Sustainable Agri-food Systems Research Group
A research arm of the Institute for Sustainable Horticulture, the Sustainable Agri-food Systems team is an applied research group which aims to conduct research with communities. Our focus is on developing tools, knowledge, and mechanisms to bring about regional-scale, environmentally sound, economically viable agri-food systems that can protect and preserve farmland against urban sprawl, increase community vitalitiy, and improve food security by promoting increased food production, distribution and consumption self-reliance.
In an era when more people live in cities than ever before, there is an increased disconnect between humans and the agri-food systems in which they are depended - a consequence of the 20th century industrialization and economic globalization. Today with rising food prices, peak oil, peak water, climate change and environmental degradation it is pertinent that we create resilient, bioregional food systems that are fully integrated within the planning, design, function, and economy of our communities and cities.
Politicians, planners, community groups and individual stakeholders need appropriate knowledge, tools and targeted strategies that can be readily implemented. Our research on Municipally Enabled and Supported Agriculture (MESA) is producing a compendium of concepts, tools and targeted strategies to illustrate how local-scale, human-intensive agri-food systems can be designed and brought forth to increase diversity and build resilience in our communities.
A widespread implementation of MESA strategies, projects, and tools will contribute to the actualization of local and bioregional agri-food systems that genuinely afford food security (supply) and sovereignty (control) for people and communities. Innovative restructuring that facilitates and reflects a cultural shift in our relationship to nature, place, agriculture, and to food is a sustainability imperative. Such transformations will guide us toward nurturing new and sustainable relationships with the land, to our food, and to those with whom we build and share community – to rediscover what it is to be essentially human.
