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Coming to the table as a regional food system : mapping and building a network

University of British Columbia

Currently farmers and other food system actors in the North Okanagan face numerous challenges. Relationships between some stakeholders within the regional food system do exist; however, there are also silos separating the stakeholders (food producers, processors, wholesalers/distributors, retailers and chefs as well as local government, non-profits and academics) and coordination is lacking. Inspired by the success story of Vermont, a small group began a process that resulted in Land to Table (L2T), a Collective Impact network whose goal is to develop a North Okanagan food system that is economically prosperous, environmentally sustainable and socially accessible. My Research Aim, therefore, was to facilitate a group of stakeholders to further strengthen their regional food system network. To address this aim, an approach combining Community Based Participatory Research and Deliberative Dialogue was used to engage with a Community Advisory Committee and four focus groups. Two customized methods were used. One, called participatory network mapping, was developed to map and analyze the current state of the food system network. The other, called the build the network framework, aimed at developing recommendations for building a network that is more connected, aligned, productive and healthy. Through the mapping exercise, both the strengths and the weaknesses of the current food system network were revealed. The stakeholders that participated noted strong connections between some network members, but they also commented on the absence of certain key members, a number of missing connections and the need for more strategic coalitions within the network. The build the network framework, combined with a carefully designed Deliberative Dialogue that integrated portions of text (literature synthesis) with the results of the mapping exercises (research evidence), proved effective in developing recommendations for building a network. Overall, the Community Based Participatory Research approach was useful for guiding the research, with the Community Advisory Committee providing invaluable input as well as continuity in building from research question to research question, while the focus groups added important perspectives to the mapping. To conclude, this research methodology was effective in engaging stakeholders to further strengthen the North Okanagan food system network and appears to have potential for application elsewhere.

Text

2019-09-20

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/71709

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/