June Network Meeting Summary

Our June Network meeting took place on 2nd of this month. Many familiar faces joined the meeting along with some new people. Bonnie Klohn our food policy lead and Emily Pletsch were the host of this meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss about the current situations or threats in the food system. We also paid condolences to the 215 victims of Kamloops residential schools. It is very devastating to know about small children who lost their lives. We asked the question, how are you reflecting on this news in terms of dismantling systemic racism today?

We were then sent to breakout rooms to discuss the two questions which were the base of this meeting. 1) What is something that you are pleased with in terms of where the food system is going? and 2) What is something that you are seeing that is more of a risk? Everyone had different views about these questions, but many noted that due to pandemic many people started growing their own organic veggie and fruits. This is a good example of people getting into growing their own organic food and having healthy home-grown veggies, which is beneficial for the food system of our communities.

We also observed that last year as the pandemic started there was an increase in growing food locally, but this year we saw that there are more plots in the community gardens which are empty, the reason behind this is that it needs more time, efforts, and hard work. As we can see that things are getting back to normal, there has been a slight decrease in the interest of growing organic veggie.

Another interesting view shared by members, included thinking about growing and supplying food locally as compared to regionally.

The meeting was concluded with the updates, from the staff members of KFPC on the facilitation of the Changing the Face of Poverty Meetings, the Gleaning Abundance Program, Butler Urban Farm, the Food Hub, as well as a food curriculum adult education roundtable held by the KFPC recently. We were also introduced to our new team member Manjinder Kaur Saini who recently started working at KFPC as administrative lead introduces herself to the network members. She also spoke about Farmer’s protest going on in India. Welcome Manjinder, and thank you to everyone who attended the meeting.