Hannah Wittman

Agroecology is both a practical agricultural science which mimics ecological functions to enhance and protect the integrity of agroecosystems and a political movement spearheaded by grassroots actors – especially women, rural peasants, and Indigenous farmers – to address localized issues of food insecurity, ecological and biodiversity crises, the legacies of slavery and colonialism, and the privatization and concentration of land and agriculture in the hands of few.This thesis focuses on agroecology as a social and political movement, exploring how agroecological practices can lead to holistic well-being for communities and ecosystems. Rooted in a series of projects from the research collaborative, Agroecología en Latinoamérica: Construyendo Caminos, this thesis works closely with the Ecuadorian Movement for Social and Solidarity Economy (meSSe) and the Andean agroecological collective, Ayllu Kurikancha, to share the textured stories of how agroecological practices produce well-being by creating the conditions for autonomy and good relations. The research explores various definitions of well-being based on the experiences of agroecologists from Ayllu Kurikancha, incorporating storytelling and theorization from participant-collaborators through a feminist, decolonial, and relational research methodology. This thesis characterizes agroecology as a way of life that promotes well-being, celebrating the prefigurative politics of Ayllu Kurikancha in shaping sustainable and equitable futures for generations on the land to come. This vision of relational well-being is tied to a notion – or feeling – of autonomy and freedom which makes agroecology a desirable way of life. Thus, the stories shared here offer "possibility models" or blueprints for creating a future of well-being for humans and nature through agroecological practices.

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This thesis is a cross-tribal co-created research project led by Atlanta Grant and three community members from Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation, a coastal community within the Great Bear Rainforest. This research employs an Evolving Cross-Tribal Methodological Design and Framework that employs decolonizing methods to mobilize oral storytelling and sharing of food-cycling practices and teachings. Explicit conversations around Indigenous biocultural heritage and food-cycling (the Indigenous practices of intentional purpose and intentional re-purpose) illuminated two research streams that operate in parallel with one another throughout this body of work and coalesce together towards a common goal towards Indigenous futurism and cultural resurgence. The first is a decolonizing stream that employs a decolonial lens onto the settler-colonial industrial food system and its production of food ‘waste.’ The second stream discusses food-cycling stories and teachings as the reinstatement of Indigenous Natural Law, that illuminated where knowledge erasure is occurring in community, and where ‘Lost Arts’ are observed. Through this illumination, this research mobilized into a journey towards uncovering why ‘Lost Arts’ are forming, resulting in a brief discussion and curation of decolonizing cross-cultural collaboration frameworks and ‘parallel’ preservation systems. This is not a thesis about food waste. It is about Indigenous resistance, cultural resurgence, and freedom and the actions that can be employed by First Nation communities across so-called Canada that can be enacted to halt additional Indigenous knowledge erasure from occurring.Although this body of work hosts many concepts, phrases, terms, decolonizing frameworks, and decolonial thought, the heart of this work is Indigenous freedom, futurism, and barrier-free cultural curiosity. It is resistance and the reinstatement of Indigenous Natural Law through the very nature of sharing and swapping stories through such a space revitalizes those very practices that we seek to protect. It is for the future taste of our homelands, a future of cultural freedom, expression, and resurgence for not just Kitasoo/Xia’xais but for all Indigenous peoples, who too desire for all generations to have a taste of their homelands.

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This study aimed to address how colonial research institutions can and should appropriately engage in food systems research and build relationships with Indigenous communities that go beyond tokenistic inclusion and engagement in co-developed research. The research was conducted as a case study with the Indigenous Science Liaison Office (ISLO) within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The study included nine semi-structured interviews and one focus group; thematic analysis of the transcripts was used to identify themes in the data. This study found that front-line staff in ISLO identified three primary challenges with respect to co-developed food systems research between AAFC researchers and Indigenous communities: (1) Relationship Building, (2) Administrative Processes and (3) Intercultural Competence and Knowledge. Study participants emphasized that the three themes must be addressed in response to both the historical colonization of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and ongoing power inequalities within Indigenous-Government relations and inequities for Indigenous-led science and research initiatives within colonial institutions. This study includes recommendations for how non-Indigenous institutions can and should address systemic barriers to culturally safe research related to Indigenous food systems. While conversations were specific to ISLO staff, the resulting recommendations are broadly applicable to colonial research institutions at large, such as the AAFC. Ultimately the goal of this study was to support Indigenous food systems research that contributes to Indigenous food security and sovereignty.

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Seed is a primary element in a changing agricultural landscape and has seen a steady shift over the past 100 years from common good to private commodity. This shift has jeopardized long-held farmer traditions of saving, reusing, and selling seed and has catalyzed a response, framed as seed sovereignty, which challenges the corporate enclosure of seed while asserting farmers’ rights to save, sow, share, and breed seed, as well as participate in shaping seed policy.British Columbia (BC) has a history of vegetable seed production dating back to the early 1900s and offers a unique case study due to its high number of organic vegetable farms and locally focused seed companies. I used a mixed-methods approach including archival research, interviews, and an online survey to better understand ways in which BC organic vegetable farmers and seed growers experience seed sovereignty and identify constraints that limit their seed sovereignty and seed security.From 1915 to 1958, BC saw the rise and decline of a vegetable seed sector due to the influence WWI and WWII on seed imports from Europe. This history offers lessons for modern day seed production and a proactive approach to seed security. Currently, BC seed companies, independent seed growers, and vegetable farmers experience seed sovereignty in their rights to save, sow, share, and breed seed, as well as participate in shaping seed policy. However, BC vegetable seed production does not meet the needs of BC organic farmers who require larger quantities of high-quality seed. BC organic farmers’ dependence on imported seed, gives them a low degree of seed security, which they have mitigated by utilizing multiple sources of seed from local and international suppliers – reducing their vulnerability seed import disruptions.BC organic vegetable farmers and seed growers are constrained in their ability to meet provincial seed needs due to space, infrastructure, knowledge limitations, and a lack of data on the economic viability of seed production. However, well-established infrastructure among BC’s seed growers indicates the potential for scaling up seed production to better meet the needs of local farmer and protect the capacity for seed security in British Columbia.

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Industrialized agriculture and food security interventions have failed to eliminate global hunger, while creating complex environmental, health, and well-being challenges. The food sovereignty movement, which recognizes the power imbalances and social inequities in the global food system, presents a new lens through which to design interventions to improve how agricultural practices impact individual and community well-being. This thesis project answered the following research question: how can food sovereignty frameworks incorporate assessments of health and well-being? This research contributes to the gap in our understanding of the importance of food sovereignty practices to health and well-being through a meta-narrative literature review. Four well-being narratives (environmental, physical, cultural-spiritual, and social-political-economic) were identified from the literature and used to develop a novel framework demonstrating the relationship between food sovereignty practices and multi-dimensional well-being outcomes. A set of n=37 indicators were developed and organized into four themes of environmental, physical, cultural-spiritual, and social-political-economic wellbeing, to assess the relationship between food sovereignty practices and multiple forms of well-being. This study demonstrates how the application of food sovereignty practices can influence the well-being of individuals, their environments, and communities. As well, the results of this work emphasize the importance of defining well-being holistically, rather than viewing well-being outcomes from a purely biomedical health perspective. This framework presents a way for future researchers, farmers, and agricultural organizations to begin measuring well-being outcomes that result from their food production practices.

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As part of a social movement to challenge and transform the dominant agrifood system, alternative food initiatives (AFIs) strive to create more socially and environmentally just food systems through policy change and programming. In a culturally plural context, processes need to be in place to ensure change efforts consider the perspectives and priorities of individuals from diverse backgrounds, including from diverse racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. This thesis calls attention to the approaches and outcomes of AFIs towards cultural inclusion and racial justice through two case studies. The first is an analysis of the approaches to cultural inclusion by four food policy councils in Metro Vancouver. The second takes a closer look at one AFI, the Richmond community garden program, to better understand how garden participants navigate and benefit from the convergence of difference in public gardens. Through interviews, participant observation, and document analysis this thesis exposes the complexity of shifting towards culturally inclusive practice and provides key learnings for AFI practitioners as they strive towards more culturally inclusive outcomes in their own context.

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As the concept of food sovereignty enters its third decade, greater analytical attention is needed to understand potentially enabling policy mechanisms in specific contexts. The Canadian supply management system for dairy, egg and poultry production is a national policy framework that controls production levels, sets prices, and limits imports. In theory, it is congruent with certain economic and political food sovereignty principles; however, the concept and value of supply management is increasingly challenged and critiqued from various socio-political perspectives. The research presented in this thesis examined supply management as a policy framework for dairy production, and its implications for food sovereignty in British Columbia (BC). In order to provide greater understanding of producer perceptions of a supply managed policy framework in relation to economic, political and socio-cultural aspects of milk production, I conducted 27 in-depth interviews with stakeholders from the BC dairy sector as well as textual analyses of industry reports. I also conducted interviews with 10 stakeholders from the New Zealand (NZ) dairy sector as a comparative case study of producer perspectives on dairy production in a liberalized policy environment. Results suggest that supply management in the BC dairy industry is more conducive to food sovereignty than the neoliberal and neo-cooperative organization of the NZ dairy industry. Yet while supply management supports economic viability for producers and demonstrates capacity for democratic governance and the development of social goals, it also has the potential to propagate economic, political and social inequities within the industry. In particular, producer identification with neoliberal economic objectives renders both supply managed and liberalized dairy systems subject to cultural forces that challenge food sovereignty principles. To function as a food sovereignty framework, supply management will require political adjustments and socio-cultural shifts both within and outside of the industry.

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School food systems are significant contributors to the overall impact of humans on the planet, influencing both what students learn about food and their cumulative effects on the food systems in which they are nested. Students are influenced both by what is formally taught and by how food is experienced throughout the school day. The food procurement practices of schools and the diets that are promoted can have a large impact on the shape of food systems. Increasingly actors involved in school food systems are raising questions about the sustainability and quality of health promotion in school food systems. School food gardens and farm to school programs are two initiatives that have been undertaken with the aim to get more healthy, local and sustainable food into the minds and onto the plates of students. This qualitative case study explores the impact school food networks had on the policies and practices of the school food systems within the Vancouver School Board. The three overlapping school food networks examined in the case were Think&EatGreen@School, Farm to School Greater Vancouver and the Vancouver School Food Network, which were involved seeding and growing school food garden and farm to school initiatives in the Vancouver School Board between 2010 and 2014. These school food networks in Vancouver played an important role in supporting the development of innovative school food initiatives at the school level between 2010 and 2014, effectively supporting ‘niche’ development. School food networks facilitated niche development at school level by supporting the creation of innovative models, building the capacity of teachers and school communities through professional development and providing logistical support. When looking at broader institutional rules and practices at the school district and higher levels, impacts at the regime level were much more limited.

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As a concept that has increasingly been invoked in discussions of social and political food systems dynamics, food sovereignty calls for the holistic consideration of human and ecological aspects of agricultural systems with a focus on power and political dynamics. We investigated an export-oriented agricultural production system as a case study to understand how and to what extent food sovereignty principles can be enacted in the context of agriculture in the Global North. The blueberry industry in British Columbia, Canada, is socially and economically significant within a regional food system, and is globally integrated through export and trade. This study employs the framework of food sovereignty by drawing on principles of equity, empowerment and ecology as a methodological tool for assessing food systems, and examines how local producers in the BC blueberry industry are responding to pressures, constraints and opportunities in the global food system. I identified and operationalized key principles and processes for food sovereignty in the form of indicators. I conducted 33 structured interviews with blueberry growers representing a range of scales and modes of production. Significant themes and dynamics related to food sovereignty discussed by growers were: high demands for seasonal labour leading to mechanization; blueberry production as a means to attain a farming lifestyle while supplementing with significant off-farm income; and a perceived lack of power among growers relative to other actors in the food system. Participants expressed reduced decision autonomy through resource constraints and economic pressures. The combination of economic forces and social dynamics that have most growers locked into an industrial production cycle represent a barrier to achieving food sovereignty principles. On the other hand, there were several important institutions in the industry that support and empower growers through democratic participation opportunities, knowledge translation, and field expertise. A significant re-orientation of food systems governance and policy combined with economic re-structuring and social empowerment mechanisms would be needed to approach the realization of food sovereignty principles in the BC food system.

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This thesis explores how Indigenous conceptualizations of being and place influence the food trading and sharing behavior of Indigenous people on Vancouver Island. Chapter 1 utilizes critical theory to explore how historically and contemporarily Indigenous nations and people practiced a relational politics where political activity and subjectivity is nested within the tenets of relationality, respect, beneficial reciprocity, and responsibility. Chapter 1 demonstrates that Canada utilized science and rationalism to assert sovereignty and jurisdiction over Indigenous lands, nations, and people. This process altered Indigenous conceptualizations of political subjectivity. Chapter 1 conducts a theoretical exegesis of state conceptualizations of sovereignty, which reveals how food-based politics can be alternately conceptualized and enacted. That is, I argue for a relational politics oriented explicitly towards recognizing, learning from, and incorporating the concerns of the most vulnerable members of Indigenous communities – human and nonhuman – as a mechanism for relational self-determination. In Chapter 2 I analyze the trading and sharing practices of 14 Indigenous people in rural and urban Vancouver Island using an Indigenous research paradigm, qualitative research methods, and critical theory as a mode of analysis. Chapter 2 demonstrates that Indigenous trading and sharing behavior is influenced by ancestral conceptualizations of place and that enactment of these place-based worldviews changes to fit the social context in which Indigenous people find themselves. Indigenous trading and sharing behavior enables Indigenous people to fulfill relational obligations to community, each other, and their non-human kin. Hence, food trading and sharing is a mechanism for relational politics and is used by Indigenous traders and sharers to engage with, cope, and overcome dominant conceptualizations of political subjectivity. In Chapter 3, I reflect on what I have learned from Indigenous traders and sharers, and situate their stories and propositions within a broader dialogue with Indigenous and non-Indigenous social theorists on the meaning of relationships, value, and political subjectivity.

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In British Columbia (BC), Canada, the number of young farm operators is declining while the average age of farm operators is at a historic high. A rising population, urbanization and natural resource and industrial development in BC continue to place pressure on the province’s limited agricultural land base. BC also has the most expensive farmland in Canada, driven by the valuation of farmland for non-agricultural uses. It is predicted that there will be a significant transfer of farmland in the coming decades; how the land will be transferred and to whom is of fundamental concern to the trajectory of agriculture in this province. In response to farmland access challenges, young and beginning farmer networks and alternative land access initiatives have emerged in BC. In this thesis I explore these emerging young and beginning farmer and land access initiatives through the lens of the agrarian question and food sovereignty. This research was part of a collaborative community-based project and employed a survey and ethnographic methods. I argue that there is an emerging movement of young and beginning farmers in BC entering agriculture from non-farming backgrounds seeking to redress the impacts of the corporate food regime through the practice of locally oriented, ecological farming. Narratives employed by new farmer movements share discursive commonalities with the theory of repeasantization and food sovereignty movements. I provide a characterization of the diversity of alternative land access models practiced by farmers in BC and the motivations for their establishment. My analysis of these models suggests that the potential for furthering community-led land reform efforts in BC is inhibited by the high cost of land, tenure insecurity, societal attitudes favouring individual ownership, and high transaction costs. There is a need for an attitudinal and policy shift towards the management of farmland as a public good rather than a market commodity in order to support new farmer establishment, community-based land management, and the continuity of locally oriented agriculture. I conclude with policy recommendations to support new farm entrants and farmland access in British Columbia.

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