The Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged Partnership Project (FLEdGE) comprised seven years of evolving research partnerships with more than 130 Canadian and international participants. FLEdGE’s goal was to explore how community food initiatives act as pillars of regional, sustainable transformation. Together, researchers and community partners across the FLEdGE network worked collaboratively to create food systems that are more socially just, economically localized and diverse, and ecologically regenerative.

FLEdGE brought food system researchers and practitioners together from 2015 to 2023. This website now serves as an archive of the people, research, results, stories, and continuing partnerships that emerged from that work. We invite you to explore and share these records so that they might inform the next generation of sustainable food system scholars, advocates, and decision makers.

FLEdGE research was supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

  • portrait of Mirella Stroink portrait of Charles Levkoe

    The Northwestern Ontario Node was co-led by Charles Z. Levkoe, Connie Nelson, and Mirella Stroink, all from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. Research interests [...]

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  • logo of the Handpicked podcast

    In this episode of Handpicked: Stories from the Field, Mandy Bayha, Director for Culture, Language, and Spirituality for the Délįnę Got'įnę Government, talks with [...]

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  • text panel saying Food Law Crash Course close up photo of Abra Brynne

    Food Law Crash Course By Abra Brynne In November 2016, FLEdGE researcher Abra Brynne attended Canda’s first ever conference on Food Law and Policy, in [...]

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  • text panel saying Women Building Thriving Communities a headshot of Dr. Alison Blay-Palmer

    Women Building Thriving Communities: Food, Nutrition, and Sustainable Practice On March 5th, 2020, Alison Blay-Palmer, Director of the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and [...]

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  • text panel saying Catherine Mah Presents to Canadian Senate logo of the Canadian Senate

    In May 2019, Dr. Catherine Mah, Canada Research Chair in Promoting Healthy Populations and Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, presented expert witness to a committee [...]

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  • logo of the Handpicked podcast

    Knowledge is the Key to Adaptation FLEdGE researcher Andrew Spring and community partners talk about Indigenous food systems research in a digital story about [...]

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  • portrait of Charles Levkoe portrait of Irena nezevic

    “Food is the Great Connector.” A Conversation with Charles Levkoe and Irena Knezevic About Teaching Food Studies Online Published in Food, Culture & Society in [...]

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  • logo of the Agroecology Field School

    2018 Agroecology Field School and Research Summit From August 16–18, 2018, a group of farmers, researchers, students, non-profit organizations, activists, and Indigenous leaders gathered [...]

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  • head and shoulders of Kent Mullinix of Kwantlen Polytechnic University portrait of Mary Beckie

    The Alberta and British Columbia Node was co-led by Mary Beckie, from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and Kent Mullinix, Director of the [...]

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  • text panel saying COVID Reveals Gaps in our Food Systems people wearing masks at a supermarket check out

    COVID-19 Reveals Gaps in our Food Systems by Alison Blay-Palmer, UNESCO Chair on Food, Biodiversity and Sustainability Studies This blog post first appeared in [...]

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  • text panel saying Social Economy of Food eight images of people participating in the social economy of food

    The Social Economy of Food Video Series This series, also available on the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems YouTube channel, showcases local [...]

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  • logo of the Agroecology Field School man crouching in field with people standing around him

    Agroecology Field School Sparks Important Conversations by Bryan Dale From August 16th to 18th, 2018, FLEdGE and Just Food co-hosted an Agroecology Field School [...]

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  • Theresa Schumilas wearing headphones with 2 laptops in front of her logo of Open Food Network Canada

    Open Food Network: Moving the Food Movement Open Food Network Canada (OFN) is a not-for-profit organization that is levelling the technology playing field and [...]

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  • text panel saying Fractured Food System Blues close up photo of Faris Ahmed

    FLEdGE Gets Poetic: Faris Ahmed’s Fractured Food Systems Blues In 2016, FLEdGE researchers released the book Nourishing Communities: From Fractured Food Systems to Transformative [...]

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  • Michaela Bohunicky standing on a footpath next to a stream

    Confronting Settler Colonialism in Food Systems: Exploring Food Movement Organizations in Australia and Canada by Michaela Bohunicky Settler colonialism is described as a structure, rather [...]

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  • portrait of Catherine Mah portrait of Irena nezevic

    The Atlantic Canada Node was initially led by Irena Knezevic during her time at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was [...]

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  • archive icon for FLEdGE's Good Food Principle, Food Access text panel saying Good Food Principles

    Good Food Solutions: Building Sustainable Food Communities for All Canadians We have all read the headlines: climate change is worsening, the health crisis is [...]

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  • text panel saying Community-Led Research in Deline a tall evergreen tree with a hand-painted sign saying Welcome to Sah-tu and Délįnę

    Supporting Community-Led Research in Délįnę by Neala MacLeod Farley Neala's reflection was originally posted in August, 2019.  Although it’s 11:00 pm you wouldn’t know [...]

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  • text panel saying Urban Foraging a verdant alleyway in Windsor, Ontario

    Wild Harvest as an Urban Practice by Irena Knezevic Windsor, Ontario, is in that part of Canada that geographically hooks into the US, and is [...]

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  • text panel saying Northwest Territories Node portrait of Andrew Spring

    The Northwest Territories node was led by Andrew Spring, Associate Director of the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and Associate Director of Research [...]

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  • Erin Nelson in Cuba with a farmer

    Agroecology Knowledge Exchange Workshop: Building a South-North Partnership The Agroecology Knowledge Exchange Workshop was held in Waterloo, Ontario from August 15–17, 2016, and was [...]

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  • Theresa Schumilas wearing headphones with 2 laptops in front of her close up photo of Erin Nelson

    The Southern Ontario node was based out of Wilfrid Laurier University and was initially led by Erin Nelson during her time as a postdoctoral [...]

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  • text panel saying Student Engagement in Food Insecurity Panelists and participants at the Food Convergent Innovation Forum

    Engaging Students with Food Industry and Community Stakeholders in Exploring Innovation to Address Complex Problems of Food Insecurity by Nii Addy and Joëlle Rondeau The [...]

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  • text panel saying Indigenous Food Circle logo of the Indigenous Food Circle

    Indigenous Food Circle The Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy (TBAFS) worked to bring together local food stakeholders to take a coordinated approach to [...]

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  • At the Intersection of Food and Animal Law by Abra Brynne While attending the Future of Food Law & Policy in Canada conference in Halifax [...]

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  • text panel saying Voices from the Network mosaic of food system images

    Making the FLEdGE Video, “Voices from the Network,” and Discovering the Patterns that Revealed Themselves by David Szanto I tend to think that I [...]

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  • close up portrait of Nii Addy portrait of Laurette Dubé

    The Québec Node was led by Laurette Dubé and Nii Addy, both from McGill University in Montréal, in collaboration with Anna-Liisa Aunio, from Dawson [...]

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  • portrait of Trish Ballamingie portrait of Peter Andrée

    The Eastern Ontario node was led by Peter Andrée and Patricia Ballamingie and in collaboration with Irena Knezevic, all at Carleton University in Ottawa. [...]

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  • logo of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems

    FLEdGE Affiliates Talk Food Policy in Europe by Diana Bronson and Peter Andrée In May–June of 2018, we had and extraordinary opportunity to discuss what [...]

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The Six Good Food Principles

FLEdGE’s “Good Food Principles” are a set of guidelines for people from all walks of life to work together towards sustainable food systems. Click on the links below to learn about what each Principle entails, including the related research and reports that the FLEdGE network produced.

Browse the research

Scaling Up Toronto Community Gardens

Community Grown: Vibrant Community Owned Public Spaces Graduate students Janany Nagulan and Aislin Livingstone worked with FoodShare Toronto during the summer of 2016 to better understand the organization’s process to scale from community gardens up [...]

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Feeding Halton Case Study

Feeding Halton: Co-location Food Hub and a Path Toward a More Inclusive Food System This research report, created in 2017 by Nicholas Godfrey as a component of the Toronto City Region Food System Assessment [...]

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  • text panel saying Catherine Mah Presents to Canadian Senate

Catherine Mah presents to Canadian Senate

In May 2019, Dr. Catherine Mah, Canada Research Chair in Promoting Healthy Populations and Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, presented expert witness to a committee of the Canadian Senate. This represented a significant engagement for [...]

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  • archive icon for FLEdGE's Good Food Principle, Farmer Livelihoods

Rights of Migrant Agricultural Workers

Canada’s Migrant Agricultural Workers Deserve Full and Equal Rights: Here's Why by Janet McLaughlin The following is an excerpt from Janet McLaughlin's TVO.org article, published in June, 2016.  Earlier this year, a quiet decision by [...]