10. Food Democracy and Governance

Executive Summary

This discussion paper is focused on the need for democratic food governance. Our everyday lives are intertwined with the food system. An inclusive and enabling policy environment requires institutions and organizing structures that facilitate public participation in shaping policies, norms, values, and rules. Moreover, a democratic society must be able to guarantee the meaningful and active involvement of all individuals, groups and institutions in decision-making processes. In other words, people must have a say in how their food is produced and where it comes from, and they must have an active role in realizing the principles of food sovereignty.

This final discussion paper presents a framework and a set of strategies for establishing open, democratic, and transparent governance processes that lay the foundation for the policies outlined in the previous discussion papers with the overall goal of building a sustainable, healthy and just food system. These strategies include:

• Establishing councils/roundtables to work with governments at all levels (municipal, provincial/territorial, and federal) on food policies to achieve social justice, ecological resilience, and sustainable livelihoods in Canada’s food system. They must include representation from all food-related sectors, including health promotion, education, housing, environment, community governed food programs, farmers, and retailers, and must ensure full participation of dispossessed and marginalized people. Each council must be able to organize itself autonomously and establish its own working structures in line with the values and principles of accessibility, transparency, inclusivity, and equality.
• All food policy needs to be grounded in an integrated analysis of the entire food system. This is to ensure that solutions address root causes and avoid creating further challenges due to silo-based thinking.
• Initiatives contributing to a diverse economy must be recognized and supported, including new economic approaches that value ethics of interdependence, sustainability, health, and justice over those of profit and individualism.
• Knowledge based on community experience as well as scientific knowledge must be included in public education, training, and capacity building efforts. The policy environment and broader public knowledge base can only be strengthened and improved by taking into account the contributions of urban and rural farmers, fisher folk, hunters and gatherers, gardeners, and Indigenous peoples.

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