Food security

Safe, secure and reliable food

Access to food is a basic need. Broadly, food security is when all people have access to safe, nutritious, and personally acceptable food. A few definitions:

Community food security
  • A community is “food secure” when everyone obtains a safe, personally acceptable, nutritious diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes self-reliance and social justice. (Adapted from Hamm and Bellows, 2003)
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Household food insecurity
  • Household food insecurity (infographic, Provincial Health Services Authority) is when a household worries about or lacks the financial means to buy healthy, safe, personally and culturally acceptable food.
    • The primary cause of household food insecurity is the lack of sufficient income to purchase food.
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Food sovereignty
  • Food sovereignty is the rights of all people to define their own food system, and to access food in ways that are personally and culturally appropriate.
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Food insecurity profoundly impacts the physical, mental, and social well-being of communities and residents in Northern BC. Addressing food security is complex, and requires collaboration across a variety of settings and sectors, to ensure that all Northern British Columbians have access to safe, reliable, and nutritious food, within a food system that is healthy, resilient, and sustainable.

Population Health Dietitians work to:

  • Increase community food security and food sovereignty through local community collaboration and capacity building
  • Advocate for policy changes that decrease household food insecurity

Food security can be addressed through a continuum

There are 3 stages that make up the food security continuum:

Stage 1: Efficiency strategies - short-term relief for households experiencing food insecurity

Stage 1 strategies are immediate and short-term, and do not address the underlying causes of household food insecurity, such as low income, and inequitable access to food.

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Stage 2: Increasing community food security through capacity, skills, and engagement

Stage 2 strategies focus primarily on community food security; strategies that build resilient, healthy, and sustainable food systems.

  • BC Farmers’ Markets - BC Association of Farmers' Markets (BCAFM)
  • Community gardens, community kitchens
  • Farm 2 School BC - Public Health Association of BC (PHABC)
  • Good food box programs, bulk buying clubs, buy local events
  • IMAGINE Community Grants - Northern Health
  • Local food networks
  • Seedy Saturday events
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Stage 3: Increasing community food security and decreasing household food insecurity through policy and systems change

Stage 3 strategies are systems redesign strategies that seek to provide upstream solutions that primarily work to decrease household food insecurity, but also increase community food security.

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Neither community food security nor household food insecurity can be achieved on their own. A community cannot be truly food secure if some members of the community do not have the financial means to participate in the food system. Conversely, households cannot become food secure without access to a sustainable, and resilient food system.

Resources

Household food insecurity
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Community food security
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Indigenous food sovereignty
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