Harvest season may be over in Canada, but for activist farmers the work is never done. In fact, winter can be just as busy a season as spring or fall as they advocate for long-term policy changes that are increasingly urgent.

Since its election last year, the federal Liberal government has committed to public consultations on a number of topics (recently I counted more than 80 still open), including agriculture and food. By November 30, the online consultations to hopefully inform a new agricultural framework will be closed. You still have a few weeks to participate if you are interested.

Land use, access to agricultural land, and who owns and stewards land, are key issues in food production. But, it is another one of those issues that is complex and takes time to unravel. And it knows no borders -- meaning that the impact of land concentration is happening in the South as well as the North.

In recent years the word "land-grabbing" has entered our lexicon. Land-grabbing is a growing concern because it determines not only access but also how land is used.

"Land-grabbing" is a term coined by GRAIN, a small international non-profit organization founded to support small farmers and community-controlled food systems.

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In recent months, there have been a number of announcements related to genetically modified (GM) crops. It's these events that have inspired me to write about GM crops now.

Genetic modification is the introduction of new traits to an organism by making changes to its genetic makeup -- essentially by manipulating DNA.