In December of 2009, restaurateur and local food activist Lil MacPherson was part of a delegation of Nova Scotians, along with 50,000 other people from 191 countries, who attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Here are some of her impressions.

In 2008 Copenhagen was singled out as the most livable city in the world. We learned that more than one-third of all citizens commute to work by bicycle, perhaps the reason why the people are so damn good-looking! Organic products are everywhere. According to the city's regional-planning goals for ecological health and livability, about 45% of the food consumed in municipal institutions is organic. City planners have targeted doubling this figure by 2015. Plans are afoot to increase the prevalence of organic food consumed throughout the city from about 7% to at least 20%. This is claimed to be a world record.

Don't underestimate the power of organics. Organic soil captures and stores more carbon dioxide at much higher levels than the soil from conventional factory farms. Consider this: If just corn and soybeans were grown organically, it would remove more than 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Did you know that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce just one pound of meat?

For me, the connection between climate change and food is where the rubber hits the road. The talk in Atlantic Canada, for example, is all about energy security. For me, energy security is food security. Food security is what holds society together. Without food, we perish. If conditions were to change dramatically—say, if fuel prices rise drastically (economist Jeff Rubin predicts this will happen in the next three years) or we get hit with a major catastrophe—where will our food come from?

In this province and around the region we speak of self-sufficiency, but we are far from it where food is concerned. We rely on large centralized systems to deliver what we take for granted every day. With the growing loss of farmland and farming businesses, we're setting ourselves up for a risk we don't have to take. Much of what we grow in Nova Scotia is far superior and healthier than any other foods we buy from elsewhere.

Still, did you know that you'd have to eat three of today's apples to get the same nutritional value of a single apple grown when our parents were growing up in the 1940s? It's time to strengthen our local agriculture networks, save our farms, and restore the nutritional power of food. We can take responsibility for making this happen by thinking about what we eat and where it comes from.

Lil MacPherson is the co-owner of the Wooden Monkey Restaurant in Halifax. She is a founding member and chair of the Nova Scotia network of BALLE (Business Alliance for Living Local Economies) and a climate change presenter personally trained by Al Gore.