According to the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity that claims to help Canada’s food system earn trust said consumers are more interested in how the food chain grows, processes and brings to market their food more so than ever.

“The Canadian Centre for Food Integrity helps our food system ensure it is doing the right things to build trust by providing research, resources, training, and dialogue,” said the organization’s website.

Crystal Mackay, the president of the Canadian Center for Food Integrity, told the 2018 Manitoba Swine Seminar the CCFI is new in Canada.

“Our makeup is everything from individual farmers, right through to the biggest food company, retail, and food service in the country,” said Mackay. “We equip the food system with research, resources, and opportunities to come together for a dialog to do a better job.”

The public’s involvement in issues related to food production and farming has changed, and that’s why she said it is essential to maintain the trust of the people because it has changed, too.

“The Canadian public has questions about everything on their plate, from seed to table, and how producers grow it, and basically everything about what’s on their plate,” said Mackay. “We didn’t see that ten years ago. And their questions range from what happens on the farm right through to retail and food service. So that’s the first piece.”

Secondly, she said it became apparent the power and the importance of public trust for the growth and future of the sector.

“So it’s not just about our product but our actual production, for instance, are you allowed to build a barn, allowed to expand, allowed to innovate with new technology,” said Mackay. “And I use the word allowed very specifically too because there are many cases, including in Manitoba, where that hasn’t happened.”

With saying all this, she said the Canadian sector is in a position of strength enjoying good public trust in food and farming. The key is Canada is a countrywide but a centimeter deep.

“So once we ask specific questions about things like the environment or animal welfare, for example, it quickly erodes to being unsure,” she said. “So I think the opportunity for us moving forward is what are we going to do differently to build the depth of that trust on specific topics.”

Mackay said in a big list of topics of importance to the public, rising cost of food, and keeping healthy food affordable has come up as the top two issues the last two years in a row.

“That’s important when we’re framing up what we do and how we feed our country, we’re in the business of providing healthy, affordable food, and that is super important to Canadians,” she said. “I think we need to reframe our conversations, our positioning of what we do in agriculture, and in the pork industry to be one of a positive strength, positive contributor to our country, and meeting the needs of the public.”

Mackay said there is some watch out topics that the sector needs to improve in particular the hot issues like antibiotics, for example.

“I see this as giant conversations about food starting one on one, going right through to TV advertising but based as an authentic conversation which includes acknowledging areas where we could improve, what we’re doing for the future,” she said. “It needs to be an authentic conversation, not an ad campaign, but it can start with one person, one farmer at a time, right through to big national advertising efforts.”

A significant advantage in this discussion is that farmers still rank very highly for overall impression, warmth, and trust on most characteristics, which is excellent. So do university researchers, government researchers, veterinarians for example on animal welfare rate highly on trust. “The challenge is when we ask the public where do they get their information on all those topics, it’s not from those trusted sources but online,” said Mackay. “So our opportunity to do better with trust is how do we give those trusted, respected voices, like farmers, veterinarians, university researchers, a voice, and volume so the public can hear from them, the people they trust and want to hear from.” •

— By Harry Siemens