Supporting Inuit food security: A synthesis of initiatives in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Northwest Territories

2025-03-19 22:03:39 | Contributor(s): Tiff-Annie Kenny, Sonia D Wesche, Myriam Fillion, Jullian MacLean, Hing Man Chan | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.213

Food insecurity among Indigenous Peoples of northern Canada is a significant public health issue that is exacerbated by changing social and environmental conditions. While a patchwork of programs, strategies and polices exist, the extent to which they address all “pillars” of food security...

Climate change, community capitals, and food security: Building a more sustainable food system in a northern Canadian boreal community

2025-03-19 22:03:39 | Contributor(s): Andrew Spring, Blair Carter, Alison Blay-Palmer | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.199

Canada’s North offers unique food systems perspectives. Built on close cultural and spiritual ties to the land, the food systems within many northern communities still rely on the harvesting and gathering of traditional food and function through the sharing of food throughout the community....

“Aboriginal isn't just about what was before, it's what's happening now:” Perspectives of Indigenous peoples on the foods in their contemporary diets

2025-03-19 22:03:39 | Contributor(s): Lise Luppens, Elaine Power | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.219

Health promotion materials for Indigenous peoples generally recommend that Indigenous people incorporate more “traditional” foods into their diets, referring to foods that are hunted, fished or gathered from the local environment. Little scholarly attention has focused on which foods...

Exploring homelessness and Indigenous food Systems in northern British Columbia

2025-03-19 22:03:39 | Contributor(s): Julia Russell, Margot W. Parkes | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.212

People experiencing homelessness are known to be highly food insecure, but outside of emergency aid little is known about their overall experiences with food, particularly in Canada’s northern communities. This study examined experiences that influenced access to food for people experiencing...

Responsibilities and reflections: Indigenous food, culture, and relationships

2025-03-19 22:03:38 | Contributor(s): Tabitha Robin Martens | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.216

Understanding Indigenous food systems requires positioning ourselves in our own understanding of Indigenous food, culture, and place. The resurgence of Indigenous culture occurring around food, and the protection and revitalization of Indigenous food systems must be documented with a...

Toward anti-colonial food policy in Canada? (Im)possibilities within the settler state

2025-03-19 22:03:38 | Contributor(s): Lauren Kepkiewicz, Sarah Rotz | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.202

This perspective piece teases out some of the tensions between the development of a national food policy, which has gained significant traction in Canada over the past few years, and Indigenous food sovereignty, which long predates the Canadian government and its policies and has a rich...

First foods as Indigenous food sovereignty: Country foods and breastfeeding practices in a Manitoban First Nations community

2025-03-19 22:03:38 | Contributor(s): Jaime Cidro, Tabitha Robin Martens, Lynelle Zahayko, Herenia P. Lawrence | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i2.249

As a concept and in practice, Indigenous food sovereignty (IFS) offers insights into the social, cultural, and environmental challenges of a deficient food system. The associated poor health outcomes of this system include infant and child health issues such as early childhood caries and...

Tackling household food insecurity: An essential goal of a national food policy

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Naomi Dachner, Valerie Tarasuk | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.278

Eradicating household food insecurity is essential to the articulated vision of a national food policy that aims to promote healthy living and safe food for families across the country. Household food insecurity refers to the insecure or inadequate access to food due to financial constraints....

Settler colonialism and the (im)possibilities of a national food policy

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Sarah Rotz, Lauren Wood Kepkiewicz | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.275

In this perspectives piece we ask: is it possible for a national food policy to form the foundation for sustainable and equitable food systems in Canada? First, we argue that under the current settler government, such a policy does not provide this foundation. Second, we consider what is...

Building joined-up agricultural policies: Lessons from Québec

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Hugo Martorell, Elisabeth Abergel | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.322

In an effort to think about innovative and comprehensive federal food and agricultural policies, this commentary offers some insight into Québec’s integrated agricultural policy framework. In theory, key operating principles such as the precautionary principle, multifunctionality and...

The need for contextual, place-based food policies: Lessons from Northwestern Ontario

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Connie Nelson, Charles Z. Levkoe, Rachel Kakegamic | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.327

In recent years, several reports have highlighted the need for a national food policy that takes a comprehensive approach to addressing food systems (CAC, 2014; Levkoe & Sheedy, 2017; Martorell, 2017; UNGA, 2012). These findings suggest that, at the core, resilient food systems must be...

Closing the loop on Canada's National Food Policy: A food waste agenda

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Tammara Soma | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.314

In the near future, Canada will be implementing a national food policy; in doing so, it will be joining a growing number of countries with policies and strategies that address the growing problem of food waste. Food waste is a major economic drain estimated to cost Canada $31 billion dollars...

A food policy for Canada, but not just for Canadians: Reaping justice for migrant farm workers

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Anelyse M. Weiler | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.312

In this policy commentary, I highlight opportunities to advance equity and dignity for racialized migrant workers from less affluent countries who are hired through low-wage agricultural streams of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Core features of the program such as 'tied' work...

What about the other 50 percent of the Canadian population? Food allergies ignored in national policy plan

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Contributor(s): Susan Elliott, Francesca Cardwell | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.326

Food allergy is a growing public health epidemic in Canada, affecting 50 percent of Canadian households either directly or indirectly. Despite the physical, psychosocial and quality of life impacts to those affected, food allergy has recently been ignored in the Canadian policy context. While...

New farmers and food policies in Canada

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Contributor(s): Julia Laforge, Ayla Fenton, Virginie Lavalée-Picard, Stéphane McLachlan | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.288

As the demographics of farmers are shifting, the ways agricultural and food policies affect and influence the decision-making and behaviours of new farmers is also changing. At the same time, there is growing interest in contesting and rebuilding Canadian food systems to address environmental...

The case for a Canadian national school food program

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Contributor(s): Kimberley Hernandez, Rachel Engler-Stringer, Sara Kirk, Hannah Wittman, Sasha McNicholl | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.260

Canada is one of the only member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) without a national school food program. Good nutrition impacts children’s health, wellbeing, and learning; and school food environments offer an important setting to promote health...

Food Counts: Food systems report cards, food sovereignty and the politics of indicators

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Contributor(s): Charles Z. Levkoe, Alison Blay-Palmer | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.277

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems recognized that "current systems will be held in place insofar as these systems continue to be measured in terms of what industrial agriculture is designed to deliver, at the expense of many other outcomes that really matter in...

Food for thought: How trade agreements impact the prospects for a national food policy

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Contributor(s): Elizabeth Ann Smythe | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.282

This article examines the prospect for a national food policy through the lens of trade agreements and the concept of policy space. It traces the shrinking of domestic policy space in recent decades as a result of trade agreements. Advocates such as Food Secure Canada seek a “coherent” food...

Forever young? The crisis of generational renewal on Canada's farms

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Contributor(s): Darrin Qualman, A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, Sharada Srinivasan | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.284

There are fewer and fewer young people actively farming in Canada. Farmers under the age of 35 are leaving farming at twice the rate of the general farm population. As a result, Canada faces a crisis of generational renewal on its farms. This article explores the factors that mitigate against...

Governance recommendations from forty years of national food strategy development in Canada and beyond

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Contributor(s): Peter Andrée, Mary Coulas, Patricia Ballamingie | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.283

This paper contributes to Canada’s current national food policy discussion by introducing lessons gleaned from the development of two earlier Canadian government food policy efforts, A Food Strategy for Canada (1977) and Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security (1998), as well as lessons drawn...