Food Security, Justice, Sustainability, Sovereignty

• Food security is when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life.
• Food justice ensures the right to access healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food by addressing underlying structural inequities within the food system, which create insecurity and injustice.
• Food sustainability involves culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair, and affordable practices that protect biodiversity and ecosystems, while contributing to food security and healthy lives for present and future generations.
• Food sovereignty is the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, along with the right to define food and agriculture systems.

Food Justice Considerations

• Includes rights of Indigenous peoples.
• Aims to address economic inequalities.
• Aims to address social injustice based on race, color, gender, disability, sexual identity/orientation, and immigrant status.
• Includes rights of migrant agriculture workers and culturally diverse farmers.

Barriers to Food Access

• Affordability is a major barrier.
• Policies that perpetuate wealth and income disparity.
• Systemic forms of discrimination based on gender, age, race, disability, and religion.

Six Pillars of Food Sovereignty

• Works with nature by using diverse, low-input agroecological methods that maximize ecosystem production and improve resilience.
• Focuses on food for people, prioritizing those who are hungry, marginalized, or in conflict zones.
• Values food providers, bringing them closer to consumers, protecting them from food dumping and ensuring consumers have access to quality food.
• Localizes food systems, putting control closer to providers and consumers.
• Builds knowledge and skills.
• Puts control locally over territory, land, water, seeds, and livestock with local food providers.

Factors Contributing to Food Inflation

• Supply chain disruptions, including transportation issues and global trade restrictions.
• Climate change and extreme weather, like droughts and floods, reduce crop yields.
• Rising production costs due to increased expenses for fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel.
• Labor shortages in agriculture, food processing, and distribution.
• Geopolitical conflicts and trade policies disrupting agricultural exports.
• Increased demand for food due to population growth and changing dietary patterns.
• Currency fluctuations and general economic inflation increasing the price of goods and services.
• Corporate and market speculation, including investor activity and market monopolies.
• Pandemic aftereffects, with long-term disruptions from COVID-19.
• Government policies and subsidies, such as reducing food subsidies.

Food Insecurity in Canada

• 5.8 million Canadians, including 1.4 million children, lived in food-insecure households in 2021.
• 15.9% of households in the ten provinces were food-insecure in 2021.
• In 2022, 18.4% of people (6.9 million, including 1.8 million children) in the ten provinces lived in food-insecure households.
• Food insecurity is higher for single-parent households and single-person households.
• Food insecurity is reportedly higher for women than men.

Levels of Food Insecurity

• Marginal food insecurity includes worrying about running out of food or limited food selection due to lack of money.
• Moderate food insecurity includes compromising on the quality and quantity of food due to lack of money.
• Severe food insecurity involves missing meals, reducing food intake, and, in extreme cases, going days without food.

Racial Disparities in Food Insecurity

• Canada’s history of colonialism and systemic racism contributes to racial disparities in food insecurity.
• Individuals identifying as neither a visible minority nor Indigenous have the lowest rates of food insecurity.
• Black people had the highest percentage living in food-insecure households in 2022 at 39.2%, followed by Indigenous Peoples at 33.4%.

Food Insecurity and Homeownership (2021)

• Renters: 25.9% total food insecurity (6.0% severely insecure).
• Homeowners with a mortgage: 13.9% total food insecurity (4.3% severely insecure).
• Homeowners without a mortgage: 7.2% total food insecurity (2.4% severely insecure).
• Reducing food insecurity may offset public health care expenditures.

Priorities for Food Policy in Canada

• Increasing access to affordable food.
• Improving health and food safety.
• Conserving soil, water, and air.
• Growing more high-quality food.

Benefits of Regenerative Farming vs. Monoculture Industrial Farming

• Soil quality is superior, leading to better plant quality and water retention, preventing land erosion and drought.
• Natural biodiversity is enhanced, helping the soil and increasing plant resilience.
• Ecological pest management reduces the need for pesticides.
• Crop rotation maintains soil diversity and nutrition.

Polyculture/Regenerative Farming and Climate Change

• Helps address land erosion, water shortages/droughts, and invasive pests/insects.
• Improves the nutritional quality of food.
• Results in less emissions and promotes environment/human safety by reducing exposure to chemicals and waste.

Explore food security, ensuring access to nutritious food for all. Understand food justice, addressing inequities in the food system. Learn about food sustainability, protecting biodiversity and ecosystems. Discover food sovereignty, the right to define food and agriculture systems.