Making Local Food Choices Easier with the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology: When Farmers and Behavioural Science Work Together

March 6
1:00-2:00 PM ET
Free on Zoom

*Please note, all registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the session. The recording will be available for 60 days.

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Have you ever wondered how to get more people to change their shopping habits and actually make the switch to local whole foods, grown in living soil without toxic pesticides?

Come learn about the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology (CCFE) and their Flavour Harvest project, a collaboration between various partners to create a program to shift shopping habits, understand the behavioural science behind what drives people to make most food decisions and how we can harness this combined with specific target audience motivations to change the food people buy for the better.

Flavour Harvest established partnerships with Pfenning’s Organic Farm and The Sweet Potato local independent grocer, along with Healthy Moms. With the help of a renowned behavioural scientist, they demonstrated how to sell more Pfenning’s healthy produce and bring new customers to The Sweet Potato.

Presenters will share how the collaboration established enduring habits and led to more young families eating local foods grown in ways that benefit our taste buds, our health and the planet.

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Our Presenters:

Lindsey Boyle is the Managing Director of Demand Side Strategy for the Canadian Centre for Food and Ecology. Lindsey is a market research expert with a passion for local food, well-being, and circular economies. She spent years advising top tech, food, and lifestyle brands and co-founded the Sandown Centre for Regenerative Agriculture on Vancouver Island.

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Jessica Wynne is a Sustainability Specialist and Retail Associate at Pfenning’s Organic Farm. Her enthusiasm, energy, and commitment to using her role to make the world better is as evident as her passion for her work. She was awarded the Ontario Produce Marketing Association's 2024 Junior Women's Produce Network Award in November 2024.

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How to choose your stream:

‍ENGO representatives may self-select from the three workshop tracks based on their previous learning experiences with decolonization content.‍

‍Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector is designed for first-time learners and those with limited comfort exploring the Session topics. Sessions will be lecture-style making limited space for group discussion. Breakout rooms will be used intermittently to encourage first-time learners to practice discussing topics and gain confident understanding of materials.

‍‍Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application is designed for ENGO representatives who have experience with session topics and are ready to take chances by participating in potentially uncomfortable conversations to expose the root issues at play. These spaces are designed with safety of participants in mind with the goal of exposing the potential reproduction of colonial thinking/doing within the ENGO sector. Sessions will be conversational while making use of lecture-style teaching.

‍For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action is designed for Indigenous people who work within the ENGO sector and seek to connect with others to discuss experiences and vision decolonial pathways forward. These session agendas will be co-developed with participants.

Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector

Fridays, March 14, 21, 28 and April 4 (1-4:00 pm ET)

Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101

Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.

Session 2: Positionality

ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.

Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101

Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.

Session 4: Building Better Relations

ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.

Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)

All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.

Instructor:

Dr. Les Sabiston (Red River Métis) is from Aswahonanihk (Selkirk), Manitoba. Working at the intersections of political, legal, and medical anthropologies, as well as Indigenous Studies, Les’ work brings together critical social theories of colonialism, race, class, gender and sexuality with the political commitments of decolonization and aspirations of realizing alternative worlds informed by Indigenous futures. A guiding principle to his work has been to develop a more robust understanding of the ongoing process of encounter with Indigenous peoples in Canada, that is, how the state and its people interact with and understand themselves in relation to the original peoples of this land.

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Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application

Wednesdays, March 26, April 2, 9 and 16 (1-4:00 pm ET)

Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector

Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.

Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance

A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.

Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex

ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.

Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships

This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.

Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)

All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.

Instructor:

Dr. Damien Lee is a member of Fort William First Nation and holds a PhD in Indigenous Studies from the University of Manitoba, and a Master of Arts in Indigenous Governance from the University of Victoria. Dr. Lee has extensive experience facilitating/teaching adult-focused education at the post-secondary level and co-leads Gimiwan Research and Consulting. Gimiwan serves mainly Indigenous communities and Indigenous-led organizations by providing research and workshop services based in decolonial ethics and Indigenous worldviews.

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For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action

Tuesdays, April 1, 8, 15 and 22 (1-4 pm ET)

The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.

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Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector

Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector

Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector

Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector

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Cost: Free

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