Northern & Remote Food

AICBR and FSC will co-facilitate bi-monthly webinars and teleconferences with focused presentations and discussion around 4 core themes: environment, health, agriculture, and food security. Given the current federal policy opportunities that exist with the development of Canada's first national food policy, the revision of Canada's Food Guide and the complete overhaul of Nutrition North Canada, these webinars will have undercurrents of policy relevance, will be action-oriented and may evolve as new priorities arise.



JOIN THE NETWORK, connect with other members, and receive news and network notifications by email. After signing up, you will automatically be added to the emailing list for receiving information on future Northern Food Network meetings & webinars. You can unsubscribe from this list at any time.

Paying for Nutrition: Learn more and sign up to receive email notices about our newest project to conduct food costing in Northern Canada.

 

Did you know?

One in three people experience food insecurity every month in Nunavut. 

Local food is a complex question in the North. Some communities have no soil in which to grow their own food, and traditional food is difficult to access for various reasons (high cost of going out on the land, loss of traditional knowledge, and more).

Unique solutions and approaches are needed for Northern and remote communities, which is why we have formed the Northern Food Network.

What we do

Together, network members:

• Share information about our work.

• Are building a network of individuals and organizations working on food in northern and remote communities.

• Influence policy that affects food in northern and remote communities. Nutrition North Canada is a federal program intended to make fresh food more accessible to northern communities. You can read more about our analysis in the Alternative Federal Budget submission. Currently we are focused on developing policy recommendations for Canada's National Food Policy. 

• Connect and share experiences through webinars and conference calls.  Our current webinar series is on core themes in Northern Food Security. Preivous webinar series: Sharing our Stories from the North is a series of webinar calls celebrating the work of people in the North and remote areas. During these 1-hour sessions, we hope to inspire, learn and grapple with hard questions together. Listen to past webinars or sign up for the next one.

Why we do what we do

There is a growing food gap between people living in the North/remotely and and those living in the “south.” 56% of children in Nunavut, 20% in NWT and 23% in Yukon live in food insecure homes (compared to 14-19% in southern provinces). This is unacceptable in a country as wealthy as Canada.

The new Nutrition North Canada Program (NNCP) that replaced the Food Mail program:

• was done without adequate consultation with northern communities,

• has left some remote communities without access to any subsidies, and

• cut subsidies to hunting and fishing equipment, reducing access traditional foods.

People who are part of the food movement in the North often work in isolation – including groups such as Feeding My Family. The network attempts to connect people across the North and provide them with a platform to connect to the larger food movement.