Urban Food Strategies has over 14 years of experience in providing project management and client services as well as content development, idea generation, research, engagement, assessment, writing, and design services. Janine leads and supports interdisciplinary teams, delivering over 60 healthy community and food system related projects to date.
Principal
Janine de la Salle
[ MA | MCIP | RPP ]
Janine de la Salle brings over 17 years of experience in building healthy communities and resilient food systems with government, university, private and non-profit sectors and is one of Canada’s leading and award-winning professionals in the field of food and agriculture system planning. As Principal of Urban Food Strategies, Janine leads and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to develop plans, strategies, policies, and designs to improve the resilience of social, economic, and environmental elements of food and agriculture systems. Janine frequently teaches and publishes in order to share frameworks, ideas, and inspirations drawn from leading over 70 projects in Western and Territorial Canada.
Associates
Urban Food Strategies also works closely with agrology, development, business planning, and design professionals in BC. Our Associates are innovators and leaders in their own fields and when combined with Urban Food Strategies form technically robust teams, custom designed to meet the unique needs of each community and project.
Our Approach
We take a collaborative approach to food systems change and innovation by engaging across sectors and disciplines to create evidence-based visions, plans, and designs that foster systemic shifts and innovation.
Identifying areas of common interest, especially between interests that are not wholly aligned, is a key strategy we use to contribute to the larger convergence around food, health, and local economic development. Our specialized team provides public, private, and non-profit, sectors with the tools and capacities to undertake a wide-range of initiatives from primary and secondary research, feasibility studies, early visioning, and strategic planning to process design, engagement, policy development, and site design.
As an example of this approach, in 2010 Urban Food Strategies team members collaborated with a large group of regional experts to publish a book on Agricultural Urbanism (AU) that sets out a framework for city building that focuses on community health and wealth. Agricultural Urbanism is in its third print run, selling over 2,500 copies internationally.