Economy | Good Food Network

day 2| dec 4th| 9:00am

Youth Stream

Resources

Re-rooting our Local Food Economy

Friday, December 4| 9:00 am

From fish to forest to farm, this session will include a mix of expert panelists providing updates on the status of several key initiatives to support the regeneration of our region’s local food economy. The COVID19 outbreak showed more acutely the challenges of a global food economy and demonstrated where a local food system provides resilience and opportunity. The panel will be followed by breakout groups to dive deeper into strategies for re-rooting our local food economy.

Moderator|

Ben Clark, Urban Food Table Co-Chair

Ben is a climate and sustainability professional with over a decade of experience with governments, non-profits, and the private sector. As a Consultant and Project Manager with The Delphi Group, he leads a range of engagement, research, and strategy development activities related to Green and Circular Economy, Climate Change, and Sustainability.

Prior to his current role with The Delphi Group, he worked for the Province of BC managing projects related to environmental policy, adventure tourism, and support for local government climate action. Ben’s experience includes leading non-profit organizations to develop place-based food systems and grow the local food economy, as well as facilitating the urban development process and incorporating sustainability into neighbourhood planning in Victoria. Ben was one of three citizen representatives on the City of Victoria’s Community Services Standing Committee in 2015 and currently serves as co-chair of the Victoria Urban Food Table and on the board of the FED Urban Agriculture Society.

Following a BSc in Geography and Environmental Studies from UVic, Ben completed a MA in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University in 2017, where his thesis focused on the role of restaurants in a sustainable food system.

Panelist|

Jim McIsaac, Executive director of the T.Buck Suzuki Foundation

Jim is the executive director of the T.Buck Suzuki Foundation, a
fisheries foundation working to protect habitat, prevent pollution,
promote sustainable fisheries, and connect local fisheries to our
local food systems! Jim wears several other hats: he is Pacific Vice-President of the Canadian Independent Fish Harvester’s Federation, an organization built to protect harvester and coastal community
fishing interests. He is also the coordinator for the BC Commercial Fishing Caucus, made up of 14 BC fishing industry organizations focused on bringing fishing interests into marine planning. Over the decades he has participated in various fisheries research initiatives and various coastal marine planning forums.

Check out Fisheries for Communuties, BC Young Fishermen & T.Buck Suzuki Foundation

Panelist|

Susan Tychie

Susan Tychie is the founder of Share Organics (1997 to 2015) a produce box program that aggregated food from Vancouver Island farms for delivery to homes in Victoria, BC. This provided a stable market for growers to increase their production to meet the new demand. In 2004 with technical partner Pam Sallaway an online management interface was developed for Share Organics. As a partner and Vice President of Sales and Customer Service (2004-2017) for Home Delivery Management Inc., the company expanded to serve home delivery providers in Canada, the USA and Australia.

In 2015 Ms Tychie was contracted as a researcher for CRFAIR’s Institutional Purchasing Project. This project looked at purchasing requirements of Assisted Living health care residences in Victoria and the opportunities and challenges farmers face in serving this market. More recently Tychie assisted Patricia Reichert on the Closing the Supply Gap Project that focused on the development of the Local Food Economy. In March 2020 with funding to develop the South Island Farmhub as the aggregation and distribution infrastructure for the region, Tychie took on the challenge of leading this project.

Panelist|

Jacques van Campen

Jacques van Campen is the Director of Innovation at South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP). Jacques comes to this position from a long history of leadership in technology startups and international organizations, where he has held a number of senior leadership positions both locally and internationally. More recently, Jacques has turned his attention to a wide variety of projects with SIPP including co-chair of the Greater Victoria Smart Cities project, Indigenous Community Micro Transit Pilot, and is co-chair of four economic sub-committees engaged with the Rising Economy Taskforce. One specific group: Agriculture, Food and Beverage committee, has led to a series of recommended actions to help move the local food industry to recovery, resilience, and growth.

Jacques is an avid gardener/farmer and puts his passions to work on a small farm in Central Saanich looking after sheep, ducks, chickens, and his four children.

Panelist|

Patricia Reichert, Closing the Supply Gap

Patricia Reichert is one of the lead facilitators of the Closing the Supply Gap initiative that is taking a systems approach to creating a robust local food economy. The initiative is based on research and collaboration across the food sector in the Capital Region. Patricia has been an active volunteer in the local food movement for more than 20 years. Her career has focused on socio-economic research and public policy and she established and operated a successful local small scale food business for more than a decade. Patricia is currently conducting local food system research at Royal Roads University. As president of the Salt Spring Island Farmland Trust she is part of a leadership team that is developing a multi-function unique local food production, processing, storage, and education centre on Salt Spring. The centre includes a demonstration project of how regenerative agriculture can mitigate climate change. Patricia is committed to change, leadership and collaboration.