Canada now has a citizen-driven food policy.
The People’s Food Policy (PFP) was unveiled this past week as a plan that addresses some of this country’s most confounding food-related inconsistencies, including why close to 2.5 million Canadians don’t have enough to eat, while one in four of us is considered obese.*
What is new here is that the PFP looks at our food system and recognizes its inter-connectedness with issues of health, hunger, climate and agriculture. Food and agri are often associated, but to include health, hunger and climate in the picture is nothing short of revolutionary for this country.
I guess that’s what happens when regular citizens get involved. The PFP consulted regular Canadians, farmers, fishers and organizations that deal with food security.
What did the inquiry find? Basically that our food system is failing us, and the status quo is not an option, says Amanda Sheedy, PFP coordinator.
Key PFP recommendations:
- Localizing the system so that food is eaten as close as possible to where it is produced.
- Supporting food providers in a widespread shift to ecological production, including programs to support new farmers getting on the land.
- Enacting federal poverty elimination and prevention programs to ensure Canadians can better afford healthy food.
- Creating a nationally-funded children and food strategy.
- Ensuring that the public, is actively involved in decisions that affect the food system.
Here, here!
The new People’s Food Policy site just launched, so take a minute to sign their pledge for a healthy, fair and ecological food system.
*<rant>
Of course, this might be due the plethora of inexpensive, nutrient-poor, food-like products that pass for food on supermarket shelves that fill us up but leave us malnourished.
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