Who will feed us? New farmer perspectives on agriculture for the future (2021)

Who will feed us? New farmer perspectives on agriculture for the future has evolved over several years with the help of many young farmers. In many ways it began in response to multiple intersecting crises: declining numbers of farmers and farms across the country, an aging farmer population without new and young farmers to replace them, deteriorating rural infrastructure, cultural decay, political division, and inequity. More recently, the climate crisis has called to question the viability of the current farming system itself. Farming is already a difficult, unpredictable livelihood: the climate crisis is exacerbating these challenges, and the worst is yet to come.

As this report is published, we are well over a year into a global pandemic that has impacted every aspect of our society and highlighted the inequities within our food system. Canadians are quickly becoming acquainted with the problems inherent in a food system that treats food as a commodity, migrant farmworkers as expendable, and land as a resource from which wealth can be exploited.

Amidst these issues, it is clear that a truly holistic approach to food systems transformation is needed. A grassroots approach, rooted in systemic change, and envisioned and enacted by diverse coalitions of people is the only way meaningful change will be achieved. It must be an approach that recognizes all people across the food system and meets them in the context in which they live, providing solutions which work for them. The following report lays out a road-map for such a system from the perspective of new farmers and how we begin building it together.