27: Applied Ecology as a Leadership Philosophy for a Changing Food System with Donald Killorn

28: The Politics of Standing Up for Farmers with John Barlow

The Politics of Standing Up for Farmers Why governments need to actually listen before they regulate Canadian agriculture has enormous potential. The land, producers, knowledge, innovation, and markets are there. But too often, the people who grow and raise our food are treated as an afterthought in the decisions that shape their future. In this episode of The Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh speaks with John Barlow, Member of Parliament for Foothills and a long-time voice on agricultural issues in Ottawa, about what it means to stand up for farmers in Canadian politics. The conversation explores the gap between consultation and actually listening, the growing disconnect between food literacy and farm literacy, and why food security depends on treating producers as partners rather than obstacles. Barlow discusses regulatory burden, the CFIA traceability debate, the role of research and innovation, the importance of stronger agricultural advocacy, and why governments need to understand the practical realities of farming before making rules that affect the people closest to the land. At its core, this episode is about respect: for farmers, ranchers, rural communities, practical knowledge, and the people who feed the country. Because food security starts long before food reaches the grocery store. It starts with listening to farmers.

27: Applied Ecology as a Leadership Philosophy for a Changing Food System with Donald Killorn

Summary: Donald Killorn, Executive Director of the PEI Federation of Agriculture, makes the case that ecological thinking — not agronomic expertise — is exactly what Canada's food system needs from its leaders right now. Drawing on two decades spent working in rainforests, coral reefs, and Bay of Fundy fisheries before arriving in agriculture, Killorn argues that systems thinking and multi-stakeholder partnership-building are the core competencies for navigating an era of climate volatility, trade disruption, and accelerating technological change. This episode unpacks how Killorn applies that lens to one of Canada's most agriculturally dense provinces, where potatoes, dairy, and a cooperative food culture make PEI a surprisingly rich laboratory for the future of the sector. Show notes: Donald Killorn came to the PEI Federation of Agriculture not through a lifetime in fields and barns but through coral reefs, rainforests, and two decades of applied ecology across the Caribbean and Atlantic Canada. In this episode, Donald joins Jesse Hirsh to explore a provocative central argument: that the leadership skills most urgently needed in agriculture right now are not primarily agronomic, but ecological — the capacity to read complex systems, anticipate where pressure is building, and position an organisation ahead of where government funding and policy will eventually land. For an island province where agriculture makes up roughly 40 percent of land use and 25 percent of the emissions profile, that argument carries serious weight. Killorn traces how a third-year undergraduate encounter with ecology became a lifelong operating system. Working as an ecotourism guide in Costa Rica, managing barrier reef ecosystems in Belize and the Turks and Caicos, and later leading underwater noise research to protect whale populations in the Bay of Fundy, he developed what he calls a resilience framework built around four capital buckets — governance, ecological, economic, and social — and four stakeholder types: academic, industrial, NGO, and government. He applies that same framework to agricultural leadership, arguing that an NGO executive must consistently anticipate where public investment is heading and be visibly established in that space before the funding announcement arrives. The strategy, he explains, is the only sustainable model for a small team trying to punch above its weight against well-resourced government and private-sector actors. The episode turns to a concrete test of that philosophy: the federal export restrictions on PEI potatoes that came into force just five days after Killorn started his job. With CFIA drawing a containment boundary around the entire province over a handful of fields with known potato wart, a billion-dollar industry was effectively shuttered — and Killorn found himself as a new executive director with no deep agronomic background suddenly having to be the public voice of an industry in crisis. He is candid about the limits of his expertise in that moment and equally candid about the structural tensions between federal trade risk management and the lived reality of island farmers. The story illuminates a broader tension running through Canadian agriculture: how governance decisions made at a national scale land unevenly on regional economies, and what it takes to build enough credibility — locally rooted through family networks, nationally credible through systems-thinking fluency — to be heard in both rooms. Listeners will come away with a richer picture of PEI's agricultural complexity — from its outsized share of Canadian potato production to a cooperative dairy model that Killorn describes as one of the most holistically integrated in the country — and a set of leadership principles that translate well beyond the island. At a moment when Canadian agriculture faces simultaneous pressure from climate volatility, trade instability, and the accelerating arrival of data-intensive technologies including AI, Killorn's argument that ecological literacy belongs at the executive table feels less like a personal biography and more like a prescription for the sector as a whole. Topics: Applied Ecology, NGO Leadership, PEI Agriculture, Systems Thinking, Potato Trade Policy, Climate Resilience, Governance Capital, Stakeholder Partnerships

26: Agroecology Is the How-To of Food Sovereignty with Charles Levkoe

Title: Agroecology Is the How-To of Food Sovereignty Summary: Charles Levkoe, food systems researcher at Lakehead University, makes the case that agroecology is not simply a set of farming techniques but the practical expression of food sovereignty — the means by which communities assert democratic control over how food is grown, harvested, and governed. Drawing on his background as an agroecological farmer, nonprofit practitioner, and academic, Levkoe argues that isolating any single dimension of the food system — whether soil science, policy, or indigenous knowledge — guarantees worse outcomes than thinking through their interconnection. The conversation challenges listeners to move beyond individual consumer choices and reckon with the structural, historical, and political forces that shape what kind of food system is even possible. Show notes: Charles Levkoe is a food systems researcher at Lakehead University whose path runs through agroecological farming in Nova Scotia, frontline community food work at The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto, and years of activist scholarship aimed at understanding food as a lens onto power, economics, and social justice. The central argument of this episode is one Levkoe traces back to the gatherings of peasant and farming movements worldwide: that food sovereignty — the democratic control of food systems by the people who produce and harvest food — needs agroecology as its operational counterpart. Agroecology, in his framing, is the how-to of food sovereignty, and the two concepts only make full sense when held together. Levkoe unpacks agroecology through three interlocking pillars. The first is rigorous science and research — not a retreat from modern knowledge about soil microbes or climate, but a commitment to using that knowledge ethically. The second, and equally weighted, is experiential and traditional knowledge: the accumulated wisdom of farmers, harvesters, and indigenous communities that gets systematically sidelined when technical standards become the only legitimate voice in the room. He draws a pointed contrast with the history of organic certification, arguing that what began as a social movement grounded in values was gradually flattened into a checklist of inputs and prohibitions — a cautionary tale about what is lost when systems thinking gives way to narrow standardisation. The third pillar is movement-building and governance: the recognition that local practise cannot transform food systems without also changing the policy environments at provincial, national, and international scales. A significant thread running through the conversation is the relationship between indigenous knowledge and the future of Canadian agriculture. Levkoe is careful to speak from his own position — a second-generation Canadian, non-indigenous, and relatively new to Northern Ontario — rather than to speak for indigenous communities. But he names the tension directly: Canada's agricultural sector is demographically ageing, and First Nations communities across the country are comparatively young, land-connected, and holders of deep ecological knowledge that mainstream food systems research continues to undervalue. He argues that any honest reckoning with the food system's future has to confront the colonial history that shaped whose knowledge counts, whose land relationships are recognised, and who gets to define what sustainable agriculture actually looks like in a given place and climate. Listeners will come away with a sharper vocabulary for thinking about food systems — and a provocation to use it. Levkoe's insistence that food is an entry point into conversations about capitalism, settler colonialism, and ecological crisis is not rhetorical; it is methodological. For Canada's agri-food sector, where policy silos, competing jurisdictions, and an increasingly concentrated supply chain are real and pressing problems, his systems-level thinking offers both a critique and a direction. This episode is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand not just what a better food system might look like, but where the leverage points for building one actually are. Topics: Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, Indigenous Knowledge, Organic Farming, Food Systems Policy, Settler Colonialism, Community Food Work, Systems Thinking

25: Leaving Every Organisation Better Than You Found It with Kaitlyn Kitzan

Title: Leaving Every Organisation Better Than You Found It Summary: Kaitlyn Kitzan, Saskatchewan farmer, entrepreneur, and sectoral leader, argues that lasting leadership means improving every organisation you touch and passing it on stronger than you found it. Drawing on lessons from her family farm, her early entrepreneurial ventures, and the volunteer ethic instilled by her parents in a rural community, Kaitlyn makes the case that the foundation of great leadership is not ambition alone but the habits, values, and emotional intelligence cultivated from childhood. In this conversation with Jesse Hirsh, she offers a candid, grounded look at what it actually costs — and what it gives back — to lead in Canada's agri-food sector today. Show notes: Kaitlyn Kitzan grew up on a Saskatchewan farm forty miles from the nearest city, and that distance shaped everything: her work ethic, her entrepreneurial instincts, and her conviction that a leader's job is to leave every organisation better than she found it. That guiding principle, borrowed from a phrase she heard growing up under Premier Wall, runs through this entire conversation — from how she approaches board work and farm succession to how she thinks about stress, sleep, and the volunteers who hold rural communities together. Jesse Hirsh invites Kaitlyn to unpack what that commitment actually looks like in practice for someone managing a seven-person business, sitting on multiple boards, and navigating the emotional complexity of a family farming operation all at once. One of the most striking threads in the conversation is Kaitlyn's reframing of mental health and stress in the agricultural sector. Rather than asking people where they're at emotionally — a question that still carries stigma in many farm communities — she asks them about their battery level. Are you at fifty percent? Seventy-five? And crucially, what do you need to do to recharge? She applies the same framework to herself, describing the discipline she has built around sleep, her deliberate practice of leaving weekends unscheduled when event season piles up, and her ongoing struggle to say no to opportunities she genuinely wants to take. The honesty here is notable: she is not offering a tidy wellness program but describing an active, imperfect negotiation between her drive and her limits. Kaitlyn is equally direct about the cultural divide she sees among her peers when it comes to volunteerism and community contribution. She traces her own volunteer ethic back to selling chocolate bars at a hockey canteen at age three, and to parents who modelled the idea that you give back to the community that raised you. What frustrates her is watching friends and new employees ask what's in it for them before committing even an hour of their time — a mindset she connects not to geography or generation but to how people were raised. That argument cuts against easy rural-urban or east-west narratives and lands somewhere more uncomfortable and more specific: that the values transmitted in childhood are the single biggest determinant of whether someone grows into a leader who builds things up or someone who waits for things to be handed to them. Listeners will come away with a clearer picture of what it actually takes to sustain leadership in Canada's agri-food sector over the long run — not the highlight-reel version, but the daily arithmetic of energy management, emotional intelligence, community investment, and knowing when to walk away and go for a walk. For anyone working in Saskatchewan agriculture, in rural entrepreneurship, or in the volunteer and board structures that hold the sector together, Kaitlyn's perspective is both a practical resource and a reminder that the future of the herd depends on people who are committed to leaving things better than they found them. Topics: Farm Leadership, Mental Health & Stress, Rural Entrepreneurship, Volunteerism, Farm Succession, Saskatchewan Agriculture, Emotional Intelligence, Work-Life Balance

24: The Grocery Store Is a Media Environment: What Sociology Reveals About Food, Power, and Choice with Alissa Overend

Title: The Grocery Store Is a Media Environment: What Sociology Reveals About Food, Power, and Choice Summary: Alissa Overend of MacEwan University argues that the food choices Canadians make every day are shaped by forces most of us never consciously examine — from curated grocery store layouts and deceptive package labelling to the deep social meanings we attach to what we eat. Drawing on her research into undiagnosed illness, food politics, and media, Overend shows how industry, advertising, and cultural norms work together to define what counts as healthy, who gets to eat well, and whose knowledge about food gets taken seriously. This episode makes the case that understanding food requires more than biochemistry — it requires a sociological lens. Show notes: Alissa Overend is a health sociologist at MacEwan University in Edmonton whose research sits at the intersection of food, media, power, and identity. She came to food studies not by design but by following her evidence: when she was interviewing people with undiagnosed chronic illnesses for her PhD, nearly every subject spontaneously described using food to manage their condition — a pattern that redirected her entire research focus. In this episode, Overend makes a compelling case that the agri-food sector needs to reckon with sociology's core insight: food is never just biochemical. It is social, political, cultural, and deeply personal, and the stories told about it — by industry, by media, by the grocery store itself — quietly determine what Canadians believe is true about what they eat. One of Overend's sharpest contributions to this conversation is her argument that the grocery store is itself a media environment. Far from a neutral space, the modern box store is a carefully engineered experience: oversized carts designed to be filled, produce placed at the entrance to trigger a sense of healthy intent before shoppers move into the processed-food aisles, eye-level shelving calibrated to catch children's attention, and end-cap pairings that nudge complementary purchases. Overend extends this analysis to packaging, arguing that front-of-box health claims — 'made with whole grain oats,' 'nature's valley,' 'honey and oats' — function as advertising that exploits consumer trust. Her rule of thumb is pointed: when a product is working that hard to convince you it's healthy, that effort itself should raise a flag. A second distinct tension Overend surfaces is the gap between how food is officially understood — through a narrow scientific and nutritional lens — and how people actually experience and use it. Her chronic illness research revealed that ordinary people were developing sophisticated, embodied knowledge about food and health that had no place in a medical system oriented toward diagnosis and biochemical markers. This epistemological gap matters for the agri-food sector because it means that consumer behaviour around food is far more complex than price sensitivity or label-reading. Food carries identity — cultural pride, gender assumptions, class position, and memory — and those meanings shape purchasing decisions in ways that market research built on nutritional categories will consistently miss. Overend also flags the blurring of Canadian and American food culture, noting that Canada's heavy consumption of American television and the post-NAFTA entry of American products has made the boundary between the two food landscapes much thinner than most Canadians assume. For leaders and practitioners in Canada's agri-food sector, this episode offers something genuinely difficult to find: a critical outside perspective that names the structural forces shaping the food system from the consumer's side. Overend's work is a reminder that food security, consolidation, and the trust between producers and eaters are not only economic or logistical problems — they are social ones. Understanding why people eat what they eat, and what the system is quietly doing to their choices, is not a soft concern at the margins of the industry. It is central to building a food future that actually serves Canadians. Topics: food sociology, grocery store design, food media and advertising, food politics, food and identity, chronic illness and food, Canadian food culture, food security