James Kornelson: How Do You Define Hunger?

This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands on Treaty One territory, the traditional territory of the Anishnawbe, Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota, and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis nation.

This is Humans, On Rights. A podcast advocating for the education of human rights.

Here's your host Stuart Murray.

My guest today is James Kornelson. He's the public engagement manager at Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Now he's coordinated visits from international partners and led tourists to several countries to facilitate learning for Canadians about global food security. He's involved in the production of education and advocacy resources on global hunger, recently aimed at mobilizing Canadians to advocate on Canada's international climate finance commitment. He's a trained teacher. We're going to learn a little bit more about the fact he lives with his folks and family on Treaty One territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. James, welcome to Humans on Rights.

Great to be here. Stuart, thanks so much for the invitation.

So we're going to get into your journey a bit. Tell me how you got started, what your background is. How is it that you became so involved in understanding the incredible role of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the role you take there? Where did you come from?

Well, our organization is a Christian response to hunger, which means a lot of different versions of Christianity and denominations and whatnot. So it basically boils down to love your neighbor and reach out and help those in need and also reach out to make sure that we're working for justice. So it's very basic, but my own personal background is from a man and a background. I grew up mostly in Saskatchewan Treaty Four territory. I'm now in Treaty One alongside with you. And I really sensed the importance of my faith being lived out in a way that was what I heard in the Gospels, which was we speak out for those whose voices aren't heard for justice, for equality. And that led me to international work. I worked with Metadata Central Committee. I'm not sure if your listeners know who that is, but it's a relief and development organization headquartered mostly here in Winnipeg, but works all over the world. And my wife and I both had the same notion. And we ended up working in Midnight Central Committee Mozambique. We arrived and a few language lessons and trying to get familiar with partners and people and coworkers and colleagues. And a flood came in the year 2000. And I don't know if your listeners remember that, but everything stopped from Mozambique there while the catastrophe needed to be responded to. So I heard about the Food Grains Bank first there, which was a food response that needed to be sort of rolled out with local partners and people working in development and relief there locally. So we were thrust into it, really. And that's where we connected for the first time with me for Greensmith. And it wasn't until years later when we came back to live in Canada that I ended up here in public engagement. I have an education background. You alluded to that. And yes. So there's a work for me to do, education and advocacy with Canadians, deepening understanding and inviting people to join the network.

So, James, we talked a little bit off error that we're both Saskatchewan boys. How is it that you came from Saskatchewan? Where did you start to get engaged? Was it through your education? Was it through working with the Church? How did you decide that what you really wanted to do was help people that has given you where your position now is, where you're feeding people in essence. I mean, your organization is feeding people in essence. And I don't mean to be trite here, but globally. So how is it that sort of a fellow from Saskatchewan, great agriculture background, but how did you find your way in through is this through education, or was it through working with the Church? What was your way that got you to Mozambique?

Well, if I were to put it concisely education brought me over this direction to Winnipeg. I guess love kept me here, if I may say so ended up in Winnipeg through education and forming relationships and whatnot I met my wife here and we traveled around a bit, but sort of always called Win a big home after that.

And when you traveled, were you traveling for, like, education? Were you traveling to put yourself in positions where you wanted to get into four different countries to immerse yourself and understand their culture and maybe help them? What sort of travel did you do before you've taken on this position?

Well, before my wife and I got married, I went to Brazil for about six months because I wanted to learn more about the movement called liberation theology, how it worked out in churches and communities and met a lot of really important people there. And really it was very formative for me in terms of answering the call to work towards and into poverty and hunger and whatnot. My wife went to India. My wife's name is Michelle, by the way, Michelle Johnson. And she went to India. She worked there for a while, met Mother Teresa. We came back together and we said, you know what? We want to devote our lives to this. And that's how we got answered the call to Mennonite Central Committee, which was also locally here based in Winnipeg. So that's kind of the Avenue that led us towards a deeper commitment to this work.

And when you started with Mennonite Central Committee, I know again, they have a global reach for sure. Where was your first stop? Where have you been? What countries have you been since you've been involved with initially with Mennonite Central Committee, as they're known, and now with the Canadian Food Grain Bank.

The first place, as I mentioned, was and the key place really is Mozambique. That's kind of where it all came together. Mozambique, as it turns out, was one of the first recipients of food assistance, and that was during their years of civil war. They were there providing food assistance for people who were displaced, who were not able to farm their land and whatnot and that was done, of course, with Mennonite Central Committee. So MCC is a member of the Canadian Food Greens Bank, along with 14 other members from Catholics, Nazarenes and Presbyterians and Lutherans. And the list is long. They all work together, but my entry point was through Metadata Central Committee as one of the members. And so years later, of course, Men and Night Central Committee is deeply involved in maintaining partnerships with local people, local churches, local organizations. That through that partnership is how they continue their development work. So long after the war, long after the crisis that the Fukushima Bank was there for. They were managing those partnerships. We got involved through the Anglican Diocese locally there to do some education work together with our Anglican counterparts there. Those are all a string of relationships. In fact, I remember taking a car ride with Father Carlos, who is actually now the Bishop of the Diocese of Lebanon, Mozambique. Back then, he was working as the Dean of education, and he told us a long story. He said, you know, we really welcome this partnership because together we've been able to do amazing things, whether it's getting food to people who need it the most in very complicated places or just doing ongoing peace building work and other kind of development work. So when we were there, it wasn't specifically for the Who Grains Bank, even though the floods of 2000 brought that relationship back into the four. But it's just that ongoing relationship that is nurtured by these development organizations.

So now you find yourself in a position as public engagement manager at Canadian Food Grade Bank. I would say, James, that when I went to see what you do there, and I mean, when I say you, I'm talking about your team and what everybody does, I was amazed to find out that you were housed in a downtown shopping mall, in essence. And I was like, what kind of a place is this? And when I went in and within minutes, it became very clear to me that the depth of knowledge and the incredible passion that was just evident within the corridors of what the Canadian Food Grains Bank is that you're, in essence, really looking after nourishment around the world from this location in this place that is very difficult to find in downtown Winnipeg. And I was delighted to learn that despite maybe some challenges to try to relocate what you do because typically global things happen and people try to sort of move them out of Winnipeg. And you are firmly ensconced in Winnipeg. Tell me about your experience of what it is that Canadian Food Grains Bank does and tie it in if you don't mind, around this notion that on October 16, it's World Food Day.

That's great. First of all, I think it's kind of a running joke when I don't have the time or it's not the place to describe all these details. I just tell people if they ask me where to work because I have a job at the mall. But yeah, you're right. I'm really proud to work at the Food Grains Bank. I've been there for over ten years now and proud to be part of a large network. So when you say like in Scots and shopping mall, really it's the place where a few offices are housed. But this is a very large network and it's a very diverse network. The Food Grains Bank was kind of born in the early 80s when people came together to try and respond to something. Local entrepreneurs, local development practitioners and farmers said there's an issue in the world. And back then they were going through their own food crisis. We've seen a couple of food crisis since, but at that time there needed to be some kind of response. So farmers, being very practical people, were engaged in this whole process and they actually collected food because back then there was a lot of food in Canada and didn't have places to go in terms of markets. So they shipped grain to places like Mozambique or they shipped grain to places like India and they said, we can actually do this. And since then, it's just been large groups of people across Canada, churches and particularly agricultural people like farmers and business people who said we can actually practically respond to this problem. But of course, along the way, there's all this learning that happens when we realize, hey, maybe shipping grain isn't the best response we can do here. And then we start learning. So sooner or later a public policy Department gets going and we start looking at best practices and how certain policies could be changed that would actually further the work of ending hunger, even more so than just what we could actually ship or buy in terms of food. So since those early years, we worked actually to put ourselves out of the job of shipping food and more into the job of figuring out how do we end hunger, asking that question regularly and that's now we still have farmers who are donating, but they're donating in terms of cash. And we work with local partners and we purchase local food around the world in terms of our food assistance program. And of course, we've learned that if we're going to end hunger, we have to help people become more resilient to the kind of shocks that they experience that line them up with not being able to feed their families, which means we talk about things like adapting to climate change, which is a growing concern, and also doing more development work that enables farmers and farm families to make a living and put food on their tables. It's a long history of learning. And the network, as I said, it's very large, includes the government of Canada because we receive a lot of funding from the government of Canada very significant amount. And that puts us into conversation with Global Affairs Canada. And you can imagine the learning that has to happen in order for us to continue a partnership that has lasted for over 30 years.

James, when you look at and when I was on your website and again, any of the listeners that are listening to this, I would encourage you to go to the Canadian Food Grains Bank website. It's a tremendous place of opportunity to learn, but great information there. And I looked and I think I'm poster right to say that you look at emergency food assistance or long term response around hunger and food. But it seems to me that you're operating currently and it could be changing. But around 30 countries around the world. Am I close on that number?

You're close on that. I probably don't have the exact number at this very moment, but it's generally between 30 and 40 countries around the world that we're in any given time, depending on the year, and we mobilize assistance. That around the $30 to $40 million Mark each year and sometimes more than that. So that's a lot of networking and that's a lot of food and a lot of expertise and training and whatnot. So, yeah, I was going to say you mentioned World Food Day. I forgot to answer that question. And I thought, oh, yeah, this is probably the reason why we're having this conversation is because it's World Food Day coming up. And I was just going to say that October 16 is a day that was set aside by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations many years ago, and it was actually formed in Quebec City. That's where they made the decision to pull this kind of a special observance. And it's observing a day when we look at global hunger and we think of the fact that there's so much that can still be done to end global hunger. So it's a day set aside for us to observe that.

So, James, on that. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, so pick a country. But when I looked at one of the countries, I mean, it went from literally the Alphabet, from Bangladesh to Zimbabwe. But if I were to say, for example, to ask you let's just ask Bangladesh, can you talk about Bangladesh, what World Food Grains Bank is doing in Bangladesh? Are you familiar with that?

So in Bangladesh right now, there are some couple of development programs that, again, are training farmers to like when I took a tour there, actually, but that was quite a few years ago. But at the time, a good example might be to work with a community of people who are landless farmers. And when you have landless farmers, that means they're usually working on farms for a living. But maybe there's a period of time during the year, and there is usually when there's no work to be had. So during those times, people are not having enough income to put food on the table for their families. So when Food Greens Bag looks at that situation with our partners, we say, well, what can be done? Well, in some cases, we said, well, we can train on basic animal husbandry. So let's say they are given a loan for a cow, then they know how to train the cow. They know how to feed the cow in a very small amount of land, look after them, take care of them, produce milk, that's milk for the family, that's milk in the market. And pretty soon their access to food goes up and they can make the gaps during the year when they're not finding agricultural work. That's one example. But we met farmers who were deeply grateful for that one small ability to make ends meet during the year. Currently in Bangladesh, we also have been doing programs of food assistance directly with people who have been fleeing in from Myanmar. So I'm not sure if listeners are familiar with that situation, but I know a number of years ago it was in the news a lot that people were fleeing, and they ended up, many of them in Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh. And Bangladesh being the country that welcomed them, they may not have resources to feed that many people. So we were involved in some food assistance programs for those refugees. Just a couple of examples of Bangladesh.

Yeah, those are great examples, James, and I mean, part of it is, as you were explaining at the outset, that the notion of taking grain that we harvest here in abundance in Canada and moving that grain by sea to a country to feed them, and then realizing that there's maybe better ways to train some of the people to farm, to understand the importance of it and all that is an incredible transition. And you mentioned the fact that you've got a love affair with Winnipeg. I think that's a fair comment, and I love the comment because I feel the same. And it's exacerbated when you think about what the conversation that you can have because of what you and the Canadian Food Grains Bank does is that you are such involved in the global initiative to try to end hunger. But the point I make and this is an important point, James, is that you and the entire team at the Canadian Food Grains Bank and all your partners and the government, as you mentioned, that is happening and is being driven right here from Winnipeg, Manitoba. And I find that just incredible.

Yeah. My love of Winnipeg is of its people. But I would just reiterate that the folks who are here in Winnipeg working at Food Grains Bank represent the nuts and bolts of our operation. But really the credit has to be spread to our members who are based in other places in Canada, like Toronto or Calgary, and our partners who are based in the countries where we work. So those partnerships are critical for doing this kind of work, both because when you work with organizations in the country, they know the language and culture, they know the need, they understand the dynamics. And of course, all the supporters across Canada who contribute, I really feel that they are part of the Poor Greens Bank. Sometimes people say, oh, you're a staff of the Food Greens Bank. And I say, well, I have a rule, but really the Poo Grain's Bank are all the people who are involved. And I really feel that deeply that we all have a role to play, whether we're paid staff or whether we're a farmer raising a crop so that money can be sent to the Bluegreens Bank to support the projects or that somebody in another part of Canada is pulling together some people to write letters to their members of Parliament to change federal policies. All those things are really part so people are part of that. So it's housed here in Winnipeg. But again, I would just say it's spread so large around the globe.

So, James, talk a little bit about it, if you can, the notion that when you look at some of these countries that you want to work with and you use the term partnership, which I think is exactly the right word to use because that's obviously what it is. But how do you develop those partnerships? Are they developed externally, are they done through working with the Canadian government, or are they working through local churches, or does it come to you? Is that some country coming to the Canadian Food Grains Bank through contacts to try to develop that partnership? How are they established?

Great question. It's at the heart of the soul of how we work. Right. So in this case, members of the Food Grains Bank, so those are the midnight central committee and the other ones that I listed, there's 15 of them, and I can put a link wherever you want to show 50 of them. But they basically represent the relief and development organizations of the major denominations in Canada. So whether that's Catholic or Protestant, they're together at the Food Grains Bank. But when they have partnerships, these are usually long standing relationships with existing programs that they've had, whether they, as I mentioned, had a long partnership with people in Rosenbach, mostly through the Christian Council of Churches there. That's my example. Right. But in other countries, Catholics may have a long standing relationship with a social or development organization in Sierra Leone or some other country. Right. So these are long standing relationships partnerships. So when a disaster hits and then you hear about it let's say, for example, in Syria or Afghanistan, for that matter, the Presbyterian World Relief and Development, they have existing relationships with partners there, and they can be poised and ready to go when there's a disaster that is and that's when you and I see it on the news behind that, there's just this ongoing relationship that they have as Church agencies. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I know for sure, because I think that there's a lot of moving parts to it, and it's not that it's formulaic. I mean, it's obviously organic. And as things happen in the world, you're in a position to react. But I think one of the things that you clearly have demonstrated in this conversation is that there's efforts that are made not to just sort of go in and then extract, but to go in and ensure that you leave behind the education so that the people that live there in that country are working towards really ending hunger.

One of the things I love most about the Food Range Bank is that the members themselves work together. So a great example would be in Syria. Syria crisis is huge. It's been going on for many, many years. There are people who are still left. Either they've sought refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, or they're actually internally displaced within Syria itself, where they just don't have access to food. So one member like I'll give you an example, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace CCODP, they have partners in Syria, but other members will say, well, people in Canada here are really wanting to help Syria. How can we do that? Well, the other member, let's say from let's just give an example of the Lutheran Church or somebody else would say, we have people who really want to respond, but they don't have any partners. So the Catholics have partners. So let's work through the Catholics and then let's establish a good program that's the Food Grains Bank, it's members working with each other, with partners in the countries, trying to figure out who has resources. We do, who has partners. We do. So they combine their assets together with funding from the government of Canada. And pretty soon you have this very unique and dynamic set of relationships that is able to respond in very substantial ways.

So, James, you mentioned Syria and of course, among a number of countries that are having challenges, whether it's through migration of people. And one of the things I mean, there's so much politics that goes into some of these horrific situations that happen in some of these countries. Have you ever experienced any political interference that has prohibited you from when I say you, please understand, I'm using you as the spokes and the talking head for Canadian Food Grain Bank. Is there any time that Canadian Food Grains Bank have had political interference that has not allowed them to provide the service that you are known for worldwide?

I'll give you a very current example of that. Now that you asked another good question. So, yes is the short answer. We know that one of the keys to ending hunger is good governance. And by governance, I don't just mean governance. I mean governance as in people getting along, looking out for those who need assistance in ideal situations. We see that the processes and places are set up so that everyone gets to eat as a bare minimum, as a human. Right. So right now we have in Ethiopia plenty of partners who are active and who know the need. But if you've heard the news in the T Gray region, there's political turmoil. So we have the resources, we have the partners. And so we have everything in place to be able to fill trucks with food and bring food into where we know that food is desperately needed. But because there is political conflicts going on, we are denied access to get into those places and to meet with those people very real example of exactly what you're talking about. We can't control all those situations.

Right. And that's so tragic on so many levels, James, when you look at what you've been involved in, and again, I went on your website and there was some great definitions. And one of the ones I'd like you to talk to, the people that are listening about is the question about what is hunger? How do you define hunger?

So the way I answer that question and we can talk very fluidly by using the word hunger. So I know what you're getting at. It's a good question. I like to use the term food security. When people ask me what is hunger? Because food security is what we're working for. And that is simply defined as when all people have regular access to enough nutritious food to lead healthy and active lives. That's food security. So when we talk about hunger in broad terms, you can say, well, when we don't meet those conditions, we have hunger and we are there to try as much as we can within our abilities, we try to address that. But that definition is packed with meaning. So when all people means not just a few in the community, everybody, not just one or two in a household, the whole household. You know what I'm saying, right. Regular by the example I gave of somebody who during a season doesn't have access to food, but maybe during the rest of the season they do. But those two or three or four months are pretty important for a child's development. So that's why regular is there. Access is about, however you access food. You and I purchased most of our food in a supermarket, but a lot of people around the world, they access food by growing it themselves or growing enough for themselves and maybe getting enough income to purchase the rest of their food. Household needs. So access is a key word there. And of course, the nutritious part is fairly self explanatory, and the healthy and active part is all about a determinant of somebody's food security. So food security, I find, is an easier term to deal with. Right.

So on that same basis, James, when you look at some of these countries that have a high level of poverty or there's inequality, that is so evident in those countries, the impact that must have on just as you discussed, the definition of food security must be immense.

It is. And sometimes people get overwhelmed by that. But I always get a little bit inspired when people ask me why there is hunger. I think that's the key question that people need to ask. So you and I were relatively entitled. People were white. We've had a lot of privileges that we take for granted, and that probably have afforded us food security. Whereas if we say, well, why are people hungry? We start to dig behind some of those things and say, why is there inequality? So we know that there's a lot of historic justice that people that have gotten us to where we are. I would also point out that Unfortunately, I have to say that hunger is rising, the numbers of hungry people are rising, and why that is is largely due to a few key things conflict, climate change, and now, of course, COVID, we used to talk about reducing the numbers of hungry people, and we were telling a great story. And so the story has changed a little bit in the last few years. So we're now seeing again that hunger is on the rise. It's alarming. And so we need to take World Food Day or any other opportunity we have when people are asking that question to say, hey, what are we doing about it? So if you're asking the question, why are people hungry? You are already on the road to working towards ending hunger.

And James, how has COVID, how has it impacted what the Canadian Food Grains Bank and its partners are trying to do? Has it had a major impact? How are you pivoting and dealing with a global pandemic when you're trying to do something that is to end hunger on a global basis?

It will be no surprise to hear that it is deeply complicated life for so many people around the world as we know. So we know that supply chains have been disrupted for farmers in the fields. They can largely do their work. But if in the meantime, one piece of that food system starts to move out of place, like, oh, we can't get enough seed or we can't move to markets, we can't sell this because we can't move then immediately it has an impact. And of course, for average people, especially people who are already struggling to make ends meet, and they can't go and get work or they can't be in the markets or they can't do you can imagine that this is going to have a devastating effect on their ability to access food and have income. So, yeah, for so many reasons who it is. On the plus side, what are we doing about it? We have been in partnership with Canadian government about specializing our programs. So we had special COVID related responses that we put together. And that was like the word pivot. It was like a shift to say, hey, what can we do now that we're in this tobid reality? So programs started along those lines to shift and try and address in a way that was still enabling us to get food to people where they needed it. And, of course, there's going to be more humanitarian assistance needed. But we don't want to forget about the development work that is so crucial to having people become resilient to some of these things. We're still trying to do both of those things.

I want to pick up on something that was in your bio, James, that I thought was very interesting that you're aiming at mobilizing Canadians to advocate on Canada's international climate finance commitments. Let's talk about that for a minute. What are you doing to do that? And for those who might not know, what is Canada's international finance commitment?

Great. On the advocate side, the Food Greens Bank encourages Canadians to pray, give, learn, advocate. And we have committed to doing advocacy because we see such huge potential for furthering the work of improving global food security through that way. So the example on why we advocate, first of all, we were talking about providing food and shipping food. Well, we advocated that Canada not tie its food aid to Canadian agriculture production. In other words, we were sending shipping grain overseas and whatnot. And we said, you know what, that's not smart. It takes too long, it's more expensive, it's not the right food. And so we advocated for a change to those public policies. The result of that was complete change of that policy. So now everything is cash based, and we don't have to ship anything, at least not from Canada. And the impact was huge. So way more funds available for partners to do the work, more appropriate food, better timing, quicker response times and whatnot. That's an example of how advocates can change that. Now, climate finance is one that we're advocating on, because the whole support for long term development, enabling farmers who are overrepresented in the hunger statistics, that means that a larger number of people who are hungry are themselves food producers. And so climate finance is this thing that Canada has committed to to try and help people adopt a climate change and help mitigate climate change. We are advocating for Canada's climate finance commitment to focus more attention on adaptation for those people around the world whose livelihoods are impacted by climate change, for whom, if we support them more, then they will be more able to adapt and make a living. That just means that's good for the whole world, right? That means more people are able to withstand those changes and be resilient to climate shocks and that sort of thing. And that helps us as a global community. The reason and your question about what is climate finance is this is a commitment that Canada has already signed on to. So it started with all the conference of parties from Kyoto to Paris, but particularly in Paris, all the wealthy countries made a commitment to say they were going to produce climate financing for developing countries to make sure that they had the resources to deal with climate change, both adaptation and mitigation. And of course, adaptation is about helping people cope and change with climate change, which is really important for developing countries especially. But mitigation is just as important, and that's about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So all the wealthy countries signed on to this. Now the question is, is Canada fulfilling its commitment? And recently we had an announcement from the Prime Minister saying that Canada was going to step up and was going to double its climate financing. And so we said, hey, that's great news. Let's hope it actually happens. So right now we're actually monitoring those commitments. And of course, Cop is coming up at the end of the month for listeners who are attuned to all things climate change. There's a conference of parties coming up in Glasgow, and we would like to see Canada renew that commitment and make a statement at the beginning saying, hey, we're committed to this. We made a commitment already, and we're just reiterating that.

I'm glad you referenced Cop happening in Glasgow, because I think that actually is a new well, it's not new anymore, but I think they have to change the location to Glasgow for this particular conference. I would ask you, James, when you have a relationship, a very positive, good working relationship with the government of the day in Canada. But when they don't live up to their expectations, regardless of the government in power, the party in power for government. I know you're advocates, but you walk a very fine line between being a noisy advocate on the negative side. You're very vocal on the positive side, which I think is refreshing. But when you don't get or if a government isn't able to live up a proclamation that they have said, not that you have said, but they have said how as an organization, do you deal with that shortcoming?

Yeah, it's interesting, right, because we get a lot of funding from the government can through global affairs. But we find that when you take the approach that says, let's make this better, let's make sure to fulfill our commitments. Here's how to do this better, that sort of thing. The relationship is really strong. You know, our decision makers are hearing a lot of voices all the time and a lot of messages all the time. We have to ask ourselves if you want to be influential. It is like anything in life if you're trying to be influential. I mean, you can only get sold so far by arguing and calling somebody down. But if you are persistently pursuing relationships where you want to be heard and you're speaking on behalf of a bigger issue and you're offering positive things and you're urging them to make good decisions, I think we can be heard a lot more and actually appreciate it. And just an example of that is that when we have an advocacy asked for Canadians to participate in, it's always worded in that sort of way. And what we hear back from elected officials is often, thanks for that. Yeah, really, I think that's important. I'm hearing other voices, and I need you to keep pushing that positive message so that I can make decision X, Y, or Z. So you know that it's always a matter of getting that voice in there and being as influential as possible.

So let me ask you one of the things that is on your website, you talk about engaging Canadians, engaging government. What sorts of things would you be doing as we focus on the fact that October 16 is World Food Day to engage Canadians?

So thanks for asking that question. It's like you throw me a real soft moment, Stewart. I appreciate that. What we are asking Canadians to do. I mean, we ask people to give as much of themselves as they can to end hunger, both here in Canada and around the world. Of course, our mission is around the world, but our members are active in Canada. I want to get slip that in there just so people know that we care about food security in Canada and around the world. But our focus on our mandated is global. But we are asking Canadians to voice to our elected officials and our leaders, people who are going to cop on our behalf as a country to make a strong statement and to say we're ready to fulfill our commitment and we're encouraging others to do the same. We are committed to making sure that climate finance is effective. That also contributes to ending global hunger. And we've offered suggestions about how to do that using their own words, which was they talk about naturebased solutions. Well, our language for that is supporting small scale food producers because they are working with nature, balancing adaptation and mitigation. And we're saying, yes, people who are experiencing the impact of climate change often are the least guilty of the greenhouse gasses that have created this kind of environment. So trying to use their same language about what the commitments are and saying, remember, this is what we committed to. And Canadians, we have a letter builder for people. We have a very easy way for people to add their voice by just personalizing a letter to both the Minister of environment and also the Minister of international development. So I can put a link there for you if you're sharing anything like that. And if Canadians can add their voice, I would love for that to happen.

Yeah. And we'll put a link onto this podcast, James, just to make sure that anybody that's hearing this, they can see it at the end of the podcast so they can participate. I think that's really helpful as we kind of wind down this conversation. James, I can't thank you enough for your sharing of some of the amazing things that you and Michelle have done on a personal basis and then stepping back as a professional in your capacity as the public engagement manager at Canadian Food Grains Bank. You have a global vision, a global mission. So it's on that basis that I want to ask you kind of a global question. I think it's how you operate every day that you wake up and think about what it is that you do. The notion about ending hunger globally. What is your hope for how we could do that?

Well, that's a big question, because when I think about my own role here, I feel that I have a responsibility. And I think I would use the word responsibility. I think about what people are going through with COVID and saying, you know what, I didn't cause this, but we all through COVID. We got a pretty good sense that we all have a responsibility. We all have a role to play in the whole situation. And so I think the same around global food security. Sure, I look out for my family's needs. I have to think about my family, but can I think beyond my family and can I think about the human family? And so if I do, if I allow myself the time and energy to think beyond my own family, my own community, and my own city and country, then I think we all have a role to play. And there are things we can actually do to help promote global food security. And I think that's why I like the word responsibility. We may not be blamed for why there's the problems there are in the world, but I think responsibility is a way of saying I can do something. And I think that's what inspires me because I see people around me who feel the same. And usually those are my best days when I get together with people who feel the same way.

James, I can't thank you enough for spending some time on this podcast we talk about this is Humans on Right Side is the name of the podcast. It's called that for a reason, because I want people like you to come on human beings to talk about rights, such as the ability to have food, which is so important. We're coming through a Thanksgiving weekend where I hope that people have had a chance to spend time with family and enjoy some nourishment, that's a Canadian thing. It's not an international phenomenon of Thanksgiving. But I guess if I were to give you sort of maybe the last word on the notion that World food day, October 16, if people are listening to this and say, I never knew there was a world food day, there's one thing you would like them to think about for World Food day as Winnipegs. As Canadians, what would that be?

The realization that there's enough for everybody, that there's enough around the world and we have that belief as the fukraines bank, we believe there's enough food to feed everyone in the world. And because it's such a practical response and has been a practical response for over 30 years, those little practical things that we do make a huge difference for people here and around the world. So I think I would leave you with that idea.

It's a great way to do it. I would say one more time. James Cornellson, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to me today. Continue the great work you do and I look forward to the opportunity when our paths will cross again in the very near future.

Thanks so much for having me, Stuart. It's a real pleasure and privilege. Thanks so much.

Humans on Rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray. Social media marketing by the creative team at full current in Winnipeg. Thanks also to Trixie may be you in music by by Doug Edmond. For more go to humanrightshub. Ca a production of the soundoff media company.