Cultivating Resilience: Advancing Climate-Smart Agri-Food
A summit bridging technology, strategy, and partnerships to shape the future of food
The Cultivating Resilience: Advancing Climate-Smart Agri-Food Summit was held on October 27-28, 2025, at SFU’s Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
The event brought attracted a diverse cross‑section of the agri‑food system, with strong representation from research and emerging professionals, as well as industry, funders, practitioners, and producers.
Across two days, the agenda combined high‑level framing with applied and participatory sessions, including:
- Opening keynotes that emphasized equity, Indigenous food sovereignty, and relational approaches to resilience;
- An interactive, national‑scale dialogue on what “climate‑smart agriculture” means across different regional contexts;
- Panels exploring technological, planning, economic, and policy dimensions of resilient food systems;
- Lightning talks showcasing emerging research from early‑career researchers; and
- Facilitated sessions focused on collaboration, knowledge mobilization, and scaling change.
This mix of formats was balanced inspiration, critical reflection, and practical discussion, while allowing multiple entry points for participants with different backgrounds and expertise.
Major Themes Emerging from the Event
Several major themes emerged that participants consistently identified as meaningful and valuable. These themes illustrate how participants are thinking about resilience not as a single pathway, but as a set of interconnected social, cultural, ecological, and technological practices.
Resilience as Relational, Place‑Based, and Equity‑Centred
A dominant theme across the event was the reframing of resilience as something rooted in relationships—between people, land, and institutions—rather than solely in technological solutions or efficiency gains. Discussions emphasized humility, care, and long‑term thinking, alongside the need for policies and planning approaches that are attentive to local context and diverse lived experiences.
Rather than positioning resilience as a checklist of innovations, sessions highlighted the importance of wise decision-making, community scale food assets, and regulatory environments that enable rather than constrain locally appropriate solutions.
🎥 Watch Keynote Speaker, Dr. Tammara Soma on the Future of Food Resilience
Indigenous Food Systems as Foundations for Climate Resilience
Another central theme was the recognition of Indigenous food systems as living, resilient systems that offer critical guidance for climate adaptation and food security. Across multiple sessions, Indigenous foodways were discussed not as historical artifacts but as contemporary systems of governance, care, and ecological knowledge.
Conversations surfaced how colonial policies and regulatory structures continue to limit Indigenous food sovereignty, while also highlighting Indigenous principles—such as reciprocity, kinship, and responsibility to future generations—as essential components of resilient food systems.
🎥 Watch Keynote Speaker, Jared Qwustenuxun Williams on the Rooted in Resilience
Productive Tensions Around “Climate‑Smart” Agriculture
Rather than converging on a single definition of “climate‑smart agriculture,” the event intentionally created space to explore divergent interpretations, shaped by region, scale, culture, and lived reality. Participants recognized that while there is broad alignment on desired outcomes—such as resilience, sustainability, and food security—the pace, pathways, and priorities for achieving them differ significantly.
Discussions highlighted the limits of national, one‑size‑fits‑all approaches and emphasized the need for place‑based strategies, shorter supply chains, and regionally adapted research and policy frameworks.
🎥 Watch panel discussions: What Does ‘Climate-Smart’ Really Mean? and Feeding the Future
Moving Beyond Technology‑Led Narratives of Innovation
While technological innovation featured prominently throughout the event, a recurring theme was the recognition that technology alone cannot deliver resilient food systems. Conversations explored the social, economic, and policy conditions that shape whether innovations are accessible, adoptable, and beneficial in practice.
Participants valued discussions that surfaced trade‑offs, regulatory barriers, unit economics, and unintended consequences, alongside emerging tools such as genomics, precision agriculture, and alternative production systems. Policy coherence, long‑term investment, and enabling planning frameworks were repeatedly identified as critical complements to technical solutions.
👉 Check out the Reimaging Agricultural Futures and Enabling Change session slides
Culture, Identity, and Lived Experience in Food Systems
Sessions also foregrounded culture and identity as often overlooked dimensions of agricultural resilience. Discussions explored food as a cultural keystone—shaped by migration, racialization, gender, and history—and emphasized how cultural continuity and representation influence sustainability, farm viability, and community wellbeing.
Participants highlighted the importance of hearing diverse stories and perspectives, particularly from marginalized and racialized communities, to better understand how resilience is experienced unevenly across food systems.
👉 Check out the Cultivating Cultural Resilience session slides
