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Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)are deeply contested with respect to their implications for food security and environmental sustainability. The three papers in this section effectively capture the present-day focal points of the debates over the undeniably vast topic area of genetic resources and agricultural biotechnology and their implications for food security and the environment. Noah Zerbe outlines the value of (and contestation over) plant genetic materials and rights to their use. Matthew Schnurr explores the current push into a second wave of genetically modified (GM) crops, particularly focused on developing countries. And Taarini Chopra looks back at 20 years of experience with commercialized GM crops, focusing on GM technology’s consistent failure to address issues of food security.

“Food sovereignty,” a term conceived by peasant agriculturalists in South America, has become ubiquitous worldwide in academic and activist circles advocating for greater local control over local food. Its use has been adopted by various actors in North America, most notably by agriculturalists that tend to be small-scale, family-run, or permaculture focussed. While Indigenous food sovereignty has emerged as an adaptation of this concept, ecological, economic, social, and political opportunities and constraints in different locations across Turtle Island make its widespread application challenging, especially in contexts where communities do not want, or cannot (for a variety of reasons) eat exclusively from the land. In addition, “food sovereignty” can become a chimera in contexts where the “Crown” has absolute and final “sovereignty” over the land, which they have demonstrated through multiple enforcements across Turtle Island. Using a decolonial feminist lens within a political ecology community of practice, this paper describes and critiques current and historic framings of northern Ontario boreal forests as variously and simultaneously scarce and abundant. It also analyzes the ways that these framings have been discursively and materially constructed through colonial social, ecological, economic, and political impositions. It asks whether the concept of food sovereignty adequately challenges these constructions. Ultimately, this paper suggests that thinking about Indigenous food sovereignty as sovereignty of and through food may better describe the process, importance, and potential inherent in traditional and alternative Indigenous food harvesting and distribution practices in First Nations communities in northern Ontario, and indeed, beyond.

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 within existing SFPs are suffering. This paper discusses the urgency to implement a cost-shared and federally funded SFP amidst the current economic context and lack of clear direction from the federal government. The paper also explores ways in which federal funding for school meals can help to reduce the rate of chronic diseases and actualize many proven physical and mental health benefits for Canadians, all of which have positive and long-term downstream effects on the country’s economy.

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 within existing SFPs are suffering. This paper discusses the urgency to implement a cost-shared and federally funded SFP amidst the current economic context and lack of clear direction from the federal government. The paper also explores ways in which federal funding for school meals can help to reduce the rate of chronic diseases and actualize many proven physical and mental health benefits for Canadians, all of which have positive and long-term downstream effects on the country’s economy.

“Food sovereignty,” a term conceived by peasant agriculturalists in South America, has become ubiquitous worldwide in academic and activist circles advocating for greater local control over local food. Its use has been adopted by various actors in North America, most notably by agriculturalists that tend to be small-scale, family-run, or permaculture focussed. While Indigenous food sovereignty has emerged as an adaptation of this concept, ecological, economic, social, and political opportunities and constraints in different locations across Turtle Island make its widespread application challenging, especially in contexts where communities do not want, or cannot (for a variety of reasons) eat exclusively from the land. In addition, “food sovereignty” can become a chimera in contexts where the “Crown” has absolute and final “sovereignty” over the land, which they have demonstrated through multiple enforcements across Turtle Island. Using a decolonial feminist lens within a political ecology community of practice, this paper describes and critiques current and historic framings of northern Ontario boreal forests as variously and simultaneously scarce and abundant. It also analyzes the ways that these framings have been discursively and materially constructed through colonial social, ecological, economic, and political impositions. It asks whether the concept of food sovereignty adequately challenges these constructions. Ultimately, this paper suggests that thinking about Indigenous food sovereignty as sovereignty of and through food may better describe the process, importance, and potential inherent in traditional and alternative Indigenous food harvesting and distribution practices in First Nations communities in northern Ontario, and indeed, beyond.

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 Government of Canada has the advantage of learning from one of the longest standing national school food programs and our southern neighbour: the United States (U.S.). This paper distills vital lessons from the U.S. school food programs, with a focus on addressing four critical aspects: access, emphasis on health and education, funding, and program implementation. First, the U.S. experience demonstrates the significance of universal free school meals. The historical inadequacies of means-tested programs result in inefficiencies, stigma, and exclusion of students in need. Second, the paper argues for an emphasis on health and education benefits. Third, it underscores the necessity of adequate funding. Inadequate reimbursements in the U.S. have compromised meal quality and led to the food industry’s capitalization on school meals, with negative implications for children’s health. Lastly, harnessing the power of procurement and employment can stimulate local economies, create good jobs, and foster a healthier food environment. As Canada tailors its national school food program to its diverse regions and communities, it has an extraordinary opportunity to avoid the policy and program implementation errors revealed by the U.S. experience.

Type 2 diabetes is more prevalent among racialized immigrant groups in Canada compared to the general population. Hence, “ethnicity” is identified as a risk factor for diabetes, focusing on ethnic differences in health behaviours. By linking ethnic differences and diabetes risk, ethnic food cultures are problematized. Using the concept of cultural racism, this paper explores the ways in which ethnic food cultures are used to explain racial inequities in health. This paper will conclude by supporting the naming of racism, rather than ethnicity, as one of the root causes of diabetes among racialized immigrant populations and health inequities in Canada.

This paper interrogates the role of the dominant narrative of “food-as-commodity” in framing food systems policy in Canada. Human values shape policies, usually privileging those policies that are aligned with dominant values and neglecting others that confront dominant values. In that sense, valuing food as a commodity privileges specific market-based policy goals, regulations, and public subsidies that aim to enlarge market coverage. This prioritizes both corporate profit over societies´ common good and private enclosures of commons resources over universal access to food for all. Conversely, the normative shift this paper proposes—valuing and governing food as a commons—could enable socio-ecologically based policy goals and regulations, and redirect public subsidies to support customary and contemporary practices that produce and distribute food differently. Such a normative shift, scholars have argued, is a prerequisite for developing legal frameworks that lead to more and better 1) self-production; 2) stewardship of natural commons; and 3) civic participation in the governance of a resource that is essential for everybody´s survival. Valuing food as a commons can provide a complementary narrative to alternative civic claims such as food sovereignty, agro-ecology, or food justice. In this paper, we begin by outlining the theoretical basis for our investigation into the role of food valuation in the critical food guidance shaping public policy. Next, we provide an overview of the concept of food as commons through the multidimensional food values framework and offer a tri-centric governance model to frame the analysis. Following a brief policy context for Indigenous food initiatives in Canada, we then provide three case studies involving Anishnaabek food systems to explore valuation of food beyond commodity in customary and contemporary food systems. Finally, we discuss how valuing food as a commons offers critical food guidance for addressing multiple socio-ecological issues connected with food systems policy in the Canadian settler colonial context.

By building community-based food systems informed by transformative ideologies and principles, Community-Based Food Organisation (CBFOs) can be understood as agents of critical food guidance from the bottom-up. This paper focuses on the notion of reflexivity as pivotal to the implementation of critical food guidance in CBFOs. Reflexivity is defined as the capacity of actors and organisations to establish as well as to self-reflect upon key food system principles and scale out these principles across communities. To examine reflexivity and its connection to critical food guidance, this paper retraces the story of FoodShare Toronto, a CBFO whose core mission is to foster “good healthy food for all”. Going through different stages of its life-course, this paper highlights the ways in which this organisation reframes core values and principle through time and how it attempts to scale out these principles through partnerships and programs. Learning from FoodShare´s trajectory, this paper highlights key lessons on how reflexivity can strengthen the capacity of food organisations to be vehicles for emancipatory and transformative food guidance.

Food waste is a complex problem with far reaching negative environmental, social, and economic impacts. To identify appropriate solutions to address food waste, the food recovery hierarchy developed by the Environmental Protection Agency is currently the most popular guiding framework in food waste prevention and reduction. However, this paper found that the application and the interpretation of the guide is quite problematic due to its lack of consideration of scale in efforts to prevent and reduce food loss and waste. Furthermore, the food recovery hierarchy is premised on a linear food supply chain instead of a circular approach. Although the hierarchy recommends prevention as the most preferred approach, it still provides the option (albeit less preferred) to landfill food waste. Based on values and worldviews that potentially serve as better tools for food waste prevention and reduction, this paper explores the tensions within the food recovery hierarchy framework and identifies alternative critical food guidance developed in a Canadian social innovation lab.

To address inequality's root causes both within and beyond the food chain, food justice scholars have called for explicit integration of trauma/inequity, land, labour, exchange, and governance into post-secondary education food studies and related fields. This paper explores how instructors of food justice courses (identified by key-word internet search) in Canada and the United States are designing their courses. We collected course syllabi from fifteen institutions to determine key themes related to course content based on weekly topics and readings, resulting in the identification of 16 thematic content areas. We identified seven thematic areas related to course goals (n=49) and eight thematic areas related to learning outcomes (n=123). To clearly distinguish between themes represented in the syllabi, we embedded course goals and learning outcomes into the Understanding by Design instructional design framework, which demonstrates how course goals can be separated into the categories of transfer and meaning, and learning outcomes into declarative and procedural knowledge. We examine content areas in relation to food justice scholarship, focusing on what is present, underrepresented, and absent. In consideration of the Understanding by Design framework, we discuss the need for established goals within which to situate food justice courses, challenges of course scope, value of scaffolding goals and outcomes across programs, and future directions for aligning potential indicators of understanding and identifying effective learning activities. The intended outcome of the paper is to provide current and prospective instructors with greater clarity on how food justice is being taught in order to increase our collective effectiveness in developing student capacities in the field.

Food is an interdisciplinary topic that transverses different areas of knowledge, allowing it to be used as a pedagogical resource in numerous teaching-learning processes and environments. This paper seeks to contribute to early debates on the relationship between public procurement and food pedagogies in schools and universities, a topic that is still little addressed in the literature. I explore the Farm to Cafeteria Canada (F2CC) network in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, which beyond institutional procurement recognises food as a pedagogical resource at schools and on campus. My research is based on 18 site visits and qualitative analysis of documents and 9 semi-structured interviews conducted with institutional administrators associated with F2CC in Metro Vancouver. This paper demonstrates how the F2CC network activities in Metro Vancouver contribute not only to food procurement, but also to the practical development of pedagogical activities from different areas of knowledge and in different educational spaces.

Food production in cities is increasingly regarded as one of the building blocks for sustainable urban living, particularly as the agricultural industry faces mounting ecological and economic constraints, and populations continue to concentrate in urban centers. While substantial research exists on the qualitative outcomes of urban agriculture (UA), few studies present these outcomes in monetary terms that align with municipal decision makers economic priorities. In response to this gap, this paper reviews the literature on potential outcomes of one form of UA—community gardens—and identifies where gaps exist which prevent the translation of garden outputs into an economic quantity. The paper then describes a pilot return on investment assessment of a community garden in Ontario, Canada. Substantial data constraints were encountered, however the limited available data indicate that community gardens may represent an ROI-positive government investment. Further local-level research quantifying garden impacts would enable a more robust case for community gardens in cities.

Working with Karl Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism, the purpose of this paper is to argue that food advertisements and packaging work to further obfuscate the social, economic, and environmental relations behind the animal products and by-products consumed in Canada and the United States. The paper discusses the socio-ecological implications of the animal-industrial complex and employs a critical discourse analysis to examine how advertisements for animal products and by-products function as sites of public pedagogy to obscure these adverse effects. Finally, this paper outlines a vision of critical food pedagogies that both ‘removes the veil’ (Hudson & Hudson, 2003) and addresses the underlying generative framework that drives our relationship with an industrial food system

The contemporary global agrarian regime has altered the patterns of food production, circulation, and consumption. Its efforts towards food security vis-á-vis capitalist modes of mechanized cultivation have produced large-scale climatic and socioeconomic ramifications, including the dispossession of small-scale farmers from their lands and positions in market value-chains. In an effort to improve the dynamics of contemporary agro-food systems, food practitioners and scholars are engaging in critical analyses of land-grabbing, the feminization of agriculture, extractive-led development, and more. However, we argue that there is a gap between Food Studies scholarship and community-based transformative engagement. To support social justice frameworks, our paper calls for an academic paradigm shift wherein learner-centered experiential classrooms bridge academic-public divides and enhance student learning. Through a case-study of urban farming in Calgary, we also explore topics in place-based learning and participatory approaches that acknowledge and integrate Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, being, and connecting. Our paper provides strategies for supporting local food systems through activist scholarship, capacity building of leadership and technical skills in advanced urban farming, and intercultural relationship building. We conclude by evaluating the success of our approach, presenting potential benefits and challenges, and providing recommendations for best practices in food scholarship to support transformative change.

Much as we might like to think of the academy as an enlightened domain of pure knowledge creation, it is inextricably linked to financial and corporate influences. The business of academic publishing is a complex ecosystem of actors, processes, expectations, and perversions. Many of us have encountered—indeed, have reinforced—such entanglements. Very often our academic success depends on learning the rules of engagement and then following them. We research, we write, we publish; we review, we critique, we edit. We make our textual submissions and pay our subscription fees, whether directly to a journal or indirectly through our participation in the institutions, organizations, and libraries to which we are connected. But this system, when we start to unpack it, can present some pretty nefarious effects. Research papers published in for-profit journals are not easily and freely accessible to those outside of institutional life. Yet these papers are generally produced by people with access to public funding, either from research councils or educational institutions. By paying for journal articles that sit behind paywalls, we are effectively transferring tax revenue into the pockets of private corporations. Of course, for those who can’t or don’t want to pay, there are semi- and non-legal options, but even ‘free’ access to PDFs comes with costs (often folded back into commercial publishers’ fee structures).

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 LFP’s first foray into supporting institutional procurement of local sustainable food. LFP was founded in 2005 with a vision to foster sustainable local food economies. To this end, LFP developed a certification system and a marketing program that matched certified farmers and processors to buyers. LFP emphasized large-scale purchases by public institutions. Using information from in-depth semi-structured key informant interviews, this paper argues that the LFP project was a disruptive innovation that posed a challenge to many dimensions of the established food system. The LFP case study reveals structural obstacles to operationalizing a local and sustainable food system. These include a lack of mid-sized infrastructure serving local farmers, the domination of a rebate system of purchasing controlled by an oligopolistic foodservice sector, and embedded government support of export agriculture. This case study is an example of praxis, as the author was the founder of LFP, as well as an academic researcher and analyst.

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 from national food strategy development in seven other countries. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of these previous policy-making processes, we show how today’s food policy conversation builds on the legacy of 1998's Action Plan. We then offer food policy governance recommendations designed to avoid the mistakes of the previous efforts. This paper explores international precedents for governance mechanisms designed to be inclusive of key food systems’ stakeholders, and to meaningfully include multiple levels of government in food governance. Drawing on both our domestic and international research, we conclude by recommending the establishment of a multi-sectoral and inter-governmental National Food Policy Council. We show how such a Council, operating in close cooperation with other key mechanisms, could help govern the pan-Canadian food strategy we advocate.

This paper reports on qualitative research concerning community-based organizational responses to infant formula needs due to household food insecurity. It explores this topic against the backdrop of neo-liberal social welfare approaches that shape gendered food work within food insecurity households, as well as current state approaches to infant feeding policy targeted to vulnerable populations. Based on telephone interviews with a random sample of organizations across Canada (N=26) in 2016, this paper details typical responses to infant food insecurity within a sample of family resource projects with funding from the Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program, as well as typical responses from a sample of food banks. Results demonstrate that neither state nor community organizations adequately respond to infant food insecurity. This leads to serious problems of unequal access, potential food risk, and food injustice that are imposed on mothers and formula-fed infants when mothers are forced into situations of pathologized foraging to find formula. This paper argues that infant food insecurity is the result of a succession of public policy failures that are best addressed with a reflexive, feminist, food justice approach.

Issues of class and poverty are largely absent from children’s fiction and from elementary school curricula, even though, in Canada, one in every five children live in food insecure households. This paper examines the limited number of middle grade children’s books that feature depictions of food insecurity published in North America in English in the past forty years and interrogates their assumptions about children, poverty, food, and hunger. While the primary cause of food insecurity for children is inadequate household income, often due to systemic inequities, most children’s fiction suggests individual choices or life circumstances are to blame and charity, kind strangers, and simple luck are the solutions, giving children, at best, an incomplete understanding of the social and political issues that produce food insecurity.

Interest and technological know-how in cell-based meat production has grown tremendously in recent years. The appeal is wide ranging, but two main drivers include: i) the possibility of producing edible meat without requiring the slaughter of sentient animals; and ii) the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of animal agriculture. Owing to these potential benefits, proponents have called for major government investments in cell-based meat to further develop the technology and help launch the industry. This article critically examines the environmental promise of cell-based meat, focussing specifically on its potential role in climate change mitigation, and specifically within the context of Canada’s agri-food sector. The analysis is founded upon a comparison of available life cycle greenhouse gas assessments of cell-based and conventional meat, supplemented with contextual data about the Canadian agri-food sector. Cell-based meat in Canada is found to have a likely carbon footprint similar in scale to poultry meat, pork, and beef from dairy cattle, though considerably lower than meat from beef cattle. Alongside these findings and additional contextual factors pertaining to Canada’s agri-food sector, the paper argues that cell-based meat is best understood as one tool among many which could potentially support greenhouse gas emissions reductions in domestic food production if supporting conditions are met, not a silver bullet climate solution obtained by fully replacing conventional meat.

Few food groups are subject to the same depth and scope of critique as meat. Yet little is known about how the Canadian public feels about meat production and consumption. In other jurisdictions, meat has been a politically polarizing topic; thus, we focus our analysis on political differences (and similarities) in orientations toward meat. In this paper, we draw on survey data collected on a quota sample of Canadians (n=2328) in order to address the following questions: to what extent do Canadians across the political spectrum agree that meat is a problem? Where is there overlap, and where is there disagreement? We find that, despite small but statistically significant differences across political ideology in Canadians’ meat-related attitudes, preferences, and practices, there is widespread agreement that meat is delicious, that it poses risks to health, and that many livestock production practices violate animal welfare ethics. The majority of Canadians would prefer to source meat that is locally-produced and raised on a small farm. These patterns illustrate high levels of discomfort with large-scale animal agriculture. This study fills an important gap in Canadian food studies by interrogating public perceptions of meat and identifying areas of political convergence and divergence on meat-related attitudes, preferences, and practices.

Chocolate was among the first foods to travel from the New World to Spain and it is the main subject of Cowling’s book. Within, Cowling discusses the material importance that chocolate had in the New World and how it was assimilated into European society as a commercial, medicinal, and sexual commodity. Cowling’s major contribution is to trace the mention of chocolate in Spanish literary works and historical papers of the early modern period, including poems, plays, medical and religious treatises, as a means of measuring the ways and the extent to which chocolate was incorporated into Spanish society.

A vision for a more sustainable, just, and health-promoting food system comes from scholars, activist organizations, and communities alike. However, creating infrastructure and implementing policy that allows for the transition to a healthy, community-minded system comes with significant challenges and opposition, including a neoliberal policy legacy. Understanding the positive health impacts of improving the food system, thus, is crucial to making sense of and addressing the interconnected nature of food and health. The study of alternatives, and how these can be grounded and promoted in public policy, help challenge the notion that health issues in the food system are best solved through charity or technocratic fixes. To illustrate the role of such alternatives this paper draws on two case studies: the ScarbTO Mrkt Bucks initiative, a civil society group creating a system of subsidized vouchers for wider access to farmers markets at the community level, and the Coalition for Healthy School Food, a network of organizations advocating for federal investment in a universal cost-shared healthy school food program. So far, it is grassroots initiatives that have acknowledged the health issues that their communities face around accessing plentiful, diverse, and nutritious foods. These initiatives can connect local experiences with systemic and structural sources of inequity, leading to a more comprehensive means of change. Creating pathways to sustainable healthy food in public settings, I argue, is central to the wider, global transition to a healthier, more just food system.

It has been 20 years since Canada’s first commercially grown genetically modified (GM) crops were approved and debates over these contentious products continue to gain momentum. Literature exploring Canada’s GMO debates has yet to focus specifically on the discourse of pro-biotech public relations campaigns and anti-biotech movements. This paper helps fill this gap with an analysis of power relations regarding efforts to inform public opinion on the topic of agricultural biotechnology. This paper explores these power relations in two arguments. First, I argue that the Canadian state’s overall positive position toward agricultural biotechnology provides leverage to pro-biotech public relations, while delimiting the direction of anti-biotech campaigns. Second, I argue that the potency of pro-biotech frames are constituted and sustained by historically and culturally embedded norms and values, which adds additional challenges for anti-biotech campaigns. These findings uncover a clearer picture of the complexity of power relations within agri-biotech discourse, and the extent to which anti-biotech groups are disadvantaged in these debates.

Throughout the twentieth century, the food system has not only undergone changes in structure and in process, but has shown a growing transformation in food system governance. Often this transformation involves private actors engaging in the policymaking and governance arena. This paper draws on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a private governance mechanism that is frequently used by corporate food actors. The rise of industry’s participation in non-traditional corporate food interests (NTCFIs), or social and environmental concerns, will be explored by drawing on changing governance structures in the food system. NTCFIs move beyond traditional interests of corporate actors such as trade, economic regulation, and competitiveness, and reach into social and environmental issues found in the food system that are often a result of agri-food production and its business practices. This paper problematizes the increased CSR of corporate actors in social and environmental issues in the food system. It considers both sides of the debate – an optimistic view of business engaging in NTCFIs, and a more skeptical view. It concludes by stating that given the power and resources of corporate food actors, they should be involved in food system change at arm’s length in a tripartite partnership: civil society, government, and the corporate sector.

This paper presents and reflects on findings from ethnographic research conducted with small-scale farmers in the Parry Sound district, Ontario, Canada. The research highlights understandings of what it means to be a “good farmer” and explores how farmers enact their personal values and morals in efforts to produce “good food” for their communities. Central issues that emerge include notions of how to ethically care for animals and the land, as well as how to navigate tensions that can emerge while engaged in agricultural livelihoods. In their agriculturally peripheral location, participants point to how they imagine and embody possibilities about “good farming” and “good food” that challenge in various ways the larger-scale agricultural approaches that dominate agricultural core areas in southern Ontario.

For South Asian Canadians who migrated to Toronto in the 1970s, the only place for them to purchase and consume South Asian foodstuffs would have been in the area referred to as ‘Little India’, which later developed into what is referred to today as the Gerrard India Bazaar (GIB). Little India is located on Gerrard Street, encompassing the nine blocks from Greenwood Avenue to Coxwell Avenue. The very first South Asian entrepreneur in Gerrard Street was Gian Naaz, who rented the defunct Eastwood Theatre in 1972 and began showing films in Hindi and other South Asian languages. Naaz’s success inspired and attracted other South Asian entrepreneurs, some of whom opened restaurants and grocery stores. These early South Asian businesses on Gerrard Street combatted racism and racial stereotyping and the GIB was a microcosm of the violences South Asians experienced all across Toronto in the 1970s and 80s. As such, this paper tells the story of how South Asians, both them and their businesses, persevered and helped develop the GIB as an ethnic enclave because it allowed South Asians to affirm notions of home and belonging in Canada, all without ever having a distinct residential identity.

The three papers and workshop discussion draw attention to the various ways that finance and food come together through new financial actors and tools, and in new political contexts, or financialization in the food system. The term financialization began to emerge in the late 1990s and it is increasingly applied to a growing range of areas of daily life and the economy (Krippner, 2011; Martin, 2002). Food studies, and these three papers in particular, help to define the contours and impacts of financialization in the food and agriculture sector.

Youth in remote communities of Canada, including those in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region (CSUBR), can benefit from building food preservation knowledge because of the additional challenges they experience accessing healthy food. Regrettably, youth in these areas are not adequately engaged in food practices within households that support knowledge building. Schools and community food programs that serve to fill such learning gaps lack food preservation content and are developed without input from youth. Consequently, youth in remote areas, including those in the CSUBR, lack food preservation learning opportunities. To address these gaps, we examine youth participation in food preservation in the CSUBR. We adopted a participatory approach to emphasize youth perspectives. This paper is based on interviews, food preservation workshops, and workshop evaluations with youth. The interviews provided multiple perspectives, including current youth engagement in food preservation activities and factors that hinder or motivate youth participation in food preservation. In addition, we organized food preservation workshops to support youth learning goals. These workshops were evaluated to highlight participants' experiences, including their efficacy in supporting food preservation knowledge building. Findings show that youth are not adequately participating in food preservation compared to other food provisioning activities. Factors such as the lack of teachers hinder youth from participating in food preservation. The workshops supported youth in building various food preservation techniques and learning about the cultural importance of food – important skills and knowledge to support youth food security and their community's food sovereignty.

This paper draws from a community-engagement case study conducted at The University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. The study examines food insecurity experienced by student families. Research data was collected through quantitative and qualitative methods applied in a residence on campus. The study shows that food insecurity ranges between marginal and moderate among surveyed student-led households; while 5% of student families have (at least) one member “go(ing) to bed feeling hungry”, 3% declared they “sometimes” and “frequently” do not eat enough. Seemingly, financial, food, and housing insecurities are deeply interrelated in student-led households. A system intervention by UBC stakeholders could be optimal to support student wellbeing.

Until 2019, Guatemala upheld a de-facto moratorium on GMOs. The ban has been attributed to broad-based social resistance and the unlikely alliances galvanized by the issue. Recent legislation, however, has been met with little resistance. In this paper, I show how the tensions between anti-GM actors and their interactions on the ground help to explain this turn of events in Guatemala, and—more broadly— contributes to our understanding of how biotechnology advances despite significant resistance. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observation, I demonstrate how urban, professional class Ladinos who oppose GMOs draw on scientific and technical arguments divorced from broader political-economic critiques. Meanwhile, campesino and indigenous activists center their resistance within broader structures of oppression such as colonialism, racism, and capitalism. Specifically, I show how ‘biotechnologizing’ is employed in problematic ways, not only by pro-GMO coalitions—as other scholarship suggests—but also by anti-GM allies. This case contributes to our understanding of how anti-GMO movement frames get constructed in local contexts, and the tensions that arise between anti-GM groups, revealing significant impediments to creating a more just food future in Guatemala.

Despite the organic movement’s early connections to labour advocacy and commitment to the principle of “Fairness”, the evolution of the organic sector has generated questions about the strength of its links to food justice in certified organic farming. Scholar-activists have, in particular, highlighted the problematic nature of labour relations on many organic farms. This article reports on a growing relationship between an organic farming association (the Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia) and a migrant workers justice collective (Fuerza Migrante) with aspirations of alliance building. Drawing from qualitative interviews and participant observation, we examine the extent to which efforts by the organic community towards fairness in labour relations may signal an opening whereby the organic movement may take up the more radical struggle for rights, status and justice for racialized migrant workers. We draw on theoretical work on post-capitalist relations and emancipatory social transformations to provide scaffolding to our assessment, and illuminate the importance of complementary efforts. While the primary demands raised by migrant workers and their allies (e.g. structural changes to temporary foreign worker programs) are not yet mirrored by the organic community’s advocacy, this paper documents preliminary efforts towards centering of migrant worker struggles for justice that may open up spaces for social emancipation for workers in organic farming systems. We also provide recommendations for how the organic community could act in solidarity with migrants and advance migrant justice priorities. En sus inicios, el movimiento orgánico estaba fuertemente vinculado con la defensa de los derechos de los trabajadores y comprometido con el principio de “justicia”. Con el paso del tiempo, la evolución del sector orgánico ha generado cuestionamientos sobre la fuerza de estos vínculos y su relación con la justicia alimentaria en la agricultura orgánica certificada. Académicos-activistas, en particular, han destacado la intrínseca problemática de muchas granjas orgánicas. El presente artículo reporta la creciente relación y aspiración de construir alianzas entre una asociación de agricultura orgánica (Organic BC) y un colectivo de justicia para trabajadores migrantes (Fuerza Migrante). Examinamos hasta qué punto los esfuerzos por parte de la comunidad orgánica hacia la justicia en relaciones laborales puede representar una oportunidad para el movimiento orgánico de asumir una postura más radical por los derechos, estatus y la justicia de los trabajadores migrantes racializados. El análisis se basa en el trabajo teórico sobre relaciones post-capitalistas y las transformaciones sociales emancipatorias que iluminan la importancia de los esfuerzos complementarios. Si bien las principales demandas planteadas por los trabajadores migrantes y sus aliados (por ejemplo, cambios estructurales en los programas de trabajadores extranjeros temporales) aún no se reflejan en la lucha de la comunidad orgánica, vemos esfuerzos preliminares enfocados en la lucha de los trabajadores migrantes por la justicia, los cuales pueden abrir espacios para la emancipación social en sistemas de agricultura orgánica. Concluimos con recomendaciones sobre cómo la comunidad orgánica en Canadá podría actuar en solidaridad con los migrantes y promover prioridades de justicia para migrantes.

As diverse actors work through disparate food movements seeking to tackle the causes and effects of the global food crisis, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2011) call for strategic alliances between progressive and radical trends in the food movement to transform our current food system. This paper focuses on the process of alliance formation by exploring the subjectivities of three of the authors who identify as women farmers and have had opportunities to learn from and engage with peasant movements through their participation in courses, encounters and organizing spaces of La Via Campesina (LVC). These farmers’ goal of striving toward a peasant identity reveals the influence of peasant-to-peasant processes (PtPP) on their conceptions of possible futures, and simultaneously exposes tensions and struggles in agroecology transition within the Canadian context, where capitalist industrial agriculture is the norm. Using the lens of post-structural feminism, we explore the potential for radical peasant movements to influence and inspire the restructuring of our ways of relating with the earth and each other in the global North. Based on this analysis we deepen our understanding of how PtPP can foster South-North alliances which have the potential to engender food system transformation.

Over the past decades there has been a notable growth in community-based food systems projects and successes. Despite these advancements, food insecurity, precarious food work, ecological degradation, and corporate conglomeration in the food sector all continue to increase, compounded by the ongoing impacts of white supremacy, patriarchy, settler colonialism. Recognizing these growing inequities, critical scholars have noted that too many food systems initiatives are overly concerned with influencing individual behaviours and a focus on narrow objectives. Furthermore, many approaches tend to overlook ways that food systems are embedded within political and economic structures that constrain their goals of social and environmental justice. These multiple challenges suggest that food movements are at a crossroads. This paper reflects on this pivotal moment through an analysis of key food movement actor’s perspectives on the progress and promises as well as emerging tensions for food movements in Canada. Through a series of interviews with individuals most prominent in food movement spaces, we explore key perspectives on the state of food movements and possibilities for future directions. Our findings paint a complex and nuanced portrait of what food movements have accomplished, tease out internal tensions, and identify questions facing their future prospects. The perspectives presented through our findings offer a path to transcend the critiques that position short-term strategic gains in opposition to longer-term systemic change. We suggest that food movements can overcome these challenges by embracing a more radical and expansive vision of social and environmental justice that is deeply embedded within food systems while also looking beyond them.

COVID-19 has revealed deep inequities in our food system. As goodwill and charity from this crisis disappears, and emergency supports begin to dwindle, we can anticipate increased food insecurity amongst Canadians. Rising food prices and unemployment will drive a lack of access to fresh nutritious foods for already stressed and vulnerable individuals. As a community organizer who has advocated for poverty reduction and food justice over my lifetime, I understand the short-lived nature of change that occurs without public will and engagement - policy wins end up being removed in the next election cycle. My experience with party-dependent advocacy projects has led me to ask the question: how do we build the kind of public will that demands access to healthy and nutritious food as not an individual responsibility but a public duty, much like universal healthcare? In writing this paper I intend to draw upon my experiences in organizing to explore the deeper cultural and internal shifts that may need to occur to inspire public will and create change that lasts beyond a single election cycle, and the opportunity that COVID-19 presents as Canadians grapple with questions about food security and poverty in an unprecedented time. I will connect with three community members I advocated with in my time doing placebased community organizing, all with different experiences of food insecurity, and use a storytelling approach to imagine a more effective way of advocating for just food futures.

The world food system has seen enormous change across a range of issue areas in recent years, as witnessed by the 2007–08 food crisis and subsequent period of volatility and uncertainty in a context of shifting ecological conditions. Closer examination of the specifics of those myriad changes first requires a step back to take stock of the broader shifts that have taken place over the past two decades. The papers in this section set this “big picture” backdrop, situating the global food system within wider contexts and developments and drawing important insights for understanding recent developments on the global food landscape. The papers remind us of the ways in which the food system connects to and also reflects broader economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological settings.

Meatification describes a momentous dietary transformation: the average person on earth today consumes nearly twice as much animal flesh every year as did the average person just two generations ago, amidst a period of rapid human population growth and with marked disparities between rich and poor. Further, meatification is projected to continue in the coming three decades, at the same time as the world adds another 2 billion people, with growth concentrated in fast-industrializing countries. There is overwhelming evidence that meatification bears heavily on a range of problems including climate change, biodiversity loss, food consumption disparities, mounting risks of antibiotic resistance, increasing rates of non-communicable disease, and growing realms of animal suffering. The basic implication is inescapable: the de-meatification of diets is an urgent environmental and social priority, and must be part of any project of providing critical food guidance. There are many signs this recognition is growing in environmental and public health advocacy (including pressure to reform dietary guidelines, most notably in China), calls for a ‘meat tax’, and in rising levels of vegetarianism and veganism in some of the countries that have long been at the forefront of meatification. After briefly summarizing the course of meatification and the de-meatification imperative, this chapter focuses on its 3 primary possibilities: conscientious omnivory (which has various hues, as in calls for ‘green’ or ‘ethical’ meat); vegetarianism; and veganism. The first possibility, conscientious omnivory, recognizes the need to reduce 'meatification' from levels of consumption in industrialized countries, but resolutely upholds the need for some livestock products in human diets and for small livestock populations in mixed farming systems, due to their role recycling some wastes, returning condensed nutrients to land, and providing some labour. From this perspective, necessity makes some meat consumption (but less than in industrialized countries today) a 'benign indulgence' in Simon Fairlee’s terms, with the challenge to source meat, eggs, and milk from sustainable mixed farms where the animals have lived decent lives. The second possibility, vegetarianism, accepts the functional necessity of small livestock populations in mixed farming systems, which includes their ability to generate useable nutrition along with providing beneficial on-farm services (augmented, for some, by pure palate pleasure, as in the love of ice cream, cheesy pizza, or scrambled eggs), but seeks a non-violent resolution. But unlike conscientious omnivory, the need for animals on mixed farms does not justify killing them for food, much less make it ‘benign’, and it is seen to be desirable and possible for animals to have good lives with only reproductive outputs (i.e. milk and unfertilized eggs) and wool taken, rather than flesh. The third possibility, veganism, rejects all use of animals in production and consumption, arguing that the place of livestock in mixed farming systems for most of agrarian history does not justify its continuance in the present age. This position holds that livestock production is an inherently inefficient way of meeting human nutritional needs for two basic reasons: first, there is compelling evidence that it is not only possible to be healthy with plant-based diets but that they often lead to improved health and lower risks of non-communicable diseases; and second, it is clear that plant-based diets tend to command much less land and resources, on average, than do either omnivorous or vegetarian diets. Along with improving population health, meeting human nutritional needs more efficiently is seen to have the potential to enhance distributional equity. Finally, the case for veganism insists that vegetarianism cannot escape some level of systematic killing of animals, as most males are not productive in this conception and because females become unproductive short of their natural lifespan. In spite of key mutual objections to the current scale of animal consumption and industrial production, there are often heated debates between conscientious omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. Observing this, some might assume that these groups should just aim to get along, submerge their differences, and focus collective energies on confronting the big, urgent need to build momentum for de-meatification and undermine industrial livestock production. In such a few, debates about the end point of de-meatification appear as unnecessary distractions, to the extent that these groups discredit one another, and are best left (or at least strategically moderated) for that future day when industrial livestock production is eradicated. This paper suggests that thinking critically about different end-points is necessary to recognize the challenges of alliance-building and constructively communicating the de-meatification imperative.

In recent years there have been increasing calls for “global dietary transition” in order to save the planet and improve human health. One troubling development associated with this is the attempt to delineate in universal terms what constitutes a sustainable and healthy diet. This perspective takes issue with this development, and specifically refutes one increasingly popular dietary narrative which calls for people to avoid red meat and dairy, and which portrays the local food movement as a romantic distraction. In contrast, the paper provides evidence of a range of sustainability and health benefits associated with both local food systems and the agri-food system’s inclusion of ruminants (the suborder of mammals from which humans mostly derive red meat and dairy). Finally, the perspective calls for a pluralist and multi-scalar approach to the multifaceted challenges associated with food production.

In this paper, we present findings from a community-based research project on school food environments in 50 elementary and high schools in a mid-sized city in Ontario, Canada. Our findings highlight that schools' privilege five intersecting domains in the school food environment: 1) health and nutrition; 2) food access; 3) education and food literacy; 4) environment and sustainability; and 5) the socio-cultural aspects of food. These results illustrate that the dominant discourses about school food mainly revolve around health, nutrition and food access, yet many of the K-12 principals also identified food literacy and learning about sustainable food systems and the environment, in addition to the relational or socio-cultural aspects of foods as important elements of their school food environments. This integrative approach to food extends our understanding of food beyond charity, and opens up conversations about food as a human right. Ouranalysis shows the need to go beyond a health or nutrition school food program and consider integrative food pedagogies which will promote social and environmental food justice in the school food environment.

In 2019 we began an intergenerational Land-based learning program with the goal of engaging a group of Mi’kmaw youth from a rural community in Nova Scotia with their Traditional Foodways. When COVID-19 and the physical distancing restrictions hit Nova Scotia, however, this changed how we implemented the project. We decided to bring youth together virtually and encourage self-directed Land-based learning. This paper describes the dilemmas we faced as we considered what initially seemed like a paradoxical relationship- using online technology to promote Land-based learning. Our aim is to not only draw attention to what we believe to be the centrality of the Land in understanding Indigenous foodways, but also the potential for online technology to enhance youth engagement on and with the Land. We begin by exploring Land-based learning and how it supports teaching about Traditional foodways and Indigenous culture, as well as the challenges and opportunities related to implementing Land-based pedagogy in a virtual environment. Using Etuaptmumk-Two Eyed Seeing as our lens, we argue that online technologies can support Land-based learning, providing principles of local culture are respected and the technology is compatible with community values.

To date, there has been little empirical research on how food studies pedagogy has developed in Canada. Yet, across Canada, more and more postsecondary institutions are offering food studies in formalized programs and individual courses to undergraduate students. This paper contributes to the literature on food studies pedagogy by gathering insights from interviews with key faculty in food studies undergraduate programs at Canadian higher education institutions, and other food studies scholars in Canada. The purpose of this empirical research is to provide clarity regarding the ways that food studies programs are conceptualized and taught to better understand the evolution and future course of food studies pedagogy. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken to explore the normative commitments and philosophical underpinnings of food studies programs; various ways that scholars scope food studies; and challenges faced by food studies programs. We found that food studies programs in higher education in Canada and their associated pedagogy do not have a set of fixed attributes, but they do share common threads. Transformation is a defining characteristic of food studies and its pedagogy and puts critical thinking at the core of how food studies are taught in Canada at the undergraduate level. Interviewees also emphasized the importance of moving beyond critique towards solutions in their teaching to facilitate a transition towards more socially and ecologically just food systems.

The Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge is a pilot experiential learning activity created at Ryerson University for the class FNU100-Canadian Cuisine: Historical Roots, a first/second year liberal studies course offered to students from diverse programs and cultural backgrounds. This activity is both a fun challenge and a required course assignment. It aims to engage students with Canadian cuisine and is inspired by a decolonial pedagogical approach (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Santos, 2018) to food studies, and elements of photovoice methodology (Wang & Burris, 1997). The Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge consists of a field trip to different food places or sitopias in Toronto with the goal of learning about their histories and developing an appreciation of the role of food and people in the city (Newman, 2017). The activity includes a map, instructions and a set of ten challenge questions that students answer through photographs taken during their field trip. The field trip is followed by students’ presentations in class and a reflection of their experiences. In the first phase of the project, students explored two sitopias: Kensington Market and Chinatown. This paper will first describe the co-creation of the Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge with students from the School of Nutrition at Ryerson University. This was a collaboration between the course instructor, two School of Nutrition students and included input from other students who had previously taken the course. It will present key learnings from the feedback of students who participated in the challenge in the fall of 2019, including how they described their experience, what they learned and suggestions for the future developments of this project. In particular this field reportwill discuss the use of a decolonial pedagogy in food studies, recognizing and challenging a Western hegemonic view of food places as representative of Canadian cuisine, while at the same time outlining the co-construction of experiential learning activities to engage students and provide content that reflects the multiple identities and food cultures of Canadians in Toronto. The main purpose of this field report is to share our experience co-creating and implementing this pilot project as one contribution towards decolonial food pedagogies.

Food literacy is an evolving term fundamental to both health and education. The concept of food literacy typically has been informed by nutrition-focused thinking, with particular emphasis on food skills. Moving beyond this traditional focus is necessary to address the demands of consumers navigating today’s complex food environments. Although the term is increasingly recognized, there is no consensus regarding the definition of food literacy or its conceptual dimensions. This paper describes a Food Literacy Conceptual Model that integrates multiple food literacy perspectives and theoretical frameworks. This Food Literacy Conceptual Model provides an enhanced framework with potential application as a pedagogical tool. As an interdisciplinary approach to food literacy, the conceptual model has the potential to increase teaching and learning effectiveness in the school context through a tailored approach to understanding the core components of this construct. In addition, a learner’s food literacy may increase with the application of this practical and more comprehensive framing in the conceptual model.

By exploring localized adaptation strategies for climate change, this paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of local perspectives and efforts regarding food procurement in Fort Providence, Northwest Territories (NT). The benefits and risks associated with engaging in local food procurement activities are key topics explored. Strategies to manage food insecurity and local approaches to encourage food procurement are also considered. This study was informed by Indigenous methodologies, which guided all aspects of this research. While the researchers have collaborated with community members since 2010, evidence for this study was collected during two field seasons in the spring and fall of 2018, using semi-structured interviews with Elders, land-users, and knowledgeable community members. Findings support decentralized policy developments which focus on the integration of local voices into decision-making processes and program implementation. Food policies must reflect the needs of residents at localized levels and the distinct socio-cultural and economic barriers to procuring food, and they must encourage overall community resilience and adaptive capacities to climate-related change. This research supports regional and national efforts to reduce food insecurity across northern Canada by documenting traditional knowledge concerning climate change and local food practices in Fort Providence.

In different parts of the world, community supported agriculture (CSA) has taken a variety of organizational forms, drawn on different ideologies, used a variety of land tenure arrangements, and taken on varied types of market relations in terms of how they arrange sales and memberships. Despite this, comparative studies of CSAs are sparse. Based on interviews and survey results, this paper develops a framework to compare CSAs in Canada—where this system has evolved for the last 30 years as an alternative to industrialized agriculture—with those in China, where CSAs have emerged since the late 2000s, mainly in response to food safety and health concerns. The comparison is based on their initiators’ motivations, economic characteristics, ecological practices, shareholder relations, and community building. We find that in both Canada and China CSAs are struggling to maintain the movement’s original values and be economically viable. They are moving away from the traditional ‘risk sharing’ approach underpinning the model and adopting more flexible payment mechanisms. However, other original tenets of the CSA model, such as member engagement, are strengthening. This poses a definitional challenge—what makes a CSA a CSA? We conclude that CSAs mix capitalist and other-than-capitalist economic logic, blend traditional, organic, and productivist ecological relations, and demonstrate both individualist and civic collectivist politics simultaneously. These characterizations are what make a CSA a CSA in contemporary Canada and China.

Food insecurity is a pervasive and persistent issue across Canada, where a growing number of people are accessing food banks. Conventional food banks may offer relief for immediate needs but typically have limited capacity to address longer-term food insecurity. This paper focuses on the Parkdale Food Centre in Ottawa, ON, which provides food assistance alongside a range of programs and initiatives designed to address food insecurity and related needs in its community. This qualitative study aims to examine how participation in the programs at the Parkdale Food Centre influences the physical, mental, and social health of people who access the food centre. Semi-structured interviews and a participatory photovoice project were conducted with people who access the food centre. The results indicate that people who access the food centre perceived a positive influence of the programs on their food, health, and social needs, particularly with respect to improved access to fresh foods, connections to social and health resources, and reduced stigma. Incorporating additional food, health, and social programming into an existing food assistance program may help ameliorate elements of food insecurity and associated negative outcomes within communities impacted by this issue.

Since 2011, FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Limited (FarmWorks) has been boosting Nova Scotia’s farm and food economy through small loans to local food businesses. The fund relies on community investments and relationship-based lending, markers of the provincial government’s Community Economic Development Investment Fund (CEDIF) program. FarmWorks was motivated by decreasing food production, dwindling agricultural employment and the resulting decline of rural communities across the province. These factors were compounded by systemic changes including the increased financialization of the agri-food sector. As a social economy organization, FarmWorks seeks to remedy the shortcomings of the dominant food system by prioritizing the social and ecological regeneration of local communities. It simultaneously works with existing market structures while challenging mainstream practices and developing an alternative model. Through a document review, our paper assesses the extent to which FarmWorks has been successful in its efforts “to increase the viability and sustainability of agriculture and the security of a healthy food supply.” Specifically, we examine economic outcomes (employment, revenue increase, business expansion) as well as social impact of FarmWorks loans. We situate our analysis in literature on social economy, financialization, and sustainable food systems.

Broadly described, the social economy refers to a series of initiatives with common values representing explicit social objectives. The roots of social economy organizations predate the neoliberal economy and are integral to the human condition of coming together in mutual support to address challenges that benefit from collective efforts. Drawing on a complexity science approach, this paper analyzes four case studies situated in Northwestern Ontario—blueberry foraging, Cloverbelt Local Food Co-op, Willow Springs Creative Centre and Bearskin Lake First Nations—to demonstrate key features of social economy of food systems. Their unifying feature is a strong focus on local food as a means to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits for communities. Their distinct approaches demonstrate the importance of context in the emergence of the social economy of food initiatives. In the discussion section, we explore how these case study initiatives re-spatialize and re-socialize conventional food system approaches.

This paper reports a multi-year design-based implementation research (DBIR) that examines practical issues, challenges, and innovations faced by the Montreal food polity in transforming food systems for alleviating insecurity in vulnerable populations. Community organizations in three geographically distinct neighbourhoods were engaged in three distinct city-level collaborative engagement initiatives (coalition of neighbourhood roundtables; place-based philanthropy initiative-CIP; food system policy council-C-SAM). The later city-level initiatives stemmed from different historical and institutional contexts and afforded different types and amounts of capabilities in support of community organizations. Our results underscore the rich diversity not only in how local communities organize themselves over time but also how they welcome or not scaling-up or capacity building initiatives like CIP and C-SAM. As part of the same complex and dynamic adaptive system observed at any stage of its evolution, individual organizations and collaborative platforms observed in this research were all having their respective historical trajectories and future aspirations in terms of composition, capabilities, goals, achievement, and challenges. Contributions to food systems research are three-fold: Isomorphism, Discursive Frame, and Decoupling between Norms and Action. Our research demonstrates that neighborhoods, like nation-states, exhibit different pathways to adoption, adaptation, and decoupling action from norms when cities become part of an international regime. The outcome of cities signing on to new international agreements are similarly symbolic in nature. Yet organizations and neighborhoods respond to these by adopting the discursive agendas of these new norms while, at the same time, exhibiting different pathways in policy and planning depending on their neighborhood histories, structure, and capacity. We close with a discussion of different path dependencies that vary by location.