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Host Shaun Haney discusses promoting the safety of Canadian agricultural products to consumers with Canadian Centre for Food Integrity’s (CCFI) Lisa Bishop-Spencer. They’re launching a new campaign to promote the safety and quality of Canadian agricultural products to consumers.
The Canadian Centre for Food Integrity (CCFI) has launched a new initiative aimed at enhancing public trust and awareness of the Canadian food system.
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CCFI executive director Lisa Bishop-Spencer says the program will help reverse a seven-point drop in public confidence over the last year in Canada’s food system by increasing public trust and understanding of its economic and innovative contributions. The campaign includes a pledge for public support and a large-scale social media effort.
In this interview with RealAg Radio host Shaun Haney, Bishop-Spencer says the objective is to tap into the “pro-Canadian sentiment” happening across the country to promote the food system among consumers and policymakers.
“It’s a public awareness initiative to elevate Canada’s food system and agriculture to its rightful place as a core societal value compared to health care and education among Canadians.”
When Canadians think about the food system, they tend to think about farmers and grocery stores, but there’s much more to the story of how food is produced and gets from the farm gate to consumers’ plates, says Bishop-Spencer. She notes that most Canadians don’t realize the size and the impact of the food processing sector.
“People kind of default to cars when they think about manufacturing in the news, when our food and beverage sector is the largest manufacturer in Canada — it’s just that lack of awareness that we’re trying to address.”
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Bishop-Spencer says the campaign will carry a heavy online component because of the power of online conversations. Research shows that at any given time, Canadians are engaged in more than 38 million conversations online, with only 1.5 million of those chats being about the food system.
“What we do know about that 1.5 million is that 80 per cent trust the food system. So that tells us that we have to get more people talking about it.”
Bishop-Spencer notes that the campaign will focus on key food influencers, including Gen-Xers and boomers who tend to hold sway over primary shoppers — millennial moms.
Another focus will be helping Canadians understand agriculture and the food system’s size and scope. “They don’t understand that you can be a lawyer and work in agriculture, you can be an engineer and work in agriculture,” says Bishop-Spencer.
“There are so many career opportunities in the sector that if we can start promoting the people behind the system, then people can start to see themselves in the system.”
Click here to find out more about Canada’s Food System: Our Food. Our Future.
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