A Climate Crisis is a Food Systems Crisis

Please read this letter from our directors to understand what we are doing to support the Climate Strike, and why.

CSFS Memo on the Global Climate Strike

The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems is committed to addressing the accelerating climate change crisis. Along with many of our UBC colleagues and students, we agree that climate change is the single-most important challenge for this and coming generations.

Food systems play a critical role in the global carbon cycle, resource management, and biodiversity conservation. Our research, teaching, and actions directly address these issues.

We support the Climate Strike on Friday, September 27, supporting local, youth-led actions at UBC and in Vancouver, as well as globally. To show our commitment to climate action, the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and the UBC Farm will be closed on Friday, September 27, reducing the barriers for our faculty, staff, and students to attend the UBC and Vancouver Climate Strike. We have also signed the open letter to UBC demanding climate action.

This decision has come about through many thoughtful discussions with our faculty, staff, students, and community programmers. Our markets the following week may be impacted by the reduced harvest, which is a small disruption when compared to the current and future impacts of unchecked climate change. We will provide Quest Food Exchange with a larger-than-usual donation of any late-harvested produce to minimize food waste.

We encourage CSFS faculty, staff, and students to participate in the Climate Strike. Staff should check with their supervisors regarding reassignment of their hours, if needed. Students should check with their instructors around class cancellations and/or making up any lost academic time.

Part of the CSFS’s mission is to provide leadership in research and teaching on food systems and climate resilience, as well as the impacts of climate change on food systems and other ecosystems. We are also committed to seeking ways to reduce our carbon footprint and are actively working on assessing and improving our own practices, goals, and findings, transparently and with participation from relevant stakeholders. We look forward to discussing what we can do better to achieve these goals, and encourage you to reach out to us with your ideas, to make change, together.