Food sovereignty" asserts that the people who produce, distribute, and consume food should control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution. This stands in contrast to the present corporate food system, in which corporations and market institutions dominate the global food system. Their aim is to make money, not necessarily feed people.
Organizing Consumers: Coupled with rising demand for local and organic food, neighbourhood associations and consumers across Canada are organizing innovative food production initiatives and are actively forming food policy councils in municipal and provincial forums. These community organizations view food issues as integrally related to climate, energy, and health concerns. For example, as a way to connect social welfare and public nutrition programs to sustainable agricultural development, public food procurement programs like the University of Toronto’s Local Food Plus and community-nutrition and farm-to-school programs across Canada seek to recreate links between local food, public health, and climate-friendly agriculture.
Training a New Generation of Farmers: Young farmer training programs like the FarmStart initiative in Ontario, the Richmond Farm School at the Kwantlan Polytechnic School in British Columbia, and Green Certificate Farm Training Programs in Alberta and Saskatchewan are preparing new curricula for sustainable, small-scale, urban, rural and mixed farming systems that are designed to foster “human-scale” agricultural systems that link food production, processing, adding value, distribution, marketing, and sales. These programs are attracting a new generation of agrarian and urban youth who don’t take their food for granted – and are interested in connecting food-related careers to larger concerns around energy, climate change, public health, and nutrition.
Hopefully these are what we are considering modern food systems, Not the huge corporate entities that are not helpful in anything but making profits for multi-national companies.
A project on my bucket list is to organize and plan to build a community garden in my neighbourhood. I am hoping that the families in our community will join me in learning to grow and consume our own food and, in the process give back to our community by collecting a percentage of our crop to give to local foodbanks.