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Kwantlen launches graduate food sustainability program

An online graduate certificate offered by Kwantlen Polytechnic University tackles issues around food security and food systems.
KPU
Kwantlen Polytechnic University. File Photo

An online graduate certificate offered by Kwantlen Polytechnic University tackles issues around food security and food systems.

The Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems and Security (SFSS) can later be integrated into a master’s degree at Royal Roads University.

Dr. Kent Mullinix, director of the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems at KPU, said food security and sustainability are the single most important human imperative, not just locally but globally.

Uncertainties about the global food system stemming from issues such as climate change, the global economy, environmental and ecosystem degradation and collapse, pandemics and more expose the need to better understand and transform our food systems, Mullinix explained.

“The adverse outcomes of our food system are clearly evident to anyone looking: environmental destruction, food security inequity, economic destruction of family-based farming and farming communities, epidemic food-related disease,” he said.

The program will focus on understanding outcomes, vulnerabilities and the fragility of the industrial-transnational food system, Mullinex added.

“Further it focuses on what needs to be done to rectify the unsustainability of our food system including community-focused initiatives,” he said.

The online program can be done by anyone around the world and the instructors are doing global research into food security and sustainability.

The SFSS program is a collaboration between the KPU’s Institute for Sustainable Food Systems and its Faculty of Arts, explained Dr. Diane Purvey, dean of the Faculty of Arts.

“The SFSS program is focused on more than just agriculture,” says Purvey. “It highlights people, the economy and social policy.”