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Art Borups Corners

Northwestern Ontario Living Lab
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Home / Food Security and Innovation

Food Security and Innovation

Our Food Security & Climate Resilience Program empowers Indigenous and Northern communities through land-based, sustainable agriculture and food innovation. Originally piloted in 2024 with funding from the Manitoba Agriculture Indigenous Food Systems and Agriculture Program and the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, this initiative weaves together traditional knowledge, regenerative practices, and climate entrepreneurship—fuelled by the creativity of the arts. In 2025 the program expanded to work with Northwestern Ontario, Minnesota and Nunavut.

Reclaiming Food Sovereignty through Living Labs, Sustainable Agriculture and Creative Leadership

From local food production and preservation to the development of culturally relevant food products and community-led agri-innovation, the program strengthens food sovereignty while building skills and pathways for the next generation of land stewards, artists, and changemakers. By connecting agriculture, climate action, and artistic expression, we’re growing a resilient, just, and thriving food future—rooted in community, culture, and care.

Farming scientists warn that Ottawa's plan to cut regional labs and organic research programs will leave Canadian crops highly vulnerable to climate change.
Food Security and Innovation

Agriculture experts warn federal research cuts will stall crop innovation and soil protection

Agricultural experts warn that closing regional research stations will permanently disrupt crop innovation and soil conservation efforts.
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Canada allocates less than one percent of public spending to agriculture compared to the international G7 standard.
Food Security and Innovation

Redesigning Broken Safety Nets for Agriculture

Canadian environmental compliance regulations backfire by adding heavy administrative burdens that actively drive down agricultural program enrollment numbers.
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Debt ratios now exceed thirty percent as corporate retailers shift financial burdens backward onto small family farms.
Food Security and Innovation

The Collapse of Farm Succession in Canada

Canada faces a major structural crisis as the national farm renewal rate drops to twenty four percent.
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Domestic fruit growers face severe financial distress after operating at an outright net loss for consecutive years.
Food Security and Innovation

The Squeeze on Canadian Agriculture

Canadian greenhouse profit margins plummeted from nine percent to five percent due to rampant input cost inflation.
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Charles Félix-Ross: "Producers are good managers. They can manage risk, but they can't manage a war or an exceptional weather event," said Charles-Félix Ross, general manager of the Union des producteurs agricoles, adding that federal research cuts compound the lack of on-farm resilience tools.
Food Security and Innovation

Living Lab Cuts Cutting the Lifeline

Federal research budget cuts threaten Canada's living laboratories initiative designed to test climate-resilient farming practices directly onsite.
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After a long, frosty winter in Northwestern Ontario, our tiny apple seedlings are officially waking up and showing off their first vibrant buds of the season.
Food Security and Innovation

Rooting for Success

Our Tiny Apple Orchard Survives Its First Northern Winter! The wait is finally over, and the results are in: nature is resilient! After a long,…
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Parliamentary committee members and witnesses warn that ignoring Indigenous farming talent severely undermines Canada's broader national food security goals.
Food Security and Innovation

Agriculture Cuts: Left Off the Land

Underfunding traditional harvesting programs blocks vulnerable northern communities from reclaiming local food sovereignty during supply chain crises.
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Leaders urge Ottawa to establish stabilized, Indigenous-led agricultural funds rather than relying on temporary short-term grant injections.
Food Security and Innovation

Excluded at the Checkbox

Systemic institutional neglect of the fastest-growing demographic in Canadian agriculture directly threatens critical national economic reconciliation goals.
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Parliamentarians argue that underfunding agricultural science compromises national food sovereignty and long-term rural economic survival.
Food Security and Innovation

Federal Agriculture Cuts: Seeds of Austerity

Budget cuts to federal agricultural research are leaving Canadian farmers exposed to severe, escalating climate change threats.
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Charles Félix-Ross: "Producers are good managers. They can manage risk, but they can't manage a war or an exceptional weather event," said Charles-Félix Ross, general manager of the Union des producteurs agricoles, adding that federal research cuts compound the lack of on-farm resilience tools.
Food Security and Innovation

The $2.76 Safety Net

Private lenders are turning away viable agricultural operations because broken federal programs offer zero reliable risk insurance.
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The Under $100 Art Show is coming to Winnipeg, Manitoba August 13-16, 2026!
The Under $100 Art Show is coming to Winnipeg, Manitoba August 13-16, 2026!

ART BORUPS CORNERS SOCIETY

Art Borups Corners is a non-profit arts incubator based in Melgund Township, Northwestern Ontario. We bring artists, youth, and local residents together through hands-on creative projects, workshops, and storytelling rooted in everyday life in the North. Our focus is on making space for people to try things, share skills, and build confidence through art that grows out of where they live.


We’re also a place for testing ideas and working across different ways of making — from land-based practice to digital work and everything in between. Much of what we do happens through partnerships and shared projects, connecting local creative work with wider conversations while keeping things grounded, practical, and community-led.


BN: 790519573RC0001

ESTABLISHED WITH FUNDING FROM

Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse Logo

This program was seeded with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse program. This program allowed us to explore strategic arts innovation, capacity building and new technologies. Programming was also supported by the OpenAI Researcher Access Program, the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects Program and the Province of Ontario. We thank them for their support.

PROGRAMMING SEEDED BY

Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects Program
Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects Program
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