Across the globe, governments are rethinking food policy in the face of climate change, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical instability, and rising food prices. In many cases, this reassessment has taken the form of renewed interest in food self-sufficiency, often framed in nationalist terms. While this shift reflects legitimate concerns about vulnerability and dependence, it also risks narrowing policy debates to questions of how much food can be produced within national borders.

Jamaica’s experience suggests that food self-sufficiency is limited when a country is closely interlinked to the global economy.

In the previous post, I outlined the concepts of food self-sufficiency and food self-reliance, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between production-based metrics and broader questions of capacity, agency, and resilience. This post turns to Jamaica’s domestic food system as a concrete illustration of these ideas and shows that food self-reliance is not a newly revived concept, but one that has deep intellectual, political, and historical roots in the Caribbean, with distinct relevance for today.

Recent global trends are bringing the idea of a country feeding itself back into sharp focus in public policy and community action. Yet the idea of a country feeding its own people is hardly new. Food self-sufficiency and food self-reliance were once central to development thinking in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the Caribbean, before falling out of favour with the rise of globalization and neoliberalism. Today, the terms have returned to policy and academic debates. But what do they mean? In this post, I unpack the concepts of food self-sufficiency and food self-reliance, how they differ and their relevance in the current global context.

What an adventure. I spent most of 2025 pregnant and we welcomed our son into the world in October. My main goal was to approach pregnancy and parenthood as what philosopher Laurie Paul describes as a transformative experience.

This post details my canning and food preservation progress in 2025, with recipes where I have them.

This year, I was in full nesting mode during canning season. Every year I think, “I’m not going to do too much canning because of x, y or z.” Then the spirits of my mother, grandmother, etc. overtake me completely, and I find myself at the market buying 40 lbs. of tomatoes.

This was the best year; one of abundance. My main goal this year was: to be present at my wedding. It was, by far, the best experience of my life. I still can’t believe how my community showed up for Matt and I.

Silvana Juri, Naomi Terry and Laura Pereira from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, recently published an excellent paper reviewing the state of the emerging field of food systems transformation.

The paper offers a clear definition of food systems transformation that’s helpful for policymaking and further research on the topic…

Anyone who has worked on food or studied food in the past decade has found themselves faced with the term food systems. But what are they? And why should we think about food this way? Why do we need to ‘transform’ food systems, and what does this mean?

2023 was a special year. The highlight, by far, was getting engaged to my incredible partner. It happened at our favourite winter cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was joyful and perfect. Planning our wedding has been equally wonderful, thanks to a good friend’s recommendation to read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering.

Despite six months of winter, there are wonderful places to access local food in Manitoba. I still make the occasional trip to support Canada’s corporate grocery barons, but these options help my household eat well and support the local food system. 

2022 was a great year. My main focus was to gather with friends and family at home, something we hadn’t been able to do in a few years. We travelled to a few places in Canada and I learned how to do diagonal stride at my ski club. Here were a few of my favourite things:

This post includes my successful application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and some tips on applying.

Originally posted by Beth Timmers on the Food System Roundtable of Waterloo Region’s blog on October 4, 2018.

Visit the Indigenous Student Centre at St. Paul’s University College at noon any given Thursday and you’ll be welcomed with a bowl of homemade soup and fry bread. You may sit next to a colleague you haven’t seen in months, your favourite Indigenous author, or your local political official. But be on time; arrive late, and you may not get a seat.

Originally posted on the University of Manitoba’s Food System Student Symposium blog on May 8, 2018.

In the spring of 2017, NPR covered Puerto Rico’s burgeoning local food movement. The amount of land cultivated to grow food had risen by 50% in four years after a 60-year decline. People were starting to grow a wide range of food on small farms. Restauranteurs were buying it, creating a sophisticated, creative farm-to-table food scene. Puerto Rico, like many other Caribbean countries, imports between 80-85% of its food, but this movement gave hope for a more sustainable food system. Then, on September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria touched down in Puerto Rico, destroying around 80% of the country’s crop value.

Originally posted on the University of Waterloo’s GRADVenture blog on March 7, 2018.

A great way to get leadership experience as a grad student is to join a board of directors. In this post, I’ll share my experience as a director with the University of Waterloo’s Graduate Student Association (GSA).

Originally posted on the University of Waterloo’s GRADVenture blog on April 27, 2017.

When I started my PhD, I’ll admit I was afraid of becoming an armchair academic – pulled out of the field for four years, rapidly losing the skills I learned working as an applied researcher. Then, I won a fieldwork grant. It was an unexpected opportunity to build program management skills during my studies.

Originally posted on the Food System Roundtable of Waterloo Region’s blog in May, 2016.

In 2013, the New York Times described Jamaica’s annual USD 1 BN food import bill as ‘budget-busting’ and a looming threat to food security[1].  Any Canadian snowbird travelling to Jamaica can see evidence of imported food on the buffet table at their all-inclusive resort. But Jamaica’s food system is much more complex, rooted in a long history of colonialism, slavery and global trade.