• Coordinator: Lucy Sharratt coordinator@cban.ca 902 209 4906 (ADT)

   

• Research & Campaigns: Taarini Chopra campaigns@cban.ca
• Campaigns: Fionna Tough outreach@cban.ca

Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator

Here is a short bio (please use this to introduce Lucy at events):

Lucy Sharratt works in Halifax as the Coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, also known as CBAN. CBAN brings together 15 groups to research, monitor and raise awareness about issues relating to genetic engineering in food and farming. CBAN members include farmer associations, environmental and social justice organizations, and regional coalitions of grassroots groups. Lucy previously worked as a campaigner and researcher on this issue at the Sierra Club of Canada and the Polaris Institute in Ottawa. Lucy also coordinated the International Ban Terminator Campaign which secured a strengthened global moratorium on genetically engineered sterile seed technology.

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Here is more detailed information about CBAN’s Coordinator:

Lucy Sharratt has extensive experience as a researcher and campaigner with organizations concerned about genetic engineering and global justice issues. She worked as Coordinator for the International Ban Terminator Campaign (the international moratorium on Terminator at the United Nations was upheld and strengthened in this phase of the campaign).

Lucy was the Coordinator of the Safe Food/Sustainable Agriculture Campaign at the Sierra Club of Canada and worked as a researcher for the BioJustice Project of the Polaris Institute in Ottawa. She also worked as Project Manager for Voices from the South, a project of the Working Group on Canadian Science and Technology Policy, which focused on issues raised by genetic engineering in the Global South.

She worked at the local level as a volunteer with Food Action Ottawa on many issues including the successful campaign against Bovine Growth Hormone. Before moving to Ottawa from St. John’s Newfoundland, Lucy led youth education and action initiatives on global justice issues. Lucy has extensive experience at United Nations negotiations, representing civil society groups, most recently at the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Lucy has a Master’s degree from the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University where she wrote her thesis on the regulation of genetically engineered foods and crops in Canada. She is the author of “No to Bovine Growth Hormone: A Story of Resistance from Canada” in Redesigning Life? The Worldwide Challenge to Genetic Engineering, edited by Brian Tokar (London: Zed Books, 2001) and co-author with Dr. Peter Andree of “Unsatisfactory Democracy: Conflict Over Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Wheat” in Environmental Conflict and Democracy in Canada edited by Laurie E. Adkin (UBC Press, 2009.).

In 2006 Lucy was nominated by E. Ann Clark for “Best Peoples Defense” in the Captain Hook Awards in the subcategory of “On a Shoestring”.

Taarini Chopra, Research & Campaigns

Taarini Chopra joined CBAN in 2013 as a researcher and campaigner. Taarini also works at Seeds of Diversity Canada. She has been working on issues related to food politics, international development and genetic engineering for several years, and has completed graduate research on the politics and policy of genetically engineered cotton in India.

Before joining CBAN, Taarini worked as the associate editor for the national environmental magazine, Alternatives Journal. She has also worked as an independent writer and editor for several environmental and agricultural groups and researchers in India and Canada, and as a researcher with the Global Food Politics Group at the University of Waterloo. Taarini has worked on two organic farms in Ontario, and was the co-chair of the Waterloo Region Food Systems Roundtable.

Fionna Tough, Campaigns

Fionna Tough is a Settler of mixed-European descent, born and raised in Sudbury/N’Swakamok, located on Atikameksheng Anishnawbek Territory within the Robinson Huron Treaty lands of Northern Ontario.

After studying Linguistics & Social Science at U of T, she headed to Peterborough for more hands-on education in eco-construction and agriculture. She is a graduate of Fleming College’s Sustainable Agriculture Program (2013) and has been growing food and educating others to do the same since completing the program. She has led the establishment of three community farms in the Sudbury region and has offered leadership to the Sudbury Community Garden Network, the Foodshed Project, and a youth-driven food system collaborative, the New Roots Collective. In 2021, Fionna began studying Project Management at Cambrian College and she is currently completing a Diploma in Practical Herbalism through the Wild Rose College of Herbal Medicine.