Abstract
Community food security (CFS) is widely defined as “a situation in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice ” (Hamm and Bellows 2003, 37). The CFS concept has also been widely adopted in Canada by community-based organizations, including public health units across Ontario, in their efforts to tackle household-level food insecurity while also supporting local efforts to (re)build sustainable agriculture. This chapter explores this conundrum at the heart of CFS: Can community-based initiatives help address household food insecurity and support fair livelihoods for local smallholder farmers? Our research shows that responding to both sets of needs through community-based initiatives is possible, and could be seen as an important step towards broader food system transformation based on a more cooperative approach to economic relations. However, the evidence also shows that these initiatives can prove challenging to organize and administer, and should not be seen as a substitute for income support provided by the state to the food insecure.
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Notes
- 1.
In Eastern Ontario, most local sustainable agricultural production occurs on smallholder farms. Larger farms tend to be involved in commodity production for wider markets. While other regional forms of food production and harvesting (e.g. hunting, fishing) take place, we focus on efforts to build links with smallholder farmers.
- 2.
Thank you in particular to Louise Livingstone of Harvest Hastings, Sue Hubay and Carolyn Doris of the Peterborough County-City Health Unit, Carole Lavigne of the Eastern Ontario Agri-Food Network, Trissia McAllister of Northumberland County Economic Development and Moe Garahan of Just Food in Ottawa.
- 3.
Our focus excludes initiatives that increase access to local, sustainably-produced food in ways that do not contribute to farmer income, such as community gardening and post-harvest field gleaning activities.
- 4.
Following Baggio et al. (2015; Table 1), we define a bridging concept as “a concept that actively links field and stimulates dialogue.”.
- 5.
Figures adapted from Statistics Canada CANSIM Tables 004-0001, 002-0001 and 004-0237.
- 6.
- 7.
FoodShare buys 50 percent of its produce from local farmers, paying them fair market rate. See: http://www.foodshare.net/good-food-markets.
- 8.
Phil Mount and Emily French of Project Soil detail the Ottawa Food Bank’s Community Harvest at the Black Family Farm: http://projectsoil.ca/project-overview/case-studies/black-farm-case-study/.
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Andrée, P., Ballamingie, P., Piazza, S., Jarosiewicz, S. (2017). Can Community-Based Initiatives Address the Conundrum of Improving Household Food Access While Supporting Local Smallholder Farmer Livelihoods?. In: Knezevic, I., Blay-Palmer, A., Levkoe, C., Mount, P., Nelson, E. (eds) Nourishing Communities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57000-6_5
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