In celebration of Earth Day on April 22, Food For All NB, a provincial bilingual network supporting food movements across the province, is launching An Eater’s Guide to Climate Action and naming food and climate change as a key focus of work through 2021. This marks a first for Food For All NB in its 12-year history of informing, connecting, and engaging New Brunswickers in food security for all.
91% of Canadians say that climate change is a serious issue and 88% report that it has already impacted them. An Eater’s Guide to Climate Action was created to deepen the conversation on climate change through a “food lens”. The goal is to provide a more nuanced understanding of how food systems impact climate change and how they can be used as levers for positive change.
“Currently, our food systems contribute to climate change because of the many ways that we produce, control, distribute, and consume food. It doesn’t have to be this way. Our food systems can be part of the solution.”
– Laura Reinsborough, Director of Food For All NB
New Brunswick is seeing more frequent extreme weather events, and the resulting impacts on our food such as the repeat flooding of the Wolastoq (Saint John River) affecting fiddlehead foraging and the 2020 summer of drought affecting hay supplies. While food systems here in N.B. are already being impacted, New Brunswickers also eat from global food systems – which account for around 26% of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
Climate change is the most critical issue we face here in New Brunswick and as a global community. An Eater’s Guide to Climate Action will help introduce the idea, and raise awareness, of the power of food in our efforts to address this crisis. It can be used by every day eaters and those who work in food systems to make change – one bite at a time.
The guide is available on the Food For All NB website at https://foodforallnb.ca/
