Setting the Table for Food Justice — with Tammara Soma

Below the Radar

Community-engaged scholar, current Researcher-in-Residence with SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative and food system planner Tammara Soma joins Am Johal on this episode of Below the Radar. She shares with us what drives her interest in food systems and sustainability, and their relationship to equity and justice. Tammara speaks to her experience and the process of researching in communities — where she aims to have everyone’s voices represented at the table. We hear about the impetus behind co-creating the Food Systems Lab, and how Tammara views the impact of COVID-19 on our current food systems. We also discuss issues with charitable responses to food security, and what kind of justice-centered solutions are needed in a paradoxical system where we have massive food waste, but also food insecurity and hunger. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/126-tammara-soma.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/126-tammara-soma.html Resources — Food Systems Lab: https://foodsystemslab.ca/ — Supporting Sustainable Business Adaptation during COVID-19 study: https://foodsystemslab.ca/projects/local-business-covid19/ — 'We are Community': CERi Partners with the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition: https://www.sfu.ca/ceri/blog/2020/ceri-partners-with-the-bc-poverty-reduction-coalition.html#:~:text=Getting%20Around%20to%20Feed%20Ourselves%20Well%20is%20a%20project%20housed,at%2Drisk%20and%20marginalized%20communities. — Farm to School BC: https://farmtoschoolbc.ca/ — FoodShare Toronto: https://foodshare.net/ — Hives for Humanity: Empowering Informed Consent – Community Ethics In Cultural Production and Research 101: https://www.hivesforhumanity.com/empowering-informed-consent-1 — Pollution is Colonialism by Dr. Max Liboiron: https://www.dukeupress.edu/pollution-is-colonialism Bio: Tammara originally hails from West Java, Indonesia. She holds a PhD in Planning (2018) from the University of Toronto and is the Research Director and Co-Founder of the Food Systems Lab. She is an Assistant Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University where she conducts research on issues pertaining to food system planning, community-based food research, youth and food literacy, social innovation and waste management and the circular economy. Prior to SFU, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, and the Food Equity Coordinator at New College (University of Toronto). Soma is actively involved in food justice work. She was one of the founding members of the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council, and has worked with FoodShare Toronto, and Sustain Ontario. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Setting the Table for Food Justice — with Tammara Soma” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, June 22, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/126-tammara-soma.html