Author: Editor-in-Chief

 On October 12 an innovative and important short film series was launched. This project is about sustainable farming across Canada – as told through the eyes of 40 farmers.  And it is a documentary project that has me taking a trip down memory lane… In the early 1980s, I hitched a small trailer to my compact car and drove down kilometres of prairie backroads across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, from east to west and south to north. That trek took several months of planning, lots of networking, and the ability to manage on a very tight budget. The resulting book,…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 hits Moscone West in San Francisco from October 27 to 29, bringing together 10,000+ startup and VC leaders for three days of bold ideas, groundbreaking tech, and future-shaping conversations. One of the most highly anticipated sessions happening on one of the two AI Stageswill spotlight where AI hardware is heading next, featuring a live look at the robotics and autonomous systems pushing boundaries in real time. AI may be reshaping software, but when it comes to robotics and autonomous systems, the big breakout moment is still on the horizon. That’s what makes this session at TechCrunch Disrupt…

 For a minimum wage worker, how much does it cost to make a nutritious meal? Let’s assume you’re a meat eater, and that you want at least one carb and one vegetable on your plate. You’ll also probably want something to drink. We’ll also assume you work in Ontario, where the minimum wage is $10.25. To put together a meal of chicken, potatoes and carrots with milk to drink based on Canada’s average food prices, is going to run you about $16 — just over an hour and half of work. Apply the same test to trying to find a bachelor…

 Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Canada, where hiding books from the government just became an act of civil disobedience. The federal Conservative government recently shut down health science libraries so abruptly that some Health Canada workers have resorted to hiding books and journals at unsanctioned libraries off-site, including one that was set up in an employee’s basement to save irreplaceable health research. The research library can now be accessed by emailing “Fred.” The road to steam rolling the Health Canada libraries was paved with strategic potholes. The government created the conditions that made the information inaccessible, unaffordable, and extremely slow to…

Apple has notified a number of individuals that their devices were targeted in a spyware campaign, according to the French government. France’s national cybersecurity response unit said on Thursday that it was aware that Apple on September 3 sent a new notification to affected customers whose Apple devices may have been hacked. The cybersecurity unit said receiving a threat notification means that at least one of the devices linked to a customer’s iCloud account “has been targeted and would be potentially compromised.” It’s unclear how many individuals, including in France, received the September 3 threat notification, which spyware was used,…

 Protesting – especially against policies the government would rather keep quiet – always runs the risk of being dangerous. It is incredibly unjust that demonstrators have to worry about physical and emotional safety while exercising their right to freedom of speech, or standing up for causes they believe in. On the other hand, it is still valuable to have a few tips and tricks up your sleeve if you find yourself, a friend, or a colleague struggling after experiencing police brutality or other types of trauma. Check out this guide for recovery advice. Not only does it offer some great information…

 Governments and farm organizations tell us over and over again that decisions made on our farms and by government regulatory agencies must be ‘science-based.’ Entwined with this adherence to ‘science-based’ decision-making is a demand that we accept that science is absolute and unbiased — that it is never-changing and is never influenced by the interests of funders of the research. Our understanding of our world and of our own farms, however, is ever-changing. Yesterday’s knowledge leads us to new discoveries today, which will lead to new understandings tomorrow. Scientific knowledge can never be absolute since if we are open to learning it…

 Last week our How To lesson was about canning, and this week we’ve also posted some rad reviews of food-related books: Digging the City: An Urban Agriculture Manifesto and Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution. But let’s say your brain is full of urban agriculture knowledge and your fingernails are already dirty from your garden; that means there’s only one thing missing from your life… bureaucracy! Or perhaps community? Well, with today’s lesson you’ll be able to get your fill of both with this handy-dandy guide to starting a community garden. You likely won’t do these steps in exact…

 As you have probably gathered by now, eating local is a fabulous way to practice sustainable and nutritious solutions to the epidemic of corporate and industrialized food systems. Highly processed and transported foods, owned by giant multinational corporations, come at the expense of our bodies, labour, human rights, the air we breathe, and so much more. How could anyone living in this beautiful Coast Salish Territory not include local foods with their every meal? The answer is simple — lack of equal access. Even the increasing abundance of local and farm-fresh produce has not emerged unscathed by food insecurity, and…

 “Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes,” said the infamous former mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, before he spent $300,000 of taxpayers money to rip off biking infrastructure across the city (despite running to put brakes on the gravy train). These comments were made over a decade ago. Here we are nearing the end of 2024, and another Ford brother has, what feels like, resurrected Rob from his grave to end “the war on cars” – something else Rob said when he was mayor. Doug Ford’s government has legislation planned to floor when the house…