Food charters have been one means of mobilizing critical food guidance relevant discussions among stakeholders and policy makers in rural areas.  As actors in the rural food system of Grey and Bruce counties, we describe the counties' charter development led by the Food Security Action Group.  We deepen discussion of each of the six domains (health, social justice, culture, education, sustainable economic development, and environment) through examples of alternative food initiatives and practices, which both informed the charter and were supported by it.  We emphasize the cross-domain synergies realized as examples of critical food guidance, while cautioning about the constraints facing county efforts in the face of ongoing changes at provincial to global levels that are not consonant with the Food Charter vision.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Cole, D., Needham, L., Markowitz, P., (2025), "A food charter as a critical food guidance tool in a rural area: The case of Bruce and Grey Counties in Southwestern Ontario", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v9i1.497)

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1. agriculture
2. food charter
3. food security
4. rural
5. sustainability

Original publication: Cole, Donald; Needham, Laura; Markowitz, Philly. "A food charter as a critical food guidance tool in a rural area: The case of Bruce and Grey Counties in Southwestern Ontario." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 9, no. 1, 2022. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v9i1.497. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.