Good food on our plates: What we've accomplished together in 2016

While 2016 was a hard year in many respects, it did not stop us from working toward a healthier, more sustainable and more equitable food system.

At Food Secure Canada, we believe that food is more than a commodity. Food nourishes our bodies and brings us together. Good food policy offers solutions to the most intractable economic, environmental and health-related problems.

We cannot continue to ignore the facts that:

• Canada has ratified an international covenant declaring food a human right, yet four million Canadians have trouble putting food on the table.

• Eighty-three per cent of Canadians want to buy local food, yet 81 per cent of our fruits and vegetables are imported.

• More than half of Canadian farmers are 55 or older, and three-quarters of them do not have successors to take over the farm.

It is for these reasons and more that we bring together Canadians who believe that food plays an essential role in our lives and should be a bigger priority for our politicians. We are building a rich and diverse movement to influence policy and to ensure that Canadians have more say in what’s on our plates.

Join us! Together, we have accomplished an incredible amount in 2016.

Lend your support to make 2017 even more successful!

Bringing people together to rethink our food system:

	Resetting the Table: the largest Canadian gathering of food advocates More than 900 people joined Resetting the Table, our 9th Assembly, for an unforgettable meeting of ideas, collective action and inspiring encounters. [Read more]
	Discussing Food Sovereignty and Political Opportunities at the World Social Forum How do we understand food sovereignty? According to Mamadou Goita from Mali, it’s a challenge to those who think that we should all just “Eat and shut up.” More than one hundred people joined him in refusing to shut up at a Food Secure Canada event in Montreal during the World Social Forum 2016. [Read more]
	Nourish: The Future of Food in Health Care Nourish recruited current champions and future innovators in Canadian healthcare who work to reconnect food, culture, and health. Nourish is a two-year leadership development program for innovators shaping the future of food in healthcare in Canada. [Read more]

Fighting food insecurity and unhealthy diets:

	Paying for Nutrition: a report on food costing in the North Food Secure Canada’s latest report explores the food security crisis facing First Nations communities in Northern Ontario, where alarmingly high food prices are hindering access to nutritious food. Many of the issues outlined in the report were discussed at Food Secure Canada’s Assembly, Resetting the Table. [Read more]
	Food Is Part of the Recipe for a Healthy Canada Food Secure Canada and Dr. Norm Campbell sent an open letter to federal Health Minister, Jane Philpott, on January 13, 2016 to introduce our Food and Nutrition Fact Sheet and to request a meeting with Minister Philpott and her counterparts in stakeholder ministries to discuss urgent action on the highest-priority items, including sodium/trans fat reduction and marketing to kids. [Read more]
	Make Sustainable Diets an Important Part of Canada’s Next Food Guide Sweden, Brazil, and Germany have integrated sustainability principles into their national dietary guidelines. With the recently announced revision of Canada’s Food Guide, we have a strategic opportunity in Canada to do the same. Since our health is intimately linked to the environment, we need to improve the sustainability of food systems and redefine healthy food as going beyond its nutritional qualities alone. [Read more]

Engaging decision-makers:

	Parliamentarians and Kids Crunch for Healthy School Food MPs and Ministers joined Food Secure Canada and the Coalition for Healthy School Food for a Great Big Crunch. In the words of 11-year-old Max Molnar, “We want to be healthy. We want to be active. We don’t want to be a couch potato.” [Read more]
	New Farmers Are the Future of Food. They Need Our Support! Over the past few years, the New Farmer Initiative, a Food Secure Canada network, has engaged in extensive consultations with farmers and farm organizations. From this process, several key issues and recommendations emerged on how government policies and programs can better support new farmers. [Read more]
	Healthy Food on the Table at the FPT Health Ministers' Meeting A renewed sense of opportunity formed the undercurrent of January’s health ministers’ meeting as provincial and territorial health ministers met with their federal counterpart for the first time in a decade. Food Secure Canada was there. [Read more]