Building joined-up agricultural policies: Lessons from Québec

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Article | 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...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Article | 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...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:37 | Article | 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....

The case for a Canadian national school food program

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Article | 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...

Can we eat our way to a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system?

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Review | Contributor(s): Barbara Seed, Cecilia Rocha | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.258

The food system is a major contributor to climate change, biodiversity loss, eutrophication and deforestation. This article examines national dietary guidelines as a way to shift dietary patterns in the population toward diets that continue to promote health while being more ecologically...

Pesticides: Le Talon d’Achille des politiques alimentaires canadiennes et québécoises

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Review | Contributor(s): Marie-Hélène Bacon, Louise Vandelac, Sébastien Petrie | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.274

Comment expliquer que le projet de politique alimentaire du Canada ignore le dossier des pesticides alors que la récente politique bioalimentaire du Québec évoque vaguement la question, mais sans engagements significatifs? Pourquoi évacuer ainsi l’analyse des enjeux et des effets sanitaires et...

New farmers and food policies in Canada

2025-03-19 22:03:36 | Article | 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...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Article | 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...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Article | 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...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:35 | Article | 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...

Federalism and fragmentation: Addressing the possibilities of a food policy for Canada

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Article | Contributor(s): Sarah Berger Richardson, Nadia Lambek | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.281

Canadian federalism poses unique challenges for the development of a national food policy. Under the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government and the provinces are granted powers to govern exclusively in certain areas and to share jurisdiction in others. Where one level of government has...

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

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Article | 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...

Special issue on building an integrated Food Policy for Canada: An open letter to the Canadian food policy community

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Essay | Contributor(s): Peter Andrée, Charles Z. Levkoe, Amanda Wilson | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.335

This editorial introduces the special issue of Canadian Food Studies, “Building an integrated Food Policy for Canada”. In a letter to the food policy community, the guest editors assert that the federal government’s development of a Food Policy for Canada will be just the beginning. Many...

Creating a local food procurement community of practice: The Alberta Flavour Learning Lab

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Report | Contributor(s): Mary Anne Beckie, Leanne Hedberg, Jessie Radies | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.267

In order for local food initiatives (LFIs) to have a transformative effect on the larger food system, greater levels of economic, organizational and physical scale are needed. One way for LFIs to reach the scale necessary to generate a more significant impact is through increased institutional...

Greening Canada’s Arctic food system: Local food procurement strategies for combating food insecurity

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Report | Contributor(s): Angel Chen, David Natcher | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.301

Across northern Canada community gardens and greenhouses are being used as alternatives to imported foods that are often unaffordable, are of compromised quality, or simply unavailable in local retail outlets. Community gardens and greenhouses are seen as part of the solution to lessen local...

Disruptive innovation and operationalization in local and sustainable food systems: Examining the University of Toronto-Local Food Plus partnership

2025-03-19 22:03:34 | Report | Contributor(s): Lori Stahlbrand | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.269

This paper traces the partnership between the University of Toronto and the non-profit Local Food Plus (LFP) to bring local sustainable food to its St. George campus. At its launch, the partnership represented the largest purchase of local sustainable food at a Canadian university, as well as...

Gleaning in the 21st Century: Urban food recovery and community food security in Ontario, Canada

2025-03-19 22:03:33 | Article | Contributor(s): Jennifer Marshman, Steffanie Scott | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.264

Historic gleaning activities in Europe took place in farmers’ fields where gleaners could collect the leftovers of the harvest. One of the primary motivations for modern gleaning in Canadian cities is to donate fresh food to local organizations such as food banks. As there is currently little...

Food procurement in English-language Canadian public schools: Opportunities and challenges

2025-03-19 22:03:33 | Article | Contributor(s): Shawna Holmes | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.265

This paper examines the changes to procurement for school food environments in Canada as a response to changes to nutrition regulations at the provincial level. Interviews with those working in school food environments across Canada revealed how changes to the nutrition requirements of foods...

Self-operated vs. corporate contract: A study of food procurement at two universities in Manitoba

2025-03-19 22:03:33 | Article | Contributor(s): Michaela Bohunicky, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, Meghan Entz | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.280

Public institutions are increasingly being pressured to demonstrate how they are meeting their responsibilities and obligations to sustainability. Yet there is little academic research on food procurement at universities in Canada. This article examines issues related to procurement of local...

The public plate in the transnational city: Tensions among food procurement, global trade and local legislation

2025-03-19 22:03:33 | Article | Contributor(s): Jennifer Sumner, Hayley Lapalme | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.268

Local food systems are crucial to sustainability, and one of the most effective ways to develop them is to harness the buying power of large public institutions, such as hospitals and universities.  Steering public funds toward local food systems, however, is not as easy as it might...