THUNDER BAY — Strengthening food security through policy is at the core of recent work by researchers at Lakehead University and a province-wide alliance dedicated to bettering food systems in Ontario.
LU faculty Charles Levkoe and Leigh Potvin are the local academics involved. Levkoe is a professor of health sciences and the Canada Research Chair in equitable and sustainable food systems. Potvin is the director of, and an associate professor in, the university’s School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism.
“These are all issues that, yes, (they) talk about food, but they're also about issues of equity and sustainability in northern Ontario,” Levkoe said. “I would argue that the point of this is that everyone has a stake in this work.”
“This is really a human thing.”
The research involved connecting with hundreds of stakeholders in food security across the province, including not-for-profits, Indigenous communities, farming and agriculture groups, academics and others to find out what their main concerns and priorities are, said Levkoe, who is also the current chair of the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy.
From that, they were able to update and produce a number of policy platforms that they’re asking people to put to candidates in the upcoming election; additionally, they’ll be used as planks for advocacy when the next provincial government is formed.
Some of the priorities are strengthening Ontario’s food resources to make it easier to buy local, reducing poverty, bettering working conditions and securing affordable housing as means to increase food security, prioritizing Indigenous food sovereignty, ensuring communities have the means to grow and harvest their own food and others.
While there isn’t much time until election day (Levkoe said they were working to have the policy areas ready to put to candidates for spring political campaigning), they will be useful when the legislature reconvenes and they can “get some of these issues on the table.”
While many of the platforms here aren’t new, he said that there has been the need to update them, as circumstances have changed in over the past several years. Levkoe pointed specifically to the policy area around poverty reduction and how it impacts food security.
“Poverty and food security have been always an issue in Ontario, it’s not a new thing,” he said. “Since post-pandemic, we are seeing much higher rates of food insecurity, issues of housing have become much more top-of-mind for folks.”
“They've become much more discussed and debated, and I think much more problematic in terms of people finding access to housing.”
Levkoe said the areas of concern are a reflection of “where people are at right now.”
And, he said, he feels that they all resonate across the province — and very acutely in the north.
“If you look at each one of them, I would argue that they absolutely impact every one of us in Ontario, and I would say even more so in northern Ontario because we just don't grow as much as they do in southern Ontario, and a lot of our food is shipped in,” he said.
