{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Amplify Canada","title":"Food for Thought","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2882,"description":"Food is personal, and it's also an economy under pressure. In this episode of Amplify Canada, Food For Thought, we dig into what grows, gets harvested, and lands on our plates from cactus leather to farms to vineyards to fishing boats a hundred miles offshore, and the tariffs, labour shortages, and climate volatility now testing all of it.\n\nIn this episode, host Linda Freeman reconnects with Desiree Dupuis, who left the seaweed business to launch a cactus-leather footwear brand; with Caroline Schaller, a French-trained winemaker who's worked three Okanagan wineries in eight years and is bracing for another unpredictable harvest; and with Fraser MacDonald, who's spent nearly two decades fishing off the BC coast and built Good Fish out of a pandemic-era pivot. Agri-food expert Dr. Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie's Agri-Food Analytics Lab sets the framework, breaking down why Canada's food processing sector is falling behind, what's really driving grocery prices, and where he still sees reason for hope.\nCanada's agriculture and agri-food system generates $149.2 billion in GDP and supports 1 in 9 jobs nationwide, with roughly half of everything grown and produced here sold abroad. The wine industry alone now contributes $10.1 billion to GDP and sustains nearly 100,000 jobs across six provinces. This episode is about what it takes to keep that system standing while the ground underneath it keeps shifting.\n\nIn this episode:\n●     Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on Canada's \"entrepreneurial drought,\" why food processing productivity is falling behind the US, and where he sees the sector heading\n●     Desiree Dupuis on walking away from the seaweed business she built and pivoting into cactus-leather footwear, and the sustainability throughline connecting both\n●     Caroline Schaller on eight years and three Okanagan wineries, chronic labour shortages, and prepping for harvest under wildfire risk\n●     Fraser MacDonald on tuna fishing 100 miles offshore, fuel costs that tripled in...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/wh8IdlCT-04Lbt7oYioqOf1f0XOAqrycLUx4xhXkeT0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xMjBi/NzYzY2U0Y2RkYzlh/MTEzMjYxZDVkOTVm/Y2MwYy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}