USC Canada Information

USC Canada seeks to make positive change in the food system by working with small-scale farmers in 12 countries around the world. Through sustainable agriculture, USC Canada's Seeds of Survival (SoS) program promotes food sovereignty, strong communities and healthy ecosystems. In partnership with local farmer empowerment organizations, USC Canada focuses on activities that build food and livelihood security for small-scale farmers and preserve the agricultural biodiversity necessary to feeding a growing and changing planet. The first objective of SoS is to ensure a secure source of food and livelihood for small-scale farmers without losing the resources essential for sustaining it - the soil, the water and the health of the planet. The second and equally important goal is to promote crop diversity. This unique and award-winning approach embodies our values of rights, resilience and respect. It also rests on a systems perspective that recognizes the connections between agricultural biodiversity, climate change adaptation and mitigation, rural economies, gender equality and youth empowerment. These five lenses are applied to all of USC Canada's work with small-scale farmers to attain food sovereignty. USC Canada was founded by Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova in 1945 as the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada.