Saskatchewan Farmers Union

Who grows the food we eat? How important is it that family farms are viable in Canada today and in the future? How do viable family farms help determine the safety, diversity and sustainability of Canada’s food systems? Why is this important to those of us who do not farm? Frontline Farmers introduces readers to the National Farmers Union (NFU). For over fifty years, the NFU has been on the frontlines of our food system. From fighting against transnational corporations that seek to control our food system by imposing genetically modified organisms into our food, to protecting seeds, maintaining orderly marketing, saving the prison farms, keeping the land in the hands of family farmers, farming ecologically and building food sovereignty, the NFU has been front and centre of farm and food activism. This book collects the voices of NFU members who tell the stories of the key struggles of the progressive farm movement in Canada: fighting to build viable rural communities, protecting the family farm and creating socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems. Frontline Farmers reveals that the stakes for controlling our food in Canada have never been higher. The book was made possible with support from the Canada Research Chair Program. For an updated, corrected list of the protagonists from Frontline Farmers, please click here.

"The formation of the Territorial Grain Growers Association in 1901 was not the only important event in the early history of what has come to be known broadly as the agrarian movement in the Canadian prairies, but it was a defining moment in some respects. Arguably it signalled the formation of an agrarian class, but at least it was an indicator of an awakening of a democratic consciousness among family farmers. Ultimately, the Association provided a venue for analysis and critique, the development of strategies and tactics, and of course the nurturing of leadership and organizational forms that would have a profound influence upon politics and the state in the three prairie provinces and the Dominion, as well as the creation of co-operatives and other forms of direct action. These eighteen essays honouring the 100th anniversary (in 2001) of the formation of the TGGA explore important aspects of the historical legacy of the agrarian movement and contemplate their relevance to the current setting for the rural prairies."--pub. desc.