surplus food. The Station diverts between 18-30,000 lbs of food per month and creates added value products for institutional use. The business model has been recognized as an innovation solution in Canada’s Food Waste Reduction Challenge. 

Rebecca grew up in Nova Scotia and studied Nutrition at Acadia University. She is a registered dietitian and has a Masters in Health Administration from the University of British Columbia.  She has worked as a dietitian in the community for 17 years and her area of expertise is in community food security, the food system and improving the food environment through larger system change. She lives with her husband and three young children in Windsor.  

Originally from Montreal, the seeds of Heather’s curiosity in food cultures were sewn early. Her grandmother, travel, and a variety of studies have contributed to a life where diet, health, community, and entrepreneurship have  formed  her foundation. Creating pathways to food system change by Connecting Farms, Food, and People at The Station is an obvious culmination and expression of a life’s work.

Dan Rubin

Panelist

Healthy Food for All

Dan Rubin will discuss a range of initiatives he has led, focused on creating more food at the community level, in urban and rural settings, as a key grassroots strategy to restore community health and economic sustainability in our region.

Dan retired in 2002 after a thirty-year career as a teacher, curriculum developer and school principal in two provinces.  This work earned an award from the Prime Minister in 2000. Here in Newfoundland, he has been involved in local food production as a gardener, garden educator, author and activist.  He launched Perfectly Perennial, a heritage seed company focused on locally adapted plants, and has led annual workshops to help fellow gardeners learn about season extension.  His book on northern gardening, Sun, Seed & Soil, will be published in the Spring of 2023 by Boulder Publications. 

Two years ago, he founded Food Producers Forum, a provincial non-profit supporting a dozen projects focused on enhancing local food production as a primary strategy to restore regional food security. The initiatives he has led as Chairperson of Food Producers Forum have generated more than $120,000 in support and have included building raised bed gardens with single parent families, designing and building a passive solar greenhouse for year-round food production and convening a provincial conference this May, during which more than 30 speakers defined practical solutions to our need for local healthy food. 

Dan believes we can rebuild a healthy, sustainable food system, based on community production and food justice.

Justing Cantafio

Moderator

Bio under Workshop #1B

Simon Ryder-Burbidge

Panelist

Navigating changing oceans: Building resilient and sustainable seafood systems

The Maritimes region of the Northwest Atlantic is one of the fastest warming ocean bodies on Earth. Through the movement of marine species, the decline of commercial fish stocks and the expanding role of aquaculture, we explore pathways to support coastal communities and build resilient, adaptive and equitable food systems at sea.

Simon’s work the with the EAC Marine Team combines campaign development, community engagement and aquaculture policy. Simon helps to coordinate the Healthy Bays Network, a community-led organization working towards healthy marine ecosystems and sustainable coastal livelihoods in Nova Scotia. Prior to the EAC, Simon worked as a commercial diver in B.C. He has a graduate degree in Marine Management from Dalhousie University where his research focused on the social value of marine ecosystems, coastal planning and public participation.

Colleen Freake

Panelist

Agricultural Climate Solutions in Atlantic Canada

Farmers are on the front lines of the climate crisis, and we have proven solutions for on-farm climate adaptation and mitigation. The top beneficial management practices will be introduced, with a focus on opportunities for both carbon sequestration and reducing emissions on farms in our region.

Colleen is a farmer with 12 years of experience working on farms throughout the Maritimes. She has a lasting curiosity about plants and ecological farm systems with a special interest in small-scale, organic farms and perennial crops. She is in the first year of production on her farm in Hants county. 

Ken Paul

Panelist

First Nations Food Security in Fisheries

This presentation will outline some of the challenges, both legal and practical, for Mi’kmaq to utilize food security despite inherent aboriginal and treaty-protected rights. 

Ken is a member of the Wolastoqey First Nation in the community of Neqotkuk whose traditional territory is located on the northern Atlantic coast spanning the Canada/US border between Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec.

Over the past 9 years, he has acted as Fisheries Director with the Assembly of First Nations and previously with the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs. Ken has advocated for First Nations regionally, nationally and internationally on all aspects relating to fisheries, aquaculture, and ocean protection as they relate to inherent aboriginal and treaty-protected rights, legislation, and policy. This includes Indigenous Knowledge Systems, economic prosperity, community engagement, shipping, renewable energy and resource management.

Ken has an MBA from St Mary’s University and a BSc from Dalhousie University. Among his other initiatives, Ken serves as an advisor and community facilitator to Millbrook First Nations Fisheries.

Kimberly Orren

Panelist

Getting Everyone in the Boat

Kimberly will share how an inclusive, gender-equitable & sustainable small-scale fishery can help combat climate change and contribute to food sovereignty through better local seafood access. And reconnect you to nature, ancestor, and place – all while helping you regain your best health!

Kimberly Orren is a former high school science teacher turned commercial fisherman and co-founder of Fishing for Success, a nonprofit social enterprise in Petty Harbour that is creating a new pathway for the youth of Newfoundland & Labrador to connect with their fishing heritage. She is the Lead Facilitator for Project WET Canada in Newfoundland & Labrador; and serves on advisory committees for Food First NL, Farm to Cafeteria Canada, Ocean Frontier Institute / Governance Research, Too Big To Ignore, and volunteers for the Social Justice Cooperative.

In 2018, Kimberly was honoured to be recognized as a St. John’s YWCA Woman of Distinction for the Girls Who Fish program, and was a TEDx speaker. Fishing for Success received the Memorial University of Newfoundland President’s Award for Public Engagement Partnerships for 2021, and the 2022 Sustainable Tourism Award sponsored by Parks Canada and Hospitality Newfoundland & Labrador. When not teaching others about fishing, Kimberly is probably out picking berries with her dog, Annie.

Gillian Kerr

Moderator

Dr. Gillian Kerr joined the Centre for Local Prosperity team in the fall of 2021. She has recently moved back to Nova Scotia after 25 years in Alberta. She works on sustainability issues around biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate change and building local resilience. She is also adjunct faculty at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC where she teaches environmental and ecological economics for decision-making.

Food sovereignty and security are considerable interests. She recently completed two postdoctoral fellowships at McGill on ecosystem services and at Dalhousie under the future of oceans and coastal infrastructure. Her research interests include ecosystem services theory and application for sustainable communities, and the application of ecological economics to enhance sustainable futures.

Phil Ferraro

Panelist

Farm Centre’s Legacy Gardens in Charlottetown – produce to local charities

Bio under Plenary Panel: Building Local Food Systems Policy and Governance

Katherine Carey

Panelist

Building community and food security at the North Grove

Katherine Carey is the Community Farm Coordinator at The North Grove, a community hub in the heart of Dartmouth North. She runs the farm with a group of dedicated community volunteers, as well as children’s farm programs, a community garden, a weekly food market, and workshops for adults. Katherine has worked on farms and non-profits across Canada, as well as four years in Cape Town, South Africa supporting small scale urban farmers. 

The farm at The North Grove increases food security through opportunities for social connection, communal spaces to grow food, and engaging outdoor education. We also run a weekly produce market, with a mixture of low-cost and free items, vital for the community who live in the low-income food desert of Dartmouth North.

Dawn Matheson

Panelist

Ulnooweg Community Garden & Food Security Project

Bio under Workshop #3B

Wendy Keats

PanelisT

The Little Community That Could

Like many small rural communities in Atlantic Canada, Dorchester, NB had been hard hit by changes to government policies and other circumstances beyond their control. By 2016, decline had reached a point where something had to be done or their school was going to be closed.  Wendy will tell us the story of how a small group of people helped turn this around and how they are now addressing food insecurity by providing fresh, healthy food to anyone in the community who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay, through their innovative programs that include a Community Aquaponics-Hydroponics Lab, a Free Community Fridge, and a Community Food Smart bulk purchasing program. 

Wendy has worked in community economic development for 40+ years and been involved in dozens of community-driven food security initiatives. A lifelong volunteer, she has devoted much of her time over the past several years to the Greater Dorchester Moving Forward Co-operative, a non profit organization with a mission to rebuild the population and local economy of the small rural community she grew up in. Wendy is excited to share their inspiring story of revival and how they are addressing the issues of food insecurity through innovation, creativity, and partnerships.