Food for All is bringing together members of the community and universities in Ottawa to develop a food action plan and food assessment toolkit that will help address many of the food issues that exist in Ottawa. The recommendations in this food action plan and the food assessment toolkit will outline the steps that can be taken by different individuals, community groups, organizations, and decision makers to improve community food security in Ottawa.
So, how are we doing this? Here’s a run-down of Food for All activities:
Completing an environmental scan of Ottawa to outline the programs that exist around food in Ottawa
Conducting a series of literature reviews to help us learn about the experiences of others who have worked towards addressing food issues
Holding interviews with decision-makers and stakeholders to help us understand what steps we need to take to put these community ideas into action
Developing and piloting a community food assessment toolkit called Where’s the Food? Finding Out About Food in Your Community
Facilitating food policy writing teams
Hosting a series of food action planning conversations and community meetings to prepare for, and seek feedback on our food action plan proposals
The Food for All environmental scan outlines what programs exist around food in Ottawa. In 2001, the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Food Security Group released a report called “Food Security in Ottawa: A Community Profile”. “This report present[ed] a profile of food security resources and activities in Ottawa”… with the intention to “shape the future development and direction of food policies and initiatives in the new City of Ottawa.”
Since 2001, the resources and activities around food security in Ottawa have continued to evolve. Check out the updated version of this document, authored by Food for All volunteer Kathleen Courtenay:
Community groups, researchers and governments across Canada, North America and the world are working to improve food security in their communities. Literature reviews help us learn from the experiences of these community groups, researchers and governments as they have worked towards addressing community food security issues.
The series of literature reviews dives deeper into the whole range of issues related to food in our communities. To find out more, visit our online portal of Resources, Links, and Connections.
Interviews with Decision Makers and Stakeholders
Food for All is a partnership between a broad group of individuals, community groups, agencies, and universities in Ottawa that are working towards community food security. Many of the food action plan recommendations need support from the different decision makers around these issues to be put into action. Interviews with decision makers and stakeholders help us to build relationships and to better understand what steps we need to take to put these ideas into action. In Ottawa, some of the key decision-making bodies that have influence over community food security are the City of Ottawa, the National Capital Commission, and the school boards.
These interviews are aimed at finding answers to a number of key questions that will help Food for All build our strategy for putting community food security issues onto the policy agenda, as well as building relationships with those who have an interest in food issues. Our overarching question is,
“How should Food for All approach developing a policy in community food security in Ottawa, what problems are we going to be facing and how can we work around those problems?”
This includes finding answers to the following questions:
- Where do community food security issues lie on the decision-maker priority list?
- How do we make a policy idea more compelling? From an environmental angle, poverty angle, social justice angle, health angle, economic angle, etc.?
- Who are key people (staff of the decision-making body) that can work with us to move this policy forward internally?
Where’s the Food? Finding Out About Food in Your Community
One of the cornerstones of reaching community food security is the ability to measure and monitor food security at a neighbourhood, or community level. Food for All is bringing together individuals, groups and organizations in the Ottawa community by adapting and piloting a community food security assessment toolkit.
“Where’s the Food” helps communities to:
- Better understand their community food security;
- Decide on what actions to take to improve their community food security; and
- Monitor whether or not their community food security improves over time.
Food for All has found a number of different assessments that have been used in other communities and has adapted bits and pieces from all of those toolkits into a tool that is relevant to Ottawa. The toolkit, called “Where’s the Food? Finding Out About Food in your Community” is being piloted in two Ottawa communities: Fitzroy Harbour (rural) and Sandy Hill (urban).
In Sandy Hill, the results of the Where’s the Food research were compiled into a summary document, called: Where’s the Food? A Compilation of Research Gathered with the Food Security Assessment Toolkit in the Sandy Hill Community
How do you progress from a great conversation to a policy recommendation? From June to September 2010, we facilitated Policy Writing Teams. Each team was made up of a diverse group of Food for All participants, directed their own process, set policy priorities, conducted research, and developed a set of Food Action Plan Proposals. You can find out more about this process by consulting the Policy Writing Team Toolbox. Here’s a list of the teams that worked to develop policy proposals:
- Community Gardens, Land and Soil
- Edible Landscape, Working with Private Institutions, City and NCC
- Urban Livestock
- Access to Food
- Income and the Cost of Eating
- Food Education and Awareness
- Emergency Food
- Community Food Programs
- Community Food Programs in Our Schools
- School Boards and Food Issues in Schools
- Market Food Production
Conversations and Community Meetings
Food for All is bringing together the needs, experiences, and enthusiasm from individuals, groups and organizations in the Ottawa community by developing a food action plan through a number of community food action planning conversations.
Between February and June of 2010, we hosted Food Action Planning conversations to build a vision of what food in Ottawa can and should look like; identify issues which exist around food in Ottawa; come up with ideas to overcome those issues which exist; and set direction for concrete food policy/ action plan recommendations for Ottawa. These conversations covered 5 core themes:
- Food, Access and Health in Our Communities;
- Food Retail Environments;
- Food in Our Schools;
- Household Food Production; and
- Market Food Production.
Food for All is continuing with community meetings in different parts of Ottawa to continue these conversations. Meetings in the fall of 2010 and early 2011 focus on seeking feedback on work completed, and engaging new people and communities to participate in Food for All.