“This brings meaning and purpose to the lessons:” : Teachers’ and facilitators’ perspectives on the joys and challenges of school garden programs in south-eastern Ontario

2025-03-19 22:12:58 | Contributor(s): Janette Haase, Elaine Power | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.600

School garden programs (SGPs) offer students opportunities to experience and participate in the processes of nature and agriculture through hands-on learning in a wide variety of outdoor settings. Although the value of school gardens has been well documented, there is little-to-no concrete...

Food system resilience during COVID-19: The role of local producers in rural Canada

2025-03-19 22:12:58 | Contributor(s): Kelli Weinkauf, Tracy Everitt | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.594

Over the last 70 years, Canadian agriculture has shifted from many small farms that supplied local residents, to fewer large farms designed to maximize production, reduce cost, and target international markets. At present, small local food chains exist as a small fraction of the Canadian food...

Growing local: Gardening for community food security, preliminary results

2025-03-19 22:12:58 | Contributor(s): Janet Music, Lisa Mullins, Sylvain Charlebois, Charlotte Large | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.582

Home food gardening has seen a resurgence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article presents the preliminary findings from the first 6 months of a 22-month home food gardening study in Nova Scotia, Canada. Participant home food gardeners were asked to log their weekly gardening...

“Moving from understanding to action on food security in Inuit Nunangat”: : ArcticNet, 5th December 2022, Toronto, ON

2025-03-19 22:12:57 | Contributor(s): Angus Naylor, Tiff-Annie Kenny, Chris Furgal, Dorothy Beale, Duncan Warltier, Marie-Hélène Carignan, Lynn Blackwood, Brian Wade, Gabriela Goodman, Jordyn Stafford, Matthew Little | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.643

This Commentary details key challenges and opportunities relating to the promotion of food security in Inuit Nunangat, discussed as part of the event “Moving from understanding to action on food security in Inuit Nunangat”, convened at the ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting on 5th December...

Transitioning to a public-minded food system: Public food infrastructure's role in creating healthy communities

2025-03-19 22:12:57 | Contributor(s): Matilda Dipieri | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.611

A vision for a more sustainable, just, and health-promoting food system comes from scholars, activist organizations, and communities alike. However, creating infrastructure and implementing policy that allows for the transition to a healthy, community-minded system comes with significant...

Generations of gardeners regenerating the soil of sovereignty in Moose Cree First Nation: An account of community and research collaboration

2025-03-19 22:12:56 | Contributor(s): Michael Robidoux, Keira A. Loukes, Emalee A. Vandermale, Tegan J. Keil, Janice Cindy Gaudet | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i3.637

The challenges northern remote communities in Canada face acquiring regular access to affordable and healthy food have been well documented. Our Indigenous Health Research Group, made up of an informal network of researchers from universities across Canada, has partnered with northern...

Food system resilience tested: The impact of COVID-19 on a major node in North America’s produce supply chains

2025-03-19 22:12:55 | Contributor(s): Sarah Elton, Evan Fraser, Ruth Siew | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i3.626

At the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many warned that the resilience of the global, industrial food system would be tested. We conducted regular interviews in 2020 with key actors at the Ontario Food Terminal, North America’s third largest produce wholesale market, to better understand...

Exploring collaboration within Edmonton's City Table on Household Food Insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic

2025-03-19 22:12:55 | Contributor(s): Alexa Rae Ferdinands, Oleg Lavriv, Mary Beckie, Maria Mayan | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i3.627

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been unprecedented attention and funding toward addressing household food insecurity (HFI) in Canada. In Edmonton, a virtual "City Table" was developed to coordinate the myriad of HFI responses and begin to explore and address systemic issues underlying...

Le territoire agroalimentaire en tant qu’attrait touristique au Québec: Réflexion à l’égard des représentations d’une destination gourmande à partir du concept de terroir

2025-03-19 22:12:54 | Contributor(s): Ronaldo Tavares de Souza, Pascale Marcotte, Laurent Bourdeau | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i3.612

Terroir products are characterized by the uniqueness of the territory where they are produced. This uniqueness is used to promote them, but it may also serve to trigger the interest of individuals in this territory. Starting in Europe and linked to wine, the concept of terroir is expanding all...

Opportunities and challenges for school food programs in Canada: Lessons from the United States

2025-03-19 22:12:53 | Contributor(s): Amberley T. Ruetz, Janet Poppendieck | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.665

As Canada works towards developing a national school food program, it is timely to examine the lessons learned from the programs of other countries. Analyzing these insights can help Canada avoid key pitfalls and replicate promising practices in program design and implementation. The...

Food insecurity in books for children: A qualitative content analysis

2025-03-19 22:12:53 | Contributor(s): Dian Day | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.654

Issues of class and poverty are largely absent from children’s fiction and from elementary school curricula, even though, in Canada, one in every five children live in food insecure households. This paper examines the limited number of middle grade children’s books that feature depictions of...

Envisioning a community food hub to support food security: A community engagement process at a post-secondary institute

2025-03-19 22:12:53 | Contributor(s): Sarah Clement, Sara Kozicky, Cassandra Hamilton, Rachel Murphy | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.645

Objective: The objective of this community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) project was to gain an in-depth understanding of the needs, interest and opportunities that exist within a post-secondary institution with respect to supporting food security among students via a food hub....

The framing of food in Canadian university classrooms: A preliminary analysis of undergraduate human nutrition sciences, dietetics, and food studies syllabi

2025-03-19 22:12:53 | Contributor(s): Andrea Bombak, Michelle Adams, Sierra Garofalo, Constance Russell, Emma Robinson, Barbara Parker, Natalie Riediger, Erin Cameron | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.659

There are numerous “positivity” movements circulating such as sex positivity and body positivity that affect how sexuality and bodies are discussed, including in educational contexts. These movements have provided alternative discourses that challenge constructions of sexualities and bodies as...

A review of food asset maps in Canada

2025-03-19 22:12:51 | Contributor(s): Belinda Li, Tammara Soma, Raghava Payment, Srishti Kumar, Nicole Anderson, Flora Xu, Phonpoom Piensatienkul | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.655

Food asset mapping is gaining prominence in Canada as an important planning tool for the evaluation of local food systems. In addition to being used by planners to identify opportunities for improved food security, food asset maps are also valuable references for sourcing food locally,...

Balancing acts: : Unpacking mothers’ experiences and meanings of school lunch packing

2025-03-19 22:12:51 | Contributor(s): Seri Niimi-Burch, Jennifer Black | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.651

While Canadian policy makers are considering expanding school food programs in Canada, parents remain primarily responsible for packing lunches. Although women perform disproportionate amounts of foodwork, including feeding their children on school days, little research has investigated...

Sovereignty of and through food: A decolonial feminist political ecology of Indigenous food sovereignty in Treaty 9

2025-03-19 22:12:50 | Contributor(s): Keira A. Loukes | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.660

“Food sovereignty,” a term conceived by peasant agriculturalists in South America, has become ubiquitous worldwide in academic and activist circles advocating for greater local control over local food. Its use has been adopted by various actors in North America, most notably by...

Negotiating farm femininity in agricultural leadership

2025-03-19 22:12:50 | Contributor(s): Jennifer Braun, Ken Caine, Mary Anne Beckie | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.646

A growing number of women in the Canadian Prairie region are advancing into leadership roles in agriculture, which remains a predominantly male domain. In this research we explore how professionally and managerially employed women in agriculture in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and...

Can historians order off the menu?: A method for historical menu analysis

2025-03-19 22:12:50 | Contributor(s): Koby Song-Nichols | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.682

While historians have used menus to tell part of the histories of restaurants, little guidance has been provided on how we should approach these unique culinary documents. This lack of instruction becomes more apparent in light of the impressive amount of archival work and digitization of...

Urgency to secure funding for the promised national school food program amidst the rise of food costs and chronic disease

2025-03-19 22:12:49 | Contributor(s): Flora Zhang, Amberley T. Ruetz, Eric Ng | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.681

An overwhelming number of Canadians believe that a national school food program (SFP) would benefit children, but concerns around limited funding are frequently raised. SFPs across Canada are struggling to meet increasing demands due to rising food costs, meaning that food quality and quantity...

Reimagining recipes for food studies: Enriching—not spoiling—the broth

2025-03-19 22:12:49 | Contributor(s): Stephanie Chartrand, Laurence Hamel-Charest, Raihan Hassen, Anson Hunt, noura nasser, Kelsey Speakman, David Szanto | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i2.678

This perspective is a continuation of a conversation started during “Reimagining Food, Food Systems, and Food Studies,” a plenary session in which we, the authors, participated at the eighteenth annual assembly of the Canadian Association for Food Studies (CAFS). Assessing current...