Announcements

Guiding Principles

• Balanced approach: both natural resource access and the agri-food chain.
• Holistic approach: food security, health and community development share the same continuum---where enhancing the self-sufficiency and economically sustainable access to high quality food will also lead to enhanced health and community development.

• To advance the Food Security and Self-Sufficiency of Northern Communities.
• To increase training and research in increasing plant low temperature stress resistance.

Main Activities

• Improving Food Security in the North: A Workshop on Sustainable Northern Greenhouses, July 18, 2012 (Saskatoon, SK)
  
• Northern Food Security---the Greenhouse Solution, Nov. 7, 8 2012 (Saskatoon, SK).
  Poster (PDF) PowerPoint Presentations
• Video Featuring Ellen Avard in Kuujjuaq, showing off the greenhouse project there and related composting. (Mostly French)
  
• 2nd Saskatchewan Food Summit, Building Sustainable Food Systems—Towards Policy and Action www.usask.ca/foodsummit/ (note: 1st Saskatchewan Food Summit speaker video presentations are available on the website).
• Advancing Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in the Circumpolar North, September 2013, Girdwood, Alaska, U.S.A. This is the first joint conference of the Circumpolar Agriculture Association and the Northern Food Security Thematic Network.

• An online diploma-level Certificate on Northern Food Production is in development.
• Dual Ph.D. degrees are in development between Iwate University (Morioka, northern Japan), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Aas, Norway) and the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). Faculty serve as co-supervisors and students spend roughly half their time in each of two institutions (Japan-Canada, Norway-Canada).
• Enhancing student and faculty exchange programs between institutions.
• An intensive 4 day face-to-face M.Sc. and Ph.D. graduate course prior to the International Plant Cold Hardiness Seminar series has been organized. Keynote speakers are invited ahead of the conference to provide lectures in their areas of specialty (morning) along with hands on labs in the afternoons.

• In 2007 (Canada), eleven students from across ten countries were registered.
• In 2011 (Luxembourg), there were 17 students from across ten countries.
• In 2014 (Poland), another course is being planned.

Activities in 2012

• Increased institutional partnership in the Northern Food Security TN with other UArctic member organizations and with the Circumpolar Agriculture Conference.
• Organize conferences and obtain sponsorship for the above.
• Development of online certificates and Dual Ph.D. degrees as above.
• Development of student and faculty exchange programs.

Partners

• University of Saskatchewan (lead)
  
• University of Alaska Fairbanks
• University of Tromsø
• University of Helsinki
• University of Oulu
• Yukon College
  
• Circumpolar Agriculture Association (CAA)
• International Centre for Northern Governance and Development
• Yukon Agriculture Association (YYA)