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

2025-03-19 22:12:53 | Article | 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...

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 | Article | 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...

SWFS - Crisis of legitimacy and challenges for food policy

2025-03-19 22:03:49 | Article | Contributor(s): Mustafa Koç | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.108

Looking into the food system through the lens of food security, the first decade of the 21st Century was a period of broken promises, distrust, as well as fear and anxiety due to multiple crises in the financial markets—in the agri-food sector and in global politics. I will argue that this...

Community Review: A little regulatory pluralism with your counter-hegemonic advocacy? Blending analytical frames to construct joined-up food policy in Canada

2025-03-19 22:03:48 | Review | Contributor(s): Rod MacRae, Mark Winfield | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v3i1.60

Canadian food policy is deficient in many ways. First, there is neither national joined-up food policy, nor much supporting food policy architecture at the provincial and municipal levels. Second, there is no roadmap for creating such policy changes. And third, we don’t have an analytical...

Constituting community through food charters: A rhetorical-genre analysis

2025-03-19 22:03:47 | Article | Contributor(s): Philippa Spoel, Colleen Derkatch | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v3i1.144

Communities across Canada are increasingly developing food charters, with at least 22 regional charters published in Ontario alone. As a rhetorical genre, food charters are persuasive actions that articulate not only the kind of food system to which a community aspires, but also the kind of...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

Integrative Governance for Ecological Public Health: An Analysis of ‘Food Policy for Canada’ (2015-2019)

2025-03-19 22:03:18 | Article | Contributor(s): Peter Andree, Patricia Ballamingie, Mary Coulas | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v8i2.450

Normatively grounded in the ecological public health paradigm, this paper speaks to the role of public policy in addressing food and nutrition-related health challenges through a critical analysis of the 2019 Food Policy for Canada (FPC). We draw on primary data gathered through a SSHRC-funded...

FLEdGE (Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged) Partnership

2025-03-19 22:03:17 | Essay | Contributor(s): Alison Blay-Palmer | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v8i2.539

The Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (FLEdGE) SSHRC-funded Partnership has deep roots in relationships developed over time among academics and community-based practitioners. FLEdGE emerged from community-driven research in Ontario on food hubs and community resilience dating from 2010....

Linking Fisheries Policy to Sustainable Diets: The Case of Lake Superior

2025-03-19 22:03:17 | Article | Contributor(s): Kristen Lowitt | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v8i2.449

The contribution of fisheries to food systems are largely absent from conceptions of sustainable food systems. At the root of this problem is that fisheries are often seen in terms of maximizing economic efficiency rather than local food security. This perspective piece engages with...

Meaning as Motivator to Address Distancing in the Food System

2025-03-19 22:03:17 | Article | Contributor(s): Karen Rideout | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v8i2.442

Distancing in the food system prevents people from having full knowledge and making informed choices about what and how they produce, exchange, prepare, and eat food. This becomes problematic when the dominant industrial food system contributes to myriad negative human health, ecological, and...

Wayne Roberts: Food systems thinker, public intellectual, “actionist”

2025-03-19 22:03:16 | Article | Contributor(s): Charles Levkoe, Patricia Ballamingie | https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v8i3.515

Wayne Roberts (1944–2021) was a food systems thinker, public intellectual, and “actionist.” This text was developed from a series of oral history interviews conducted between December 2020 and January 2021. It touches upon several of the key themes Wayne addressed during the interviews:...