Our Board

Cameron Stiff, President

Cameron is passionate about the development of sustainable, local and healthy food systems. He has been working on environmental issues for over 12 years, focusing on climate, food systems, waste management, and community development. He is currently the Director of Finance and Development for Compost Montreal, Treasurer of Regeneration Canada, and Secretary of the board of the Urban Agriculture Lab (AU/Lab).

JJ Corker, Treasurer

Following studies in English Literature, JJ Corker became enamoured with agriculture by reading the poetry of Virgil, Wendell Berry, and John Clare. He later spent five years in England, where he received a diploma in Biodynamic Agriculture and then worked on a vegetable farm, a polyculture vineyard in the south of France, and an orchard with 3,000 laying hens, dozens of beehives and the best apples he’s ever eaten. He is very happy to be joining a group of dedicated individuals trying to bring food security to the region.

Adrian Burke, Secretary

Adrian is an archaeologist and a professor at Université de Montréal in the Department of Anthropology, with a lot of experience working for food-based organizations. When he lived in the USA, he was a working member of the Honest Weight Food Coop in Albany, NY, the second largest member run food coop in the USA, for six years, and a board member for one. He worked as a member of the Regional Farm and Food non-profit for four years, where he organized farm visits and started the first farmer's market in the Capital district - still running in Troy, NY. He also worked on the new USDA organic certification. I also helped start and hosted most of the time a farm radio show on WRPI. (I have 4 years of experience in radio)
But maybe most important of all, he has been vegetable gardening since he was 10 years old (withpictures to prove it!). When he lived in the city, he had a community garden plot for many years. Now, living in Hudson, he currently grows a lot of his food.

Itzel Vazquez, Director

Itzel grew up on a farm was brought up with traditional foodways. As a child, she grew up eating only small-scale ecologically-raised meat. Thirteen years ago when she was pregnant with her first child, she became more aware and concerned with the industrial food system. For the past ten years she has intentionally eaten a diet that is over 90% organic. For the past eight she has worked on eating as local as possible, which may explain why she seems to personally know every local or organic producer and merchant around. Her value-driven approach to cooking, especially when it comes to sourcing her ingredients shines through in her work as the Head Chef of the HFC Harvest Parties and the Food Transformation Project Coordinator.

Noel Dhingra, Director

(Bio forthcoming)

Freya Mackenzie, Director

With a background in the arts, Freya has worked on several organic farms in Quebec and was responsible for greenhouse operations at La Ferme Écologique D3Pierres. In 2013, she became a certified permaculture designer and pioneered the GardenVale Permaculture Garden in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, a community garden initiative designed along permaculture principles and part of the municipality's sustainability programme. Mother of three, Freya is now transforming her own 1 acre property in Rigaud into a productive, multilayered tree forest.

Nick Tosaj, Director

Nick is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Toronto and teaches at John Abbott College as a member of the History, Economics and Political Science department. His work focuses primarily on the place of bread, wheat and staple carbohydrates in the modern French colonial empire. More broadly, as a food studies specialist Nick is interested in food systems, sustainability and decolonization. He is a member of the Culinaria Research Centre and a participant in the Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery as well as being an avid baker and amateur gardener. A new arrival to Hudson, Nick is excited to work alongside members of the Hudson Food Collective towards producing a more sustainable food system in Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

Frances Michaelson, Director