Welcome to our Assembly!

Description: Our team welcomes you to our Assembly, we welcome you to explore the content of our new online platform for this entire month’s worth of exciting sessions, from live Zoom discussions to downloadable templates, tools and webinars to watch on your own time when it suits your schedule. We’ll introduce ourselves and get acquainted with the Assembly on our platform this year where you can connect with other Assembly goers and Experts in the field.

Date: Friday April 1st

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm ET

Speakers: LFFC Team

Establishing Local Food Sovereignty with an Indigenous-Owned Year-Round Indoor Farm

AgriTech North is a first-of-kind, whole-sale scale, year-round grower of fresh produce in Northwestern Ontario. We are a social enterprise Beneficial-Corp with a mission to lower fresh produce costs in Far North Indigenous communities by 25% and increase availability in communities that do not have year-round access. In our pilot facility at 250 Duke Street in Dryden, Ontario, we grow about 450kg of leafy greens, herbs, and small fruiting crops each week. We are establishing a Centre of Excellence in Food Security, validating novel technologies and combinations of technologies that increase the economic viability of growing in the Far North. In addition, with multiple technologies combined, we will grow a full vegan diet from one facility. This Centre of Excellence is a resource and training centre for over 600 rural and remote communities throughout Canada that wish to establish their own local production and take control of their own food security

Date: Weds April 6th

Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm ET

Speaker:

• Benjamin Feagin Jr., CEO at AgriTech North

Facilitated by:

• Arlene Meekis-Jung, Indigenous Relations Coordinator at LFFC

Reclaiming Food, Reclaiming Stories

Description: Join us for this interactive workshop with Dr. Tammara Soma, professor at Simon Fraser University and Co-Founder of Food Systems Lab, and Arlene Meekis-Jung, LFFC’s Indigenous Relations Coordinator, as we explore how our own cultural traditions have prioritized practices of creativity in order to avoid wasting food.  From preserving techniques to snout-to-hoof utilization, from those memories of your Grandmother’s kitchen to the smell of bone broth brewing, these are ways in which we reclaim our foods and reclaim our stories.  Participants will have the opportunity to share food stories and recipe ideas in a fun interactive session, and can continue sharing their knowledge in our online community forums as well.  

Date: Thursday April 7th

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm EST

Speakers:

• Dr. Tammara Soma, Food Systems Lab at Simon Fraser University

• LFFC Indigenous Relations Coordinator, Arlene Meekis-Jung

Facilitated by: LFFC Communications Coordinator, Susanna Redekop

Collaborative Solutions: from Buying Clubs to Co-ops

Description:In this session, we explore the different ways in which folks collaborate to increase their purchasing power and how certain tools can support these initiatives. From starting a buying club to opening a co-op, bringing people together for a common cause around food access can be made simpler with certain methods and open-source systems our speakers will give insight about. Using an ecosystem approach to solutions for food system issues, we find ways to co-create the same goals of food sovereignty and shared prosperity through collaborations that foster equity and value for all. We will hear from an open source tech platform, a food hub - co-op in Northwestern Ontario, and a Black Women’s worker co-op created in a sisterhood-in-solidarity support model - exploring the ways in which we are stronger together.

Date: Thursday April 14th

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm EST

Speakers:

• Theresa Schumilas, Open Food Network Canada

• Bobbie Parr, 807 Food Co-op Inc.

• Obiageli Agusiegbe and Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido, Black Women Professional Worker Co-op

Facilitated by: LFFC Communications Coordinator, Susanna Redekop

Q+A THURSDAY: Worker Co-ops

Join us for a drop-in Q+A Thursday session with experts in worker co-ops. These shorter sessions are an opportunity for you to connect with an Expert in a specific topic area. Come with your questions! This is a great opportunity to get some 1-on-1 time with those who have expertise in this field. RSVP via our Event page for this session in our community platform.

Date: THURSDAY April 14th *note this Q+A session is on Thursday to avoid the holiday Friday

Time: 3:00-3:45pm

Speakers:

• Alex Szaflarska, Together We’re Bitter Co-operative Brewing

• Reba Plummer, Canadian Worker Co-op Federation

Land Trusts and Alternative Land Access

The sustainability of our food systems hinge largely on the availability of affordable, arable land and the opportunity for individuals, organizations and communities to access it equitably. Join Northeast Regional Coordinator, Mike Degagne and Cassie Weaver as the LFFC and EFAO explore alternative land access through cooperative land ownership (Black River Worker Co-op) and Indigenous land trust (Mno Aki, Global Indigenous Development Trust, Keepers of the Circle) models. Hear about successes, challenges, best practices and new developments in the sector and see how the LFFC can support your search for sustainable land access.

Date: Tuesday April 19th

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm EST

Speakers:

• Sonia Molodecky, Mno Aki/Global Indigenous Development Trust

• Becky Big Canoe, Keepers of the Circle/Mno Aki

• Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario

• Mike DeGagne, Black River Worker Co-op, LFFC Northeast Regional Coordinator

Creative Capitalization

Fundraising is a vital step in developing a food or farm initiative and an ongoing challenge for an evolving business - especially in times of major upheaval and change. In modern times, a need for financial capital is universal, but access to capital remains inequitable for a broad swath of diverse groups like BIPOC communities, disabled and neuro-atypical people. Every time an innovative project is deemed too “risky”, difficult or outside of funding cycles, we leave value on the table. What if we catalyze equitable solutions to this problem by co-creating them?  

Community-led co-design is an approach in which the co-design process, not just the outcomes, is developed in collaboration with community members who will be directly impacted by the design.

In this session, we’ll bring together funders, financiers, social enterprise and community organizers to learn the basics of inclusive and community led co-design and discuss how those practices can help us co-create solutions to funding gaps for food initiatives and food system change.

Date: Thursday April 21st

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm ET

Speaker:

• Jess Mitchell, Senior Manager in Research + Design at the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University in Toronto

Facilitated by: Shylah Wolfe, LFFC Project Manager

Q+A Friday: Alternative Funding

Join us for a drop-in Q+A Friday session with experts in alternative means to fund your projects. Tired of applying for grants and the time it takes to report on them? Come with your questions about social finance from Fair Finance Fund, and about Rotating Savings and Credit Associations from Black Women Professional Worker Co-op.

These shorter sessions are an opportunity for you to connect with Experts in a specific topic area. This is a great opportunity to get some 1-on-1 time with those who have expertise in this field. RSVP via our Event page for this session in our community platform.

Date: Friday April 22nd

Time: 1:00-1:45pm

Speakers:

• Deirdre Fehr, Fair Finance Fund

• Obiageli Agusiegbe and Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido, Black Women Professional Worker Co-op

Northern Farmers Innovation Roundtable with Revolution North

Description: Welcome to a farmers-only Roundtable discussion! Join Northeast Regional Coordinator, Mike Degagne, and Paula Haapanen (Cooperation Council of Ontario) to discuss farm issues and innovations through the CCO’s Revolution North Innovation Accelerator. All participants in this discussion are invited to talk about the various challenges they face in their agri/food business in order to provide ideas for innovative and cooperative solutions. Revolution North is a pilot project that seeks to democratize access to innovation for small businesses and agricultural organizations in Northern Ontario. The Revolution North roundtable will be a two part conversation, if you’re a farmer interested in innovating your agri/food business and want to contribute and listen to other farmers from across the North join us for both days!

Wednesday April 27th, 1pm ET

Session 1: Building understanding

Our first session will lay the groundwork for innovation by asking some fundamental questions around how we perceive our work, how others perceive our work, and how collaboration and innovation fit into the mix.

Thursday April 28th, 1pm ET

Session 2: Finding common ground

Building on the foundation put down in the previous session, we will start sharing about challenges that are being experienced on the farm contributing and collaborating with other Northern farmers. Through the democratization of innovation Northern agri/food businesses can create their own solutions and invest directly in their operations success.

Facilitators:

• Mike DeGagne, LFFC Northeast Regional Coordinator

• Revolution North

• Conseil de la Coopération de l'Ontario

Film Screening: Atautsikut - Leaving None Behind

Join us for a public film screening of Atautsikut / Leaving None Behind (60:00, 4K, 2019), brought to you by the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation, The Canadian CED Network (CCEDNET) and Just Us! Coffee Roasters.

Film description: Inuit and Cree of Nunavik (Northern Québec) recount how they escaped the economic oppression of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Overcoming tremendous challenges, in 1959 they founded a co-operative; then other communities followed suit. Today, the federation they created contributes as part of Nunavik’s co-operative movement, with accumulated assets exceeding half a billion dollars! Drawing on their traditional values, Inuit and Cree teach us something of real value today: how to put social development at the heart of everything – including a successful business!

Building prosperity, yet “leaving none behind.”

Date: Tuesday April 19th

Time: 6:00pm ET

Working Together session

Description: This interactive session is for all attendees to hear about the projects and big ideas LFFC has been working through over the past year and what’s cooking for the future. We’ll discuss the latest Strategic Directions, what’s new with Members & Member Services and we’ll harvest feedback from participants on how we can better support local food co-ops and farm co-ops in Ontario. This session is always free for LFFC members.

Date: Tuesday April 26th

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm EST

Facilitators:

• Shylah Wolfe, LFFC Project Manager (outgoing)

• Jen Esposito Springett, LFFC Project Manager (incoming)

Annual General Meeting

Description: Our LFFC Annual General Meeting. All members invited, organizational members have voting rights.

Date: Saturday April 30th

Time: 2:00pm-4:00pm EST

Facilitator: Alli Floroff, LFFC Board of Directors Chair