Ilana Labow and Marc Schutzbank are such an inspiration! They know about the hidden connections between the things we consume and the people who provide them. They have personally been in places like the Congo — home of the longest running war in history and where violence and rape are the norm — where the metals that run our phones and other gadgets are mined. They shed light on the farms in North America where the workers are unfairly paid and work in poor conditions. Marc says,
“We can change the way the world functions by changing the way we eat.”
There is a ripple effect in every choice we make as consumers. When 74% of students in a survey didn’t know that tortilla chips contained corn, we need to better understand what is in our food and where it comes from. Locally grown food brings the chain of production down to a human scale and allows us to see exactly how what we consume is produced.
Ilana and Marc are Co-Directors of Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society. They have created urban school farms in Vancouver with the help of VanCity and many, many hands. They have created neighbourhood food assets in the places that most need them in the city. They have helped create living classrooms and awareness of where our food comes from.
I invite you to watch the first 30 minutes or so of this video where Ilana and Marc speak at Creative Mornings Vancouver. They are such inspiring leaders and I thank them for helping to inspire me. (And thanks to Mark Busse for his incredible energy in making events like this happen!)
Dangling the Local Carrot 