Science grad taking a bite out of world hunger

August 21, 2008

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Tess Kalinowski

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Food security as much an issue in Toronto as Africa

It's common for Torontonians to equate the term "food security" with images of starving babies with distended bellies in foreign countries.

But food security, or safety, as it's often called, encompasses hunger and malnutrition, food distribution and sustainable farming and production. Those subjects are as relevant to Toronto as they are in Africa, Asia or India, says Reg Noble, the academic co-ordinator of Ryerson's certificate program.

"On the surface, we look very affluent, but there's a whole underclass there who are struggling," says the biologist, who came to Canada in 1996 after 17 years in Africa.

According to the Daily Bread Food Bank, about 950,000 people used food banks in the GTA between April 2007 and March 2008. "That alone is an indicator that we should be worried," says Noble. "That's the tip of the iceberg because it takes an awful lot of effort for people to come into a food bank."

He adds there are also important questions that need to be asked about industrialized farming and the corporatization of food.

"Each one of us has less and less control of the food that lands on our table – how it's produced, how it's processed," he says. "In the old days, the butcher knew the farmer he got the meat from. You don't know this anymore."

– Tess Kalinowski

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There are few global issues as urgent or daunting as world hunger.

But Jasmine Kwong of Thornhill is ready to bite off at least a small part of the challenge of ensuring everyone on the planet has access to nutritious food.

"Food is a basic human right and people shouldn't have to be begging on the streets for a meal or settling for junk food just because those are the cheaper options," says the graduate of Ryerson's certificate program in Food Security.

You don't have to be a dedicated social justice advocate to play a role in solving the world food crisis, says Kwong.

Offered through the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, the food security courses are taught online to accommodate the diverse needs of students, many of whom work full time far from Ryerson's downtown Toronto campus.

"Within my program, I had people who are organic farmers who, for their whole life, have been working at growing food," Kwong says. "(They) now realize there's a certification (they) can get to know some of the other issues associated with food, not just growing it. There are health and nutrition issues.

"People who own restaurants take the program, too. They just want to make their menus more local."

Kwong says she was an exception among her classmates because she enrolled immediately after graduating from Queen's University in Kingston, where her biology studies had her considering a career in marine biology.

But a couple of courses there led her to reconsider.

First, she was inspired by the passion of a professor who was involved in the fight to save a threatened sea bird called the marbled murrelet.

"(Hearing) that one professor talking about how much she was going against government, lobbying people for a bird, I thought I personally want to invest my time working on issues that fight for people's rights," Kwong explains.

Then she chose an elective course called Global Food Security and Agriculture. The professor who taught it suggested Kwong look into Ryerson's food security program, the only one of its kind in Canada.

Students have four years to earn their certificate credits, including the three core courses and three of eight electives, according to academic co-ordinator Reg Noble. There's also a practical component.

"In my introductory course, I expect students to go out on their own initiative to a community food resource in their own area – like a food bank or community garden."

The certificate program began in 2004 and enrolment is growing, with the number of registrants up to 75 this year from 62 last year.

Noble admits he still prefers the face-to-face interaction of classroom teaching to the Web-based distance courses that are increasingly popular in continuing education.

But he appreciates the flexibility online teaching offers.

"The value of this is it gets out to a wider group of people. We're getting people who are professionals in social services, in civil service organizations, in government agencies.

"We are actually linked for our urban agriculture courses to RUAF (Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security) in the Netherlands. We have Dutch instructors and we also have a Kenyan instructor – so they're bringing in international perspectives on things," he says.

"We're talking about people working in community development here and overseas, health, education, social services. Basically what we're trying to make folks realize is that your actions and the policies you design have an impact on food security."

Kwong, who also works as a research assistant at Ryerson's food security centre, was among a group of students who took a two-week field trip last year to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the centre's director, Cecilia Rocha.

It was a chance to see how another country translated its food security policies into action.

The students visited a government-run restaurant program that offers nutritious meals in a convivial setting for a token price. Even the poorest patrons retain the dignity of paying something for their meal, says Kwong.

But the restaurants aren't only for the poor of the city. One location in a hospital area was popular with local workers.

While in Brazil, they also dined at a school lunch program."We had rice and beef stew with potatoes, we had salad. We had freshly squeezed juice," says Kwong. "It's not just fries and hamburgers, things that just fill you up and give you lots of carbs and fat."

Kwong hasn't firmed up plans for grad school or her future career yet, but is considering a research thesis combining education and food.

"Sharing knowledge, that's a big thing," she says. "Sometimes, I feel like the issue (of food security) is so big I won't be able to do a single thing, but that's probably also what drives me.

"There is just that need to talk about it. I'm glad I had my experience with biology and conservation but I'm so glad I opened my eyes to make a comparison and see that I want to invest my life in working with people."

Toronto Star