Ag leaders push to secure Canada's food system

Canada's agricultural sector is fragmented, and alignment across commodity groups, industry, academia and investors is difficult to achieve. But one issue has emerged as rare common ground: the need to recognize food security as part of Canada's national security agenda. 

As geopolitical instability, supply-chain disruptions, trade conflicts, climate change, biological threats and food insecurity intensify, calls for a more resilient food system continue to grow. To push that conversation forward, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) and The Simpson Centre for Food & Agricultural Policy recently hosted a two-day workshop.

A long-overdue conversation

Since the mid-20th century, many European countries have maintained policies aimed at protecting food supplies and agricultural self-sufficiency. Canada, however, has not yet extended its national security framework to farmland and food production systems. 

“The way that Canada has understood national security historically, from the government level, has been almost exclusively reactive and not proactive,” explained Dr. Adam Chapnick, PhD, professor of defence studies, Royal Military College of Canada, and a speaker at the workshop. “This isn't a forward-thinking tradition that we have in this country.”

The May 12-13 event featured five speakers who examined why food and agriculture belong in national security planning, and what it will take to move those issues onto the federal agenda.

“What brought everyone into the room is a shared recognition that food security and national security have been treated as separate conversations for a long time, and that the threats we are now facing do not fit neatly into either policy category on their own,” says Dr. Guillaume Lhermie, DVM, PhD, professor (teaching and research) in UCVM, who organized the event and presented on biosafety threats. 

Rallying leaders around food security 

In leading the workshop, UCVM's cross-sector connections drew leaders from agriculture, policy, industry and academia to collaborate on the risks and opportunities shaping food security policy, from trade and supply chains to animal health and emergency preparedness. 

“Food security depends on strong relationships across the entire agricultural ecosystem,” says Dr. Renate Weller, DVM, PhD, dean of UCVM. “Veterinary medicine plays an important role in safeguarding the critical infrastructure that supports food production, from animal health services to disease prevention and emergency response. Bringing diverse voices together is essential to building a more resilient future.”

Industry partners and workshop co-hosts, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and the Canadian Pork Council, brought operational priorities to the discussion. Their priorities sat alongside geopolitical research presented by Dr. Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, PhD, associate professor at the University of Guelph, and community-based research presented by Dr. Sara Edge, PhD, Arrell Chair in Food, Policy & Society, also from U of G.

Also discussed were infrastructure gaps in Canada's food system. The structural problem goes beyond policy alone, argued Alison Sunstrum, managing partner of NYA Ventures, a Calgary-based ag tech venture fund that supports founders engaged in sustainable science and technology innovation. Despite having the agricultural technologies to improve resilience and productivity, Sunstrum believes Canada lacks the capital, incentives and commercialization pathways to bring them into use. A resilient food system requires investment in infrastructure, and the systems needed to scale and deploy innovation, she said.

What it will take to change the agenda 

“Food security means something different depending on where you sit in this conversation,” said Lhermie. “That is not a reason to delay action. Rather, it is the reason to bring everyone to the same table, and to make sure the next steps reach Ottawa.”