2. Food Sovereignty in Rural and Remote Communities

Executive Summary

The industrial food system raises numerous challenges for the food sovereignty of rural and remote communities. For communities that are further away or more tenuously connected to commercial centres, the cost of store-bought food is higher and the nutritional value lower.
Pressures of centralization leave many rural communities without the required facilities to inspect or process food for local consumption. Food knowledge relevant to the local ecology is being lost, while research and training opportunities are focused on techniques not suited to the diverse bio-regions in the country.

For rural and remote communities, solutions to the food sovereignty crisis strengthen the capacity of these communities to provide food for local and regional consumption. By building the resilience of each community’s food system, we build a diverse, local, and resilient national food system. Proposed solutions include:

• Establishing community-based knowledge exchange networks to facilitate the exchange of food knowledge, information, and ideas across cultural and generational lines.
• Providing infrastructure and support for research and post-secondary training in food production that reflects the diversity of rural and remote bio-regions (including northern regions) and is inclusive of a range of food sources (e.g., traditional or forest food) and non-industrial methods.
• Developing a national food/land protection system in which land-use planning prioritizes and protects food cultivation and is inclusive of all food sources, including those used for hunting, gathering, fishing, and agriculture.
• Developing approaches to inspection and processing that are flexible, responsive, innovative, and bureaucratically streamlined in order to accomodate the less industrial, more seasonal, and variable approaches of small-scale local producers and their unique needs.
• Identifying food as a priority area for small business development and employment training.
• Developing regional trade networks for the promotion, marketing, and movement of food products among communities within a given region.

Download Discussion paper # 2: Food Sovereignty in Rural and Remote Communities (510.71 KB)