A postcard from Canada

Dear friends from the Nyeleni Forum for Food Sovereignty,

We left Mali in February 2007 with a commitment. All of us, from all over the world – family farmers, fisherfolk, rural workers, landless people, Indigenous peoples and other food movement activists from more than 80 countries - would go home and work hard to build food sovereignty in our respective areas and regions.

We wanted to let you know that we have taken our commitment seriously. Yesterday, in Ottawa, our nation’s capital, we launched “Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada”. The People’s Food Policy is the result of two years of work by hundreds of people who devoted thousands of volunteer hours to create a food sovereignty policy for Canada. The policy is based on ten detailed discussion papers covering subjects from agriculture, health, the environment, fisheries, Indigenous food sovereignty, science and technology and international food policy. Each one of these areas is analyzed from a food sovereignty framework, and concrete recommendations for ways forward are proposed. As a result, the People’s Food Policy is the most comprehensive food policy being advanced in Canada today.

The People’s Food Policy has dozens of policy recommendations to lay the groundwork for a Canada with zero hunger, decent livelihoods for producers, and a sustainable environment for the future. Among the key ones are:
- Food should be eaten as close as possible to where it is produced. This would ensure that more Canadians are able to eat fresh and healthy home-grown food, and bring more resilience to the livelihoods of Canadian food providers. This includes not only increased support for well-known local food approaches such farmers markets, urban agriculture, and community-supported-agriculture, but a more systemic shift towards support for Canadian food. A key example of this would be the creation of legislation where institutions and retailers would include a set percentage of Canadian food in what they serve and sell.

- The food system is a leading contributor to climate change, responsible for between 30-57% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In order to ensure food for the future, a key priority for the People’s Food Policy is supporting food producers in a widespread shift to ecological food production. This would include increased support for initiatives such as organic agriculture, community-managed fisheries and indigenous food systems, as well as the creation of transition plans for existing farmers and fishers to move to more ecological ways of producing food.

- Close to two and a half million Canadians are regularly concerned about having enough food to eat. The People’s Food Policy calls for the creation of federal poverty elimination and prevention programs, with measurable targets and timelines, to ensure Canadians can better afford healthy food.

The launch of the People’s Food Policy has been very well-received, with lots of media coverage and interest from the political parties. It has been a very exciting time for us, and we often find ourselves thinking of all of you – our fellow travelers on the road to global food sovereignty.

We wish you were here.

Love,

The People’s Food Policy

PS: If you would like to read the full policy, and to sign our Pledge, please visit: www.peoplesfoodpolicy.ca