Other Projects and Initiatives

Resetting the Table - A Peoples' Food Policy for Canada

The People's Food Policy Project was a pan-Canadian network of citizens and organizations that created Canada's first peoples' food sovereignty policy. The document, called Resetting the Table, was updated in 2015.

Marie Burge of Cooper Institute was one of the Animators with the People's Food Policy Project, who came from all the provinces and territories of Canada, were the face of and driving force behind the People's Food Policy Project. As such, they were responsible for most of the grassroots organizing related to this project to gather regional interests, priorities, and visions and to represent these to the national project.

PEI Food Security Network

Cooper Institute was one of the key organizations involved in the formation of the PEI Food Security Network in 2008. Other organizations involved in the network include PEI Women's Network, the PEI Healthy Eating Alliance, ALERT, PEI People First, PEI Association for Newcomers to Canada, PEI Council of People with Disabilities. The Food Security Network can also be found on facebook.

The PEI Food Security Network's Mission Statement

The PEI Food Security Network is an education and action organization committed to achieving food security in Prince Edward Island. It is dedicated to changing community attitudes and public policy to promote: environmentally appropriate practices for the production and distribution of food; the availability of affordable, healthy, culturally appropriate and personally acceptable food; livable income for producers; the right to food; and PEI self-reliance in food.

Cooper Institute and the PEI Food Security Network are also members of Food Secure Canada

Cooper Institute supports ACT for Community Food Security, a Nova Scotia Community-University Research Project. Check out a short video describing the project: Activating Change Together for Community Food Security - Project Overview.

Citizen Hearings on Food

In 2004, Cooper Institute, with the support of the Metcalfe Foundation, invited Anne Bishop to facilitate Citizen Hearings on Food in three Island communities - in O'Leary, North Milton and Poole's Corner. We heard from people involved in the production of food, both farmers and fishers. We heard about the challenges consumers face in obtaining healthy food, and the struggle faced by low-income families trying to access even the minimum nutrition they need. We received submissions on the environment, plant-breeders rights and seed patenting, land use, water quality and genetically modified organisms. We were given poetry and original songs; we participated in singing and reflected on our connection with the land, and we were treated to a delicious organic suppers. In November of that year, Anne Bishop presented her report at the Latin America Mission Program (LAMP) Daniel O'Hanley Memorial Lecture.