Welcome. The project started from a placement at university. Looking at the situation of school gardens in Thunder Bay, Ontario. There are many pieces of the puzzle and eco-justice, social justice, food security and education all find a home at my Blog.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Food Sovereignty

A couple of days ago, Canada's Food Policy was finally launched, right in the middle of an election campaign. I was reading through it, wondering at just how much work had gone into this policy. This country is vast and one of the richest countries in the world, and yet, thousands are using food banks and are living in poverty. The publication of this new policy can't have happened at a better time.

The one thing I was struck by when I was reading through the policy last night, was the term Food Sovereignty. Food security is familiar to us all, as is its opposite, food insecurity. All we have to do is look around lower income neighbourhood and you'l probably notice a lack of supermarkets and many convenience stores, selling higher priced, lower nutritional value, foods. There is a connection between obesity in these places as the inhabitants are more likely to have to shop in these stores. An article I just read from a few years back mentioned it is cheaper in some places in America to buy a twinkie than a piece of broccoli. People in such neighbourhoods have to make more of an effort to travel to a supermarket, some miles away and purchase more healthy foods.

So what is food sovereignty? It can be defined as the right of people to a healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own foods and agricultural systems.

The term food sovereignty comes from La Via Campesina, which is a global peasant movement that was co-founded by the Canadian National Farmers Union.

I really like this definition. I think it says a lot about how food should be produced in today's society, where fuel prices are sky rocketing and we should be less reliant on foods that are highly processed and trucked in from thousands of kilometres away. Food should not be treated as a commodity that makes the middle man rich, whilst the farmers need two or more jobs to allow them to keep farming. There should be a focus on food for people. Food for people should be at the centre of all policy making. It is more than just a commodity.

Food providers should be valued. There should be supports for farmers and their livelihoods. Children should be able to learn where their food comes from and society should respect farmers and their work. Maybe then, farming would again be viewed as a good profession to go into and there maybe more people going into farming.

Food systems should be localized and its control should be put into local hands. There is a huge rise in farmers markets in Ontario. Our local farmers market is extremely busy week after week.  Farming should build on traditional knowledge and culture. Local residents may have a huge amount of knowledge when it comes to producing foods. Urban farming can grow from small community gardens where that knowledge is passed down from generation to generation.

As I already mentioned, food is an aspect of culture. Food has great power to create community with one another and cause wars. Rising food prices have affected the whole world. There have been mass riots in the developing countries. A new reality of locally, sustainable food production is needed in order to feed the growing world. There is a lot of new research on organic farming and questioning if it truly can feed the world. I hope it can.

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