A Food Action Plan for Ottawa: A Community Vision is a community response to local food issues and concerns. Food for All has provided the structure, supports and resources, linkages between academic researchers, community partners and organizations, and a forum to explore food issues together. These proposals have been written, researched, and edited largely by community members.

The Action Plan Proposals are community solutions based on research and evidence, and the document is a living document. Join the conversation: what do you think?

What is Food For All?

Food for All is a collaborative, community-based food research and action project in Ottawa. Through capacity building, community-based research and action planning, Food for All is working towards community food security and a sustainable food system in Ottawa.

The core goals of this project are to:

1. Develop a FOOD ACTION PLAN for Ottawa;
2. Create and test a COMMUNITY FOOD ASSESSMENT to understand food issues on a neighbourhood level;
3. Build CAPACITY as a community to take action on food issues; and
4. Record and SHARE experiences with others.

The Food Action Plan proposals document food needs in our community, examine ways of strengthening the activities that already exist, and propose actions that we can take as a community to make our food system more just and sustainable.

Who is involved?

Food For All is a community-based project led by Just Food and the University of Ottawa, made possible through three years of funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The process has been overseen by a Steering Committee comprised of representatives from community organizations, academic institutions, and others. The public has participated in multiple workshops, consultations, and policy-writing teams. To date, over 200 community members have participated in workshops, research, policy-writing teams, and volunteering for the Food for All project. This number continues to grow and is a reflection of the enormous energy within the community to participate in food action and food policy initiatives.

What are the needs?

Food is a multidimensional issue that touches on issues including zoning and by-laws, economic development, community programming and services, city and rural planning, poverty reduction, and social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability. While food production was once considered an exclusively ‘rural’ issue and consumption considered a mostly ‘urban’ issue, those lines are being blurred with the rapid loss of farmland, increased rural-to-urban migration rates, and a loss of viable urban agricultural systems. Building a food secure community requires the participation of many organizations and individuals with involvements and interests in food, such as non-profit community groups, environmental organizations, small and medium-sized food enterprises, farmers and food processors, municipal agencies, health units, and educational institutions – as well as multiple levels of government. Perhaps it is due to this complexity that few jurisdictions in Canada have a Food Policy Council or a comprehensive policy approach for tackling food issues.

Fortunately, that’s changing. At the national level, the People’s Food Policy Project engaged Canadians from coast to coast to coast in order to create a national food security strategy. At the provincial level, there are now organizations such as Sustain Ontario and the Metcalf Foundation that have published reports like Menu 2020 which proposes viable solutions for the identified “good food gap” between rising hunger rates and declining farm incomes.  Municipally, the cities of Toronto and Vancouver have created Food Policy Councils with the explicit intent of assuring greater food security in their respective jurisdictions.  Other smaller municipalities are following suit across Canada[1].

In Ottawa, the realities related to poverty and associated food security are:

• In 2006, 14% of all Ottawa residents and 17% of all children lived below the Low Income Cut-off[2];
• In 25 Ottawa neighbourhoods, more than 20% of residents live below the Low Income Cut Off rate; children are among the hardest hit[3];
• Food Bank usage is rising; Ottawa experienced a 7.8% increase in food bank usage between 2008 and 2009[4].

In addition,

• Some neighbourhoods better access to healthy foods than others;
• Agricultural land assets are shrinking; and
• Energy costs are rising.

Millions of dollars of funding have supported various food programs in Ottawa. For example, the City’s Community Funding invests approximately $3.4M every year in food programs and services including multiple Emergency Food Programs. However these programs, whilst helping to mitigate some of the impacts of poverty, are themselves not necessarily secure or sustainable. Of twenty-eight nutrition and food programs that were reviewed across Ottawa, 15 organizations (54% of the sample) profiled relied on short-term grants and private donations to carry out their work[5].  Despite a variety of community activity and programming for food security and municipal support, there is neither a comprehensive food security policy nor a framework for assessment and coordination of community food interventions in Ottawa.

However, the current climate in Ottawa positively favours food policy action. A clear need for this work has been identified, the expertise and capacity clearly exist and the community has the excitement, interest, and energy to ensure that the results of the Food For All project succeed over the long term.

What is the approach?

Food for All is an iterative process: activities are planned based on academic research and evidence in the community, and then project plans respond and change based on what is learned as these plans are carried out. The project is constantly evolving to reflect the needs and interests of those who are involved as well as the community at-large. Overall, Food for All emphasizes an inclusive process, rigorous research and evidence based policy making, learning from what we already do well, learning from other jurisdictions, and adapting as we go. Capacity building is crucial – as a community, we are all continually learning how to participate in policy and food activities, as well as how to engage one another in this work.

Everybody has a role to play

The Food for All approach is inclusive and collaborative, based on the belief that everybody should be encouraged to participate and to play a role in building a better food system in Ottawa. Emphasizing the interconnectedness and complexity of the various aspects of the food system is a central aspect of the process. For example, the problem of access to affordable food is related to the problem of farmers requiring a fair return on their work: cheaper food is not necessarily a viable solution to assuring farmers of a fair income.  However, solutions can be found and working collaboratively has shown to be in everybody’s best interest.

Based on Values

The Food For All project is grounded in community-defined values as well as in a working definition of community food security: “Community food security exists when all community residents have physical and economic access to sufficient, culturally acceptable and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Community food security implies community responsibility for building a local and sustainable food system that enhances everything from self-reliance to global social justice.” The values that inform the Action Plan Proposals were determined through community meetings and workshops, and include statements regarding food rights & responsibilities, diversity & inclusivity, food knowledge & skills, long-term & collective planning, and environmental, economic & social sustainability[6].

Leading to Action

Whereas some jurisdictions have created ‘Food Charters’[7] to guide municipal food-related policies and programs, the Food For All project opted to create Action Plan Proposals. While Food Charters are important values statements that raise awareness and education about food issues and form a basis for action, they don’t necessarily ensure action. Instead, Food for All opted for a more concrete Action Plan approach so that the end result is a set of values based, action-oriented Proposals that are immediately implementable.

What has been done to-date?

1. Action Plan Proposals

Food for All: An Ottawa Community Response – is just that, a community response to local food issues and concerns. Food for All provides the structure, supports and resources, linkages to academic researchers, community partners and organizations, and a forum to explore food issues together. The Action Plan Proposals are community solutions.

Between February and June of 2010, Food For All hosted Food Action Planning conversations to build a vision of what food in Ottawa can and should look like, identify issues that 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.

Food For All then facilitated volunteer policy writing teams. The teams were comprised of community participants who selected areas of interest and became informed about these areas of interest through a workshop series.  Volunteers chose the topic or team they wished to participate in based on their own interests and expertise; all teams had access to the Policy Writing Team Toolbox provided by Food For All. The teams directed their own process, set the policy priorities based on evidence from academic research and research on other communities’ experiences, and ultimately developed a set of food Action Plan Proposals. For many volunteers, this was the very first time they had engaged in the policy process.

1. Community Assessment Toolkit

A community food assessment toolkit called Where’s the Food? Finding Out About Food in your Community was developed and piloted in two demographically different neighbourhoods, Sandy Hill (urban) and Fitzroy Harbour (rural). The Where’s the Food toolkit guides a group of community members through conducting research about food issues in their neighbourhood or community. The objectives of the Where’s the Food toolkit are building community capacity around food concerns, obtaining a better understanding of local food issues within a neighbourhood, building knowledge and education about food actions, initiatives, and projects that are possible, planting the seeds for action within a community, and developing baseline data about food security in Ottawa’s neighbourhoods.

Next Steps

The Food Action Plan is intended to inform city-wide policies in Ottawa at the levels of the municipality, NCC, school boards, businesses, and organizations. Creating public interest and momentum is critical for the implementation of the recommendations that came out of the research process. Additional next steps include:

• Engaging more community members in discussions about the food Action Plan Proposals through workshops, meetings, and other events
• Piloting the Where’s the Food Toolkit in more communities, to include francophone communities using French language toolkits;
• Establishing a forum to continue the work of researching, developing, and advocating for the implementation of stronger food policies in Ottawa, such as a food policy council or other model;
• Sharing our experiences with others, both in neighbouring communities and through national and international conferences; and
• Evaluating the Food For All project and developing an understanding of what this work implies for community-based research and policy development in the areas of food security and community food systems.

Now it’s your turn

You are very welcome to participate in the Food for All project. Many opportunities exist – from reading and providing your feedback on the Food Action Plan proposals, to attending a workshop, or joining a Where’s the Food? project team in your neighbourhood.