Michael Classens, assistant professor – teaching stream, and undergraduate associate director at the School of the Environment was a successful co-applicant on a $3.9M NSERC-SSRHC Sustainable Agriculture Research Initiative grant for the project Toward sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture for net-zero food systems.
The Toward Sustainable Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture for Net-zero Food Systems (TOSustain) program, with their partners, aims to improve the management and expansion of sustainable urban and peri-urban systems, for the purposes of meeting GHG emissions mitigation and food production targets in the Canadian agriculture sector.
“Receiving this grant will allow this large, interdisciplinary team to develop a comprehensive understanding of how a range of ecological and social factors contribute to the impact of urban and peri-urban agriculture across multiple sustainability objectives. Importantly, the funds from this grant will also support the training of many undergraduate and graduate students across a diversity of food systems fields – contributing to the next generation of critical food scholars,” said Classens.
Taken together, TOSustain supports the knowledge basis that is critically needed to accelerate urban and peri-urban agricultural investment and management at multiple scales. In doing so, the program will ultimately catalyze a new era of low-GHG and sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture in regions and cities across Canada.
“The food system is a key propellent of biodiversity loss, land despoilation, and climate change, and it perpetuates social injustice across multiple registers,” Classens said. “We need to move rapidly toward more just and sustainable food systems – those that are re-localized, diversified, equitable and that support human and non-human health and wellbeing.”
Co-applicants
George Arhonditsis (University of Toronto); West Suhanic (Seneca College); Yuhong He (University of Toronto); Terrence Bell (University of Toronto); Genevieve Metson (Western University); James MacIvor (University of Toronto); Kira Borden (Trent University); Adam Martin (University of Toronto); Glenn Mott (University of Toronto); Eliana Gonzales-Vigil (University of Toronto); Sarah Elton (Toronto Metropolitan University); Jayeeta Sharma (University of Toronto); Michael Classens (University of Toronto); Ryan Isakson (University of Toronto)