About the consultation

We’re developing a provincial food security strategy to help ensure more people can access sufficient, safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food that meets their dietary needs.

We developed a discussion paper and from April 2017 – July 2017, launched an online survey and hosted in-person meetings to give Ontarians a chance to provide early feedback and help us develop the strategy.

With help from the ministries of Community and Social Services, Health and Long-Term Care, Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and Children and Youth Services, we identified 4 focus areas to guide the discussion on what should be included in the strategy:

  1. Empowered communities with custom-made solutions.
    We need to support communities as they meet their needs with solutions that are unique and home grown.
  2. Integrated food initiatives that use knowledge to drive collective impact.
    We can increase food security by working across different sectors and agreeing on objectives and how to measure progress.
  3. Food security is about more than food.
    To help people become food secure, we need to increase access to housing, transportation, good jobs and food skills. This will also help increase mental health and wellbeing in the short, medium and long-term.
  4. Driving innovation.
    To tackle food insecurity and help us come up with new solutions, we will support, encourage and learn from food insecurity disrupters.

The consultation supports work already underway to reduce poverty and improve food security through programs such as:

Minister’s message

Gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by people living in poverty is at the heart of my new role as Ontario’s Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Recognizing the symptoms of poverty is crucial to addressing them. Earlier this year, our government began consultations across the province to better understand and address one of these core symptoms: food insecurity.

We spoke with many people in Ontario from all walks of life about their hopes, needs, and perspectives in order to develop a provincial food security strategy that will help to improve access to sufficient, safe, affordable, and nutritious food.

In communities throughout the province, we heard from too many of our neighbours who are struggling to make ends meet, lacking enough income to keep a roof overhead or nutritious food on the table for their growing families.

These conversations brought home the urgent need for a provincial food security strategy. This report is an important step toward that goal.

We began our consultations with a discussion paper that acted as a starting point for in-person discussions, written submissions, and answers given on food security questionnaires.

We heard from those with lived experience as well as health, food policy, poverty reduction, agriculture and food system experts – including First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Urban Indigenous partners.

Through our engagement we heard many different ideas from people about how we should approach this work and what should be included in a strategy. We heard about how affordable transportation, stable employment, affordable housing, and local food growing initiatives can improve physical and economic access to healthy foods.

The Food Security Strategy will complement our Poverty Reduction Strategy.

It will address physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, including in remote and Indigenous communities, and for Indigenous peoples across the province.

The Strategy will emphasize that food is cultural and advance ways that connections with food can enable and increase individual, cultural, and community health and wellbeing.

Our engagement has generated important conversations about the lessons we can learn from the people of our province about their access to and perspectives on food, particularly in the different regions and communities they call home.

The Strategy will act as a tool toward developing and continuing ongoing, collaborative relationships within and outside of government. And it will encourage stronger federal partnership to help tackle food security challenges in Northern and remote First Nations communities.

We know that we need to continue to keep open lines of communication as we develop and implement a strategy that truly takes into account the challenges facing people in Ontario, while leveraging the innovative solutions they continue to drive within their own communities. This report highlights some of those challenges as well as some of the solutions that will help to inform our strategy.

As we continue our work, I would like to take a moment to thank Minister Chris Ballard for his leadership in overseeing consultations and beginning the development of a food security strategy for Ontario. I look forward to building on his work.

I would also like to thank the countless people across the province who shared their thoughts and ideas. Your insights will be invaluable as we develop Ontario’s first Food Security Strategy and continue the important work of building an Ontario where no one knows what it is to go hungry.

The Honourable Peter Milczyn
Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Minister of Housing

Who we heard from and how

We connected with people and communities across the province to learn more about their perspectives on the proposed vision and four-pillar approach to developing a provincial food security strategy. We were also interested in learning more about their food security-related activities.

Between April and July 2017:

  • 155people completed our online survey based on our discussion paper
  • 133people completed the Indigenous-focused questionnaire
  • 400people attended in-person meetings, including a policy hackathon in Toronto

We held 8 roundtable conversations in London, Guelph, Barrie, Peterborough, Sudbury, Sioux Lookout, Lac Seul, and Moosonee.

We also had the opportunity to bring information about the Food Security Strategy to 10 meetings, with the Canadian Association for Food Studies, the Urban Indigenous Table on Income Security Reform, the First Nations Income Security Reform Working Group, Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Management in Public Health (OCDPMPH), Nishnawbe Aski Nation Chiefs Assemblies, Chiefs of Ontario Health Coordination Unit, Eastern Region Food Policy Councils, Tungasuvvingat Inuit, and Métis Nation of Ontario.

We gained insight into the diversity of perspectives on food security, and identified the need for ongoing engagement and discussion throughout the Strategy’s development and implementation.

During our engagement activities, we met with and heard from:

  • consumers
  • processors
  • retailers
  • poverty reduction advocates and service providers
  • social service agencies
  • academics and students
  • public health professionals
  • agricultural sector representatives
  • food system experts
  • urban growers
  • First Nations, Inuit, Mètis, and Urban Indigenous partners
  • persons with lived experience of food insecurity
  • representatives from municipal and regional governments

What we heard

The vision for food security

Respondents told us that food security:

  • means that all people, at all times, will be able to access Ontario’s plentiful food resources, in a dignified manner
  • provides access to safe, sufficient, affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, through a food system that is socially just and sustainable
  • supports individual, community, and cultural health and wellbeing.

Many respondents wanted to be sure we understood that food security and food insecurity are separate concepts. Food insecurity is not the opposite of food security.

Household food insecurity is experienced when an individual or household lacks the financial resources to afford food. We heard that addressing household food insecurity requires specific income-related interventions.

Household food security is influenced by:

  • cost of living, including housing and rent
  • cost of heat, hydro, food, and other basic necessities
  • social assistance rates
  • job security and income
  • access to transportation
  • cost of fuel and equipment required for hunting and fishing

Community food security could be increase by addressing the issues listed above and by improving:

  • healthy food retail options in neighbourhoods and communities – especially in northern and remote communities
  • health of soil, water, and local growing conditions
  • health of agricultural sector and protection of agricultural lands
  • access to land required for growing and raising foods
  • local economic conditions

Pillar one: Empowering communities with custom-made solutions

Supporting communities to identify local food security solutions can improve outcomes across the province.

Key themes we heard were:

  • achieving food security requires collaboration across sectors, and solutions that reflect local interests, needs, and capacities
  • economic, environmental, and community health conditions help support community empowerment
  • food security can strengthen local economies and improve individual and community health and wellbeing
  • investments are required across the food system to realize the full benefits of food security
  • predictable funding could support the establishment of new approaches, evaluate community-led initiatives, and scale up proven solutions
  • a clearer foundational and community-informed vision, set of definitions, and measurement standards could help to further local and regional action on food security
  • improved transportation networks, distribution, increased retail competition in remote communities, and broadband infrastructure would help people access affordable and healthy food, especially in northern and remote communities
  • adequate access to water resources is an essential component of food security, and is often required by small scale, community-led growing initiatives
  • empowered communities are comprised of empowered people, who possess the food skills and nutrition literacy that can support healthier lives

Respondents suggested:

  • partnerships be developed with municipal, regional, and federal governments, Métis, Inuit, and First Nations communities
  • outcome-oriented programs, policies, and funding platforms could lead to improved coordination at the local level
  • there is an opportunity to help people gain food skills and nutrition literacy within public education curricula
  • a provincial food security funding structure for communities and organizations could encourage local collaboration
  • increased support for food policy councils and networks could help to integrate initiatives, while remaining sensitive to regional differences, and respectful of local cultures and self-determination
  • many First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Urban Indigenous communities are interested in building greenhouses, garden beds, and developing cultural food skills programs to increase physical accessibility to food
  • financial resources are required to support Indigenous hunting, fishing, and gardening programs
  • in some remote communities, the development of roads is an important first step to improving transportation
  • in other remote communities, community-led transportation and distribution networks and mobile markets could help people access more affordable food

Pillar two: Integrated food initiatives built with collective impact

To increase food security, it’s important for government, communities, the private sector, and other organizations to identify common objectives and opportunities, to align and support each other’s work, and to measure progress.

We heard that a collective impact framework is one way to increase collaboration but it is not the only way.

Key themes we heard were:

  • a common vision can help identify shared objectives
  • a common measurement framework can help us better understand how different approaches contribute to the realization of our common vision
  • there is a need for improved communication within and across communities
  • there is an interest in working more closely with the private sector to realize food security outcomes
  • with financial support, backbone organizations can help build a common vision, measure success, and improve communication

Respondents suggested:

  • learning could be better shared across organizations and communities to improve initiatives and identify best practices
  • adequate funding and staff support, working groups, and communications networks could better connect wide ranging initiatives
  • existing structures should be supported instead of creating new, possibly duplicative governance structures
  • Sustain Ontario, Ontario Public Health Association, and Nishnawbe Aski Nation are all leaders in this space and should be recognized as organizations that could coordinate efforts
  • an open data initiative that encourages diversity in the types, sources, and accessibility of data and that help track progress on food security outcomes, including locally-specific data could support this

Pillar three: Food security is about more than food

To help people become food secure, we need to increase access to affordable housing, transportation, and good jobs. Food security will improve mental health and wellbeing in the short, medium and long-term.

Key themes we heard were:

  • income supports are required to address household food insecurity
  • income levels are affected by a number of factors, including local economic conditions, precarious employment, individual physical capacities, and education
  • the launch of the Basic Income Pilot is a promising step toward increasing dignified access to Ontario’s food system and may address underlying issues of food insecurity
  • a household’s ability to purchase food is often affected by the cost of other basic needs
  • persons living on social assistance often do not have enough income to purchase nutritious, culturally appropriate food and wage earners also struggle to put food on the table
  • improved transportation options in remote, rural and urban communities could help individuals to access sufficient, safe, nutritious, culturally appropriate food from lower-cost retail outlets within or near their community
  • stable housing can help people leave poverty behind by making it easier to find work and access other social services
  • in northern and remote communities, affordable year-round transportation, more affordable hydro, improved community food storage facilities, and distribution infrastructure could help develop food security at individual, household, and community levels
  • colonialism disrupted Indigenous food security, and residential schools have left a lasting impact on Indigenous communities, including a loss of traditional food skills that could otherwise protect households from food insecurity and other detrimental effects on community health and wellbeing

Respondents suggested:

  • a basic income guarantee, increases to minimum wage, and social assistance are important steps toward addressing household food insecurity in Ontario
  • regulations to reduce precarious employment in Ontario and the provision of a living wage were seen as important areas of focus
  • improved access to affordable housing, rental protections, and a reduction to energy rates for lower income, northern, and remote households can free up economic resources that could be spent on nutritious, safe, culturally appropriate food
  • increased social and economic inclusion for persons with disabilities, and a reduction of earned wage clawbacks from social assistance programs could lead to improved economic outcomes for vulnerable persons
  • women’s economic empowerment, and paying women for community level and volunteer labour could contribute to women’s food security overall
  • affordable childcare, education and skills development programs, and support for small farm and business enterprises are potential drivers of improved incomes

Pillar four: Driving innovation

Across the province, entrepreneurs and grassroots leaders are using traditional knowledge, technology, and new business models to improve physical and economic access to nutritious, safe, high quality, culturally appropriate food – including in remote First Nations communities.

Key themes we heard were:

  • new and sustained investment is needed to support innovators and accelerate solutions
  • approaches that respect Indigenous cultures and sovereignty, and include traditional knowledge can have greater, longer lasting impact across the province
  • social enterprise is a model that has increased employment opportunities for vulnerable persons and the precariously employed, leading to improved food security
  • communities are using technology to increase physical access to food through digital marketplaces that connect farmers to community members
  • many communities — especially those in Northern and remote regions — are interested in using innovative approaches to growing food, for instance, using greenhouse, hydroponic, and vertical growing methods
  • capital investment and funding can increase stability of new ventures and help establish more effective approaches to achieving food security
  • social innovation can help communities develop new local economic development opportunities and access private capital but the success of these initiatives will depend on private sector and citizen involvement.
  • broadband infrastructure (e.g., internet) and physical infrastructure (e.g., community meeting spaces) in northern remote communities are required to advance innovation ecosystems there

Respondents suggested:

  • businesses and government have equal roles in identifying innovative solutions for food security
  • more must be done to bring business to the table
  • the innovation space must include diverse peoples, perspectives, and sector knowledge
  • targeted and innovative solutions should be centred on establishing community food self-determination
  • within Indigenous communities, it is important to ensure that food systems are relevant to Indigenous culture and values by including Indigenous-led innovations that enhance capacity for traditional activities, such as hunting, fishing, gathering and growing local foods and medicines to encourage community-sustainability and economic opportunities, alongside innovations that seek to improve distribution and affordability of food
  • mentoring could help innovators identify how parts of a charitable or non-profit service model could be built out to include social enterprise components
  • investors and entrepreneurs require more information on the relevant players and potential partners within the food security space
  • improved access to agricultural sector and food retail data can help identify system gaps and identify new approaches to food security
  • a shared purpose for innovation across the food supply chain may increase the likelihood of collaboration and improve synergies across the system

Indigenous engagement

Developing an ongoing food security dialogue that respects government-to-government relationships, and wider interests in developing food systems that respect Indigenous values could help address the unique challenges and opportunities facing Indigenous communities.

Key themes we heard were:

  • Ontario’s original food systems were Indigenous food systems, which supported populations for thousands of years
  • colonialism resulted in loss of land, resources, and access to traditional territories and altered trading relationships among Indigenous communities
  • the legacy of residential schools has disrupted Indigenous cultural, social and economic practices related to food
  • food insecurity rates are very high in northern, remote communities
  • food insecurity can have a significant negative impact on all aspects of a person’s life, including their physical and mental health
  • food security is closely connected to other issues, including job and income security
  • high cost of transportation and distribution increases the cost of food in northern and remote communities
  • the Northern Store frequently operates with limited or no competition, particularly in remote communities
  • urban and off-reserve Indigenous people face challenges accessing quality nutritious food, often as a result of lack of personal transportation or public transit options

Respondents suggested that:

  • Indigenous communities and organizations are addressing food security through community gardens, hunts, greenhouses, and freezers, food co-ops and food literacy initiatives such as food preservation, gardening and cooking classes
  • Indigenous-led social enterprises could improve food distribution and retail options in northern and remote communities
  • wild and country food habitats could be protected to support Indigenous food systems, including manoomin (wild rice)
  • country food procurement strategies in hospitals, childcare centres, and Student Nutrition Programs can improve community health and wellbeing
  • First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Urban Indigenous food security coordinators could implement Indigenous-led food security initiatives
  • Indigenous-led food literacy educational opportunities and resources could be developed
  • transportation programs, such as mobile markets or community transportation initiatives, can help urban and off-reserve Indigenous people and families access food

Other themes and considerations

We also asked what was missing in our framework for discussion on food security.

Key themes we heard were:

  • identify additional areas of action by looking at the whole food system
  • consider private sector’s role in supporting food security
  • economic growth, wages, and benefits are key contributors to household income, and food security
  • municipal governments can play a part in shaping place-based local strategies
  • consider climate change as a key consideration and reason for action on food security
  • consider the effects of international trade on domestic food supply and negative consequences of a reliance on imported foods
  • identify opportunities for social enterprises within the charitable food and food waste sectors by examining the Donation of Food Act
  • better support cottage food industries by considering food safety regulations from the perspective of small start-up enterprises
  • minimize food waste by addressing inefficiencies within the food system
  • help limit household food waste through public awareness campaigns, like Love Food Hate Waste

Next steps

We will move a provincial food security strategy ahead in the coming months, using what we heard through public engagement activities and in collaboration with our partner ministries.

As we develop the Strategy, we will continue to participate in and host conversations to help us identify and understand the unique perspectives of diverse Ontarians who reside in rural, urban, Northern, and remote communities. We will refine an open dialogue approach to achieving food security as this work unfolds.

Ongoing engagement will also help us build stronger partnerships with First Nations, Métis, Inuit and Urban Indigenous communities and organizations.

We will continue to strengthen our efforts on poverty reduction and look forward to a federal partnership that follows our lead to identify opportunities to increase food security for all Ontarians.

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