From support for local producers to abundant community gardens, healthy school food, major retailers putting local food on their shelves and innovations in food system research, technology and policy development.
Cultivating Connections will energize Alberta’s regional food systems by gathering people from different groups to identify tangible opportunities to collaborate and inspire initiatives for vibrant regional food systems with improved access for all.
• Forge new working relationships among diverse food system players
• Increase effective collaboration for innovations in food production, processing, and distribution
• Develop systems-based solutions resulting in economically vibrant, ecologically sound, and socially just food systems that increase access to healthy food for all
Dr. Wayne Roberts is a leading thinker and practitioner in the field of innovative local and urban food systems. He has played an instrumental role in helping municipalities – including Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Rotterdam, Bristol, Oshawa and Kingston – form food policy councils or adopt food charters.
Learn more about Wayne Roberts
Friday February 3, 2017 - Edmonton City Hall
5:30 pm - Doors open, registration
6:00 pm - Opening remarks
6:30 pm - Moderated panel discussion - Let’s Talk Food: Mayors’ Panel, featuring Don Iveson and more!
8:00pm-9:00pm - Reception, mingling, booths
Saturday February 4, 2017 - Northlands Expo Centre
7:30 am - Registration, breakfast and check in
8:00 am – 5:00 pm - Cultivating Conversations (open space)
8:30 am - Plenary – Keynote Speaker, Wayne Roberts
10:00 am - Break
10:30 am - Ramping up Food Production: Access to capital, land, training, and processing
12:00 pm - Lunch
1:00 pm - Local Food Enterprises: Scaling up and out, and understanding consumer buying behavior
2:30 pm - Break
3:00 pm - Citizen Engagement & Social Justice: Food access, animation, activism, and capacity building
Saturday Evening February 4, 2017 – Ernest’s Restaurant, NAIT
6:00 pm - Registration, check in
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm - Taste and Sound of Alberta: featuring local vendors, artists, and musicians. For details, click here.
Sunday February 5, 2017 – Northlands Expo Centre
8:00 am – 5:00 pm - Cultivating Conversations (open space)
8:30 am - Registration, breakfast and check in
9:00 am - Waste as a Resource: Maximizing and stewarding our food system resources to build an abundant and integrated regional food system for all
10:30 am - Break
11:00 am - Collective Buying Power: Public, corporate and community local food procurement practices
12:30 pm - Lunch - bagged lunch to bring to plenary
12:45 pm - Policy Plenary: The way forward: enabling bioregional food networks: protecting farmland, health equity, environmental quality, and economic viability
2:15 pm - Summary and Wrap Up: Facilitated by Annand Ollivierre and Wayne Roberts, Ballroom
Cultivating Connections is taking place in Edmonton, AB!
Main Venues
1 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Northlands Edmonton Expo Centre
7515 118 Ave NW
To view the northlands floor plan, click here.
Ernest's Restaurant at Northlands
11762 106 St NW
To view the map to Ernest's Restaurant at Northlands, click here.
Parking
For parking rates at Northlands, click here.
Parking is free at NAIT on Saturdays.
Transit
All venues are accessible via Edmonton Light Rail Transit. For trip planning, click here.
At this event we will remember and pay tribute to Edmonton’s favourite ‘Foodie’ and Chef, Gail Hall, and all she stood for. When she wasn’t teaching cooking classes in her loft apartment, she was in Italy — or Greece, or Viet Nam, or Nova Scotia — touring with groups of ardent foodies. You might find her stirring the pot with CBC’s radio hosts, or dancing up a storm at Jasper’s seasonal celebration of food and wine, Christmas in November. A Red Seal chef, caterer, broadcaster, cooking school owner, food writer and educator, Gail was a champion of Edmonton’s 104 Street and a fierce supporter of all things local. After her diagnosis, Gail was even more determined to preach the gospel of good, healthy food. She always knew that food was more than a way to fill the belly; it was medicine, it was business, it was love. At her heart, Gail understood hospitality. Anyone who ever entered her home, or took a cooking class could feel it. She was warm, she was welcoming. She wanted to feed you.
Join as, along with Gail’s husband Jon Hall, as we eat, drink and remember our Gail Hall at this seminal event at NAIT’s Ernest’s Restaurant. To register, click here.
Join us at the Cultivating Conversations open space! This is interactive and creative space that will engage participants throughout the conference in the question; How might we build a collaborative, innovative, viable and sustainable food system in Alberta?
This will be an open space facilitation where participants are encouraged to identify, from their own perspectives, the critical components that would make up a sustainable food system including the critical players, relationships, and elements required. The facilitators will capture and create a functional map of the system the participants envision and will be used to illuminate the opportunities for action.
Facilitated by Annand Ollivierre, Volunteer Alberta and Marci Scharlé, Alberta Culture and Tourism
LET’S TALK FOOD - a panel discussion among Edmonton-area mayors, featuring Mayor Don Iveson, and more!
This event will elevate the conversation about the sustainability of our region as a prosperous, resilient, growing place, and local and regional food systems.
This will be an important opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialogue about regionalism, growth, land-use, and preservation of land for agriculture and food systems.
This event is free to the public. Doors open at 5:30 pm. To register specifically for this event, click here.
Join us the evening of February 4th, 2017, at NAIT’s Hokanson Centre for Culinary Arts for Taste and Sounds of Alberta. This event is in conjunction with Alberta Food Matters’ Cultivating Connections 2017 Forum, and promises to be a wonderful evening of great local food, drinks, and music.
Besides highlighting local producers and artists, this event will showcase the highly acclaimed Ernest’s restaurant and the professional kitchens of the culinary arts program at NAIT. We are opening our kitchens for you to discover, learn, and of course…taste!
To view the menu for the Tastes and Sound event, click here.
To register specifically for this event, click here.
Are you attending the Forum and in need of a place to stay for the weekend? Or are you able to offer your home to those who may need a place to stay during the forum?
Fill out this form to be paired up with another attendee. Don't worry, your information will remain confidential and won't be shared until you approve the billet pairing.
You can email Lmartin1@ualberta.ca if you have any questions.
AFM (Alberta Food Matters) is joined by FLEdGE (Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged) to host the Cultivating Connections: Alberta Regional Food Systems Forum 2017 in Edmonton.
AFM is a non-profit organization that encourages Albertans to work together to foster leadership, relationships and actions that reconnect people, land and food in Alberta through asset-based community development, research and evidence- based approaches, policy development and skill building, educational projects, programs and workshops.
FLEdGE is a federally funded 5-year (2016 - 2020) research program to support the development of regional food systems across Canada. AB andBC comprise the western regional node of FLEdGE, which is being led by researchers from the University of Alberta in collaboration with community partners.