Island Lecture Series: “The ‘Family Farm’: A Keyword in Prince Edward Island Land Politics.”

The next Island Lecture Series, hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI, will feature guest speaker Heidi Haering presenting “The ‘Family Farm’: A Keyword in Prince Edward Island Land Politics.”

The lecture will take place in the Faculty Lounge of Main Building on the UPEI campus on May 20 at 7 pm. (This lecture was originally scheduled for March but was postponed due to weather.) Admission is free, and all are welcome.

Haering’s talk will explore the struggle to define the “family farm” in PEI, and how this ambiguity helps—or hinders—the work of farmers, agribusiness, and government. She will discuss how participants’ definitions of the “family farm” often contrasted with how they actually farmed and were sometimes at odds with their ideals. The talk will also shed light on why agribusiness and governments may turn to the pastoral romanticism of the “family farm.”

Heidi Haering lives in Charlottetown and recently completed her MA in Anthropology at Memorial University. Her thesis is titled “Three Keywords in the Campaign Against Farmland Consolidation and the Loss of Small Farms: Through the Lens of the Prince Edward Island Chapter of the National Farmers Union.”