Frontline Farmers - by Annette Aurélie Desmarais (Paperback)

About the Book

"Who grows the food we eat? How important is it that family farms are viable in Canada today and in the future? How do viable family farms help determine the safety, diversity and sustainability of Canada's food systems? Why is this important to those of us who do not farm? Frontline Farmers introduces readers to the National Farmers Union (NFU). For over fifty years, the NFU has been on the frontlines of our food system. From fighting against transnational corporations that seek to control our food system by imposing genetically modified organisms into our food, to protecting seeds, maintaining orderly marketing, saving the prison farms, keeping the land in the hands of family farmers, farming ecologically and building food sovereignty, the NFU has been front and centre of farm and food activism. This book collects the voices of NFU members who tell the stories of the key struggles of the progressive farm movement in Canada: fighting to build viable rural communities, protecting the family farm and creating socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems. Frontline Farmers reveals that the stakes for controlling our food in Canada have never been higher."--

Book Synopsis

Who grows the food we eat? How important is it that family farms are viable in Canada today and in the future? How do viable family farms help determine the safety, diversity and sustainability of Canada's food systems? Why is this important to those of us who do not farm?

Frontline Farmers introduces readers to the National Farmers Union (NFU). For over fifty years, the NFU has been on the frontlines of our food system. From fighting against transnational corporations that seek to control our food system by imposing genetically modified organisms into our food, to protecting seeds, maintaining orderly marketing, saving the prison farms, keeping the land in the hands of family farmers, farming ecologically and building food sovereignty, the NFU has been front and centre of farm and food activism.
This book collects the voices of NFU members who tell the stories of the key struggles of the progressive farm movement in Canada: fighting to build viable rural communities, protecting the family farm and creating socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems. Frontline Farmers reveals that the stakes for controlling our food in Canada have never been higher.

Review Quotes

"The book offers a front-seat look at some of the key organizing efforts undertaken by one of the founding members of the global food sovereignty movement: The NFU.[...] Frontline Farmers is an important contribution to the conversation on contemporary food movements and offers numerous insights into the on-the-ground and evolving struggle for food sovereignty in Canada and beyond."

About the Author

Annette Aurélie Desmarais is the Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty at the University of Manitoba. She is the author of_ La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants_. Prior to obtaining her doctorate in geography, Annette was a small-scale grain farmer in Saskatchewan. She then also worked with the National Farmers Union in the Global Agriculture Project and provided technical support to La Vía Campesina for over a decade.