ARCHIVE: VP CORNER  | From Farm to Fork: CBoC Launches Centre for Food in Canada Michael Bloom, Vice-President, Organizational Effectiveness and Learning
May 2, 2011 | French gastronome and original foodie, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, famously remarked, “the fate of nations hangs upon their choice of food.” In spite of its importance, food’s ubiquity has allowed most Canadians to take it for granted. Food has an extraordinary range of impacts on Canadians: it affects our lives, our health, our jobs, our environment, and our economy. Food is truly a mega-issue—yet it has not attracted the attention it deserves. The Centre for Food in Canada (CFIC) is a three-year, multimillion-dollar program of research and discussion on food. It has two primary goals: - first, to raise awareness of the nature of the food sector and its importance to Canada’s economy and society; and
- second, to develop a National Food Strategy—embodying a shared vision for the future of food in Canada—that will meet Canada’s need for a coordinated, long-term approach to food safety, security, and sustainability, and related issues of health, environment, and trade.
While the Conference Board has a long history of work on issues relating to food—such as chronic diseases, and national and industry forecasts—CFIC provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a big-picture approach to food. Over the next three years, the Conference Board will be publishing more than 20 studies that will shed light on a range of food issues, challenges, and solutions. The Conference Board is well suited to playing an important role in developing a long-term strategy for the food sector. The sector is highly complex, with distinct economic subsectors stretching from producers to consumers—from “farm to fork”—and multiple levels of government. Our experience as independent researchers and conveners of diverse stakeholders is helping us to break through traditional barriers to collaboration that have always inhibited development of a widely supported food strategy for Canada. Research is crucial to achieving the goals of CFIC. Over the next three years, the Conference Board will be publishing more than 20 studies that will shed light on a range of food issues, challenges, and solutions, all of which will be used in preparing the National Food Strategy. Our research is well under way: we will release our first two foundational reports in May 2011. The first of these reports, Valuing Food, delineates the economic footprint of food in Canada. It looks at the economic contributions of food arising from the core food industries of farming, fishing, manufacturing, and retail, as well as the indirect and induced economic impacts. It assesses the impact of the sector on jobs and gross domestic product, and reveals the importance of Canada’s food sector as the economic engine that it is. This report will also frame our discussion of food in Canada by looking at key trends affecting food in Canada and around the globe. The second foundational report, Governing Food, unpacks the dense web of laws, policies, and regulations governing food in Canada. In seeking to make sense of these complex systems, it asks: How and why has our food governance evolved to be what it is today? Understanding how food is governed in Canada is an essential stage in identifying what should be included in the National Food Strategy and where change is most needed.
 | Michael Bloom
Vice-President
Organizational Effectiveness and Learning | Related Executive Networks
Centre for Food in Canada Related Publications
Canada's Food Manufacturing Industry: Industrial Outlook, Winter 2011
Making Milk: The Practices, Players, and Pressures Behind Dairy Supply Management
Healthy People, Healthy Performance, Healthy Profits: The Case for Business Action on the Socio-Economic Determinants of Health
Related Conference
Canadian Food Summit 2012
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