The Grand Forks and Boundary Regional Agricultural Society (GFBRAS) is hosting their forum on local food on Jan. 11 at the Senior’s Centre in City Park. The forum is called: Ideas into Action! The Future of OUR food in the Boundary Region and its open to all Boundary residents, business owners, processors, food retailers and food eaters.
The forum features speakers Aimee Watson and Russell Precious. Key themes will be better labeling, why local and why now; food preservation, local training needs; land use options; food and health links; and good food for everyone – a fun day of planning and imagining.
“We’re having a forum with folks who attended the previous meeting (in late November), or who missed it and still want to participate and get involved in setting up some strategies involving food strategy in our region,” said organizer Sheila Dobie, president of GFBRAS. “The idea this time is we’ve got more time set aside to build on a plan and build on a strategy and identify what the priorities are for the community around food security. We certainly have strengths in some areas and weaknesses in other areas. We’ll identify what those areas are and who can be the one to take the leadership on those.”
Dobie said that even though GFBRAS is putting on the forum and wants to see the work done, they realize the need for partnering with other groups in the area.
In addition to the November forum, the society also leaned heavily on the results of a survey they put out last year when coming up with the format for this final forum.
“It’s leading towards more specifics on what we need to work on to build on our food security system,” said Dobie. “What specifically do we need to work on? Do we need to build capacity around access? Do we need to build more around educating people? Do we need more production? All of that kind of stuff. That’s what will come out of it – specific actions that we’ll determine to be the priorities around it.”
The forum goes from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. and is free of charge. There will also be lunch served and childcare provided.
