Organic experts, fair trade spokespeople, and a few of the GMO crowd, spoke to the masses at this year's Food For Thought event. In the past three years, the Sustainable Business Conference has addressed a wide range of sustainable commerce topics, inviting business leaders and other community players in to speak about their organizations and how they are making efforts to become better. This year's theme was food. What we're eating, how you get it, and where we might be going in the future.
The event ran for about eight hours—five and a half if you discount the breaks and a locally-sourced lunch. There were fourteen presenters/panelists. Each speaker brought their own distinct set of themes.
Organic food
Tim LaSalle, CEO of The Rodale Institute, made a great case for organic farming and gardening. I didn’t know that healthy soil could hold so much water—and help maintain healthy crops during periods of drought. I commend reading more about the Institute. They have been researching and documenting organic farming practices for over sixty years. If you happen to be in the Pennsylvania area, I imagine it would be well worth the tour to visit their farm.
Satoshi Ikeda, an Associate Professor at Concordia University, in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, showed us some examples of his own research into sustainable farms across the country. He told us about farmers' lives, what led to their pursuit, and why that pursuit is so rewarding to them.
Ken Taylor, from Windmill Point Farms in the West Montréal island, amazed the crowed with a lemon he picked from one of his trees that morning. He started the Windmill Point with his wife Lorraine over 30 years ago. It has grown to become a diversified 70 acre nursery and permaculture farm and a great example of sustainable, organic farming that benefits the earth and the community surrounding it.
Martin Valiquette is General Manager of Liberte Natural Foods. Liberte has been working to bring organic dairy products to consumers for the past decade. Martin highlighted some of the more environmentally oriented efforts that the company is trying to implement. Liberte, established in Québec, is working to bring their products to other Canadian markets, like Toronto, and Vancouver. I urge you to try some if you haven’t already had the chance.
Tim Murphy is the Sustainability Coordinator at Santropol Roulant, an organization that brings healthy meals to those in the community who have limited mobility or special needs. For those familiar with the Meals on Wheels organization, Santropol Roulant’s work is similar. They are a bit smaller, however, and grow most of the food they serve.
Laurence Fauteaux is a representative from Equiterre. He spoke about the initiatives that Equiterre is engaged with in around Montréal. Equiterre is an organization devoted to helping empower citizens to make environmentally and socially responsible choices. Equiterre is up to very good stuff.
Fair Trade
Rob Clarke is the Executive Director of TransFair Canada. He walked through some of the challenges and opportunities inherent in getting fair trade products from cooperatives in the global south to markets in the north. He impressed upon us a growing Canadian awareness of Fair Trade goods, as well as their popularity both here and around the world.
Dario Iezzoni (General Manager of Equita) is one of the reasons why Fair Trade products are becoming popular in Canada. Under Dario’s guidance, Equita’s sales of Fair Trade products grew substantially in the past five years. He spoke about the challenges stemming creating this type of growth, highlighting difficulties that ranged from packaging to financing.
GMOs
David Dennis is the CEO of Performance Plants. He spoke about his company's role in saving the world with genetically modified plants. He unfortunately skirted what could have been one of the most interesting questions at the conference. A student asked a two part question. The student's second question was: "as an undecided consumer, what are some of the negatives to GMO foods?" Mr. Dennis answered the first part of the question, and then, disappointingly, reiterated the benefits of GMOs that he had espoused during the rest of his presentation.
Andreas Boecker, a Guelph University Agricultural and Resource Economics Professor, touched on many of the issues that David Dennis had. He spoke mainly about consumer acceptance of GMO products.
Erie Tamale is the Environmental Affairs Officer from the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity. Mr Tamale outlined the protocols in place surrounding the use and transportation of GMOs.
When you’re discussing food, it's hard not to create a debate that is both stimulating and personal. It was apparent that for a number of speakers, this was their life's work and passion. The audience became quite involved, and long lines of questions had to go unanswered as the floor was handed over to subsequent speakers.
I wouldn’t have felt cheated if the speakers had been given more time to discuss their fields and research, at the expense of cutting a few from the lineup. I really wanted to hear a bit more from almost everyone, but it seemed quite rushed in order to accommodate the schedule. This isn’t a slight to the organizers; they pulled in a very interesting group of individuals, which left the crowd longing for more. Perhaps the organizers were faced with an editor’s dilemma and just couldn’t decide whom to cut when they received everyone's RSVP.
I particularly enjoyed Tim LaSalle, Martin Valiquette, Satoshi Ikeda and Rob Clarke. Tim LaSalle provided a breadth of organic farming knowledge. Martin Valiquette was understated, witty and showed that he understood the market. He wants consumers to choose organic dairy for the sake of everything involved. Satoshi Ikeda beamed with enthusiasm for sustainable agriculture. I’m sure he could share a lot more insight than he had time for. Rob Clarke sated some of my curiosity about Cuba and the rumors of the world’s first Fair Trade nation. Engaging speakers all.
The audience was not limited to students. If you are in the Montréal area next year, and you are not carrying a student card, there is no problem joining in. The theme of SBC 2009 will be "Building our Future / Batier notre avenir". And if you are someone who might be able to contribute to their upcoming conference, I'm sure they would love to hear from you.
It was well worth the time spent. After the end of the day, I reflected about my diet and how it comes to my table. I already try to make conscientious purchases, and try to maximize my local content. The clear messages of the conference were that we need to know where our food comes from, create relationships with farmers, and (in many ways) get back to nature as much as possible. Much food for thought, indeed.
Front page photo: Rosewitha Schacht
Inside Photo: Jon Booren
Inside Image: Sustainable Concordia
