by Kelly Hodgins I recently received a set of old photos of my parents’ Powell River farm from a woman who grew up there in the 1950s.The captions spoke of a time when food production, processing and consumption were integrated into our homes, lives and community.
Today, our food system is undeniably disjointed. Approaching the 2015 federal election, I can’t help but reflect on these issues and how they impact all Canadians — rural, urban, Northern, immigrant, adult and child.
Four issues have been identified by Food Secure Canada as the most necessary first steps to a more healthy, equitable and just Canadian food system.
First, we must understand that food has been commodified. Food production has vacated our backyards and has been assigned to an ever-shrinking, aging group of farmers. Food security is compromised when the majority of Canadians rely on purchasing food instead of growing or sharing it. This has serious implications for those who cannot afford adequate, nutritious diets. Food Secure Canada is calling on a feasibility study into a basic income floor, to lift the most vulnerable Canadians out of poverty, thereby improving diets, stimulating demand for nutritious food and lowering health-care burdens.
Second, we must pay serious attention to our children, specifically through a national student food program. A school food program will improve food literacy, as well as help address the deplorable rate of food insecurity in Canada. As the only G8 country that doesn’t provide a nationwide nutritious school meal program, we are failing to support our young people’s well-being and their learning capacity.
Canada also faces an unprecedented farmer-succession crisis. The average age of producers is 55, and there is marginal incentive for any young person to take over. Policy is critically needed to make agriculture a more attractive and viable profession for the next generation of farmers.
At the same time, those of us trying to create a sustainable food system are facing greater threats every year. Western Canada’s dry summers are not the only climatic shift affecting our food system. Climate change is intersecting negatively with food-security most dramatically in Canada’s North. There, food gathering traditions are being upturned due to changing migration patterns and weather systems.
Each year, vulnerable northern Canadian communities are made more reliant on imported food. We urgently need politically mandated action that takes direction from those most affected to rectify the astonishingly high food prices and skyrocketing rates of diet-related diseases, which is only set to worsen as centuries-long traditions are erased through irreversible ecosystem change in Canada’s North.
I call upon the next governing party in Ottawa to revitalize our Canadian food system.
We cannot afford to see a nation of empty fields and collapsed fences while remaining complacent with four million hungry bellies. We must stimulate our national food system into a healthy and just one: a food system that supports livelihood-insecure producers and food-insecure consumers in tandem.
Kelly Hodgins is project coordinator for Feeding 9 Billion at University of Guelph. Her parents’ farm is located in Paradise Valley.
