Photo by Cole Breiland
Students participate in food security focused issues
Erin Collins
Last Thursday, visitors to the Agora were met with a mosaic of posters and presentations. This colourful display, the fourth annual Food Security Research Network (FSRN) Forum, presented the fruits of student, staff, and community research in regard to food security in Thunder Bay.
The forum lasted from 10 am till 5 pm, with a movie showing offered in the evening. The executive chef behind the event, Dr. Connie Nelson, began the forum four years ago, and is currently the director of the network.
“The major theme here is that students are being given opportunities in seventeen different academic disciplines to engage with the community around building the local food system,” explained Dr. Nelson.
“The focus of the [Food Security Research Network] is to build the local food system, not just in a commercial way, but so our students can get out there in the real world.”
Dr. Connie Nelson credits both her upbringing and professional experience as motivating factors for the development of the network.
“I was fascinated by how research has proven over and over again how healthy communities make healthy individuals. This is a real switch for us because most systems concentrate on the healing of the individuals to heal the community. With my own background in farming, I wanted to focus on building a local food system here in Thunder Bay.”
When asked to give an example of the many ongoing projects, Dr. Nelson talked about how a third year English class was contributing to food security.
“Students in creative writing took on four community groups in Thunder Bay and developed the materials that would help these local food producers. The students were so pumped! They’d never had English like this before. They were able to use their English skills and apply them in the real world.”
Meanwhile, Tom Grinnell, Dr. Nelson’s graduate student, provided insight as to how students in social work were contributing.
“The fourth year social work theory class has been working with community organizations on the Odgen-Simpson Veggie Project” said Grinnell. “They have a large garden on Simpson’s Street that used to be a vacant lot. The project brings the community together to take care of the garden and distribute the produce.”
Dr. Nelson has had great success in developing the Food Security Research Network and intends to continue to engage the community, students, and university in food security initiatives. One of her goals concerns the addition of an alternative agricultural training program to Lakehead, allowing students to work with and learn from the farming community.
“This is my dream and my baby,” laughs Dr. Nelson. “But if you don’t have the passion of both the students and the community, the dream can’t fly. It takes everybody to make it work.”