Food as a Social-Ecological System

Welcome to the Food Law Workshop, a virtual space for research and resources on food and agricultural law in Atlantic Canada. Why a “workshop”? A workshop can be a gathering or event where people come to share and develop ideas, or it can be a place where people go to build things. We like the concept of a Food Law Workshop because it captures both of these–a space to present ideas and projects in progress, with a focus on building applied legal and policy tools to support and help change our food systems. What is the Workshop? The Workshop doesn’t have a formal structure or a physical home. It is hosted by Jamie Baxter’s research group at the Schulich School of Law (Dalhousie University, Halifax) to publish projects-in-progress and to make ongoing work accessible to people and organizations involved in food. A couple of key ideas guide this work: Each project builds from the core idea of food law as part of a social-ecological system. The work tends to be community driven and aims to respond to the needs of those working with, supporting or advocating around food. Good data are important for good food law and policy, but these data and the ways we analyze them should be transparent and accessible