Food security, food insecurity, and Canada’s national food policy: Meaning, measures, and assessment

Abstract

We review the Canadian federal government‘s recently enacted Food Policy for Canada (FPC). Three arguments are developed. First, the development and vision statement of the FPC implies that improving Canadian food security is a specific objective of the policy. Second, if assessed by the measure of food insecurity promulgated by Statistics Canada, the effectiveness of the FPC in reducing Canadian food insecurity will primarily depend on the extent to which it improves household incomes and/or lowers food prices. We evaluate the current programmatic content by these criteria. Third, and related to the second point, we argue that the variation in the severity of food insecurity is an important consideration in assessing the effectiveness of FPC programs in reducing food insecurity as measured by Statistics Canada. Finally, we combine these three arguments into a simple figure/heuristic that can serve as a guide to the assessment and development of FPC programs seeking to enhance food insecurity in Canada.

Intersections of race, COVID-19 pandemic, and food security in Black identifying Canadian households: A scoping review

“…In contrast, Canadian definitions of food insecurity are rooted in understandings of food insecurity being a household-level issue due to financial constraints . As a result, the metrics to assess food insecurity in Canada are assessed at the household level and centrally focus on the concept of availability or food supply, with little attention directed towards other FAO parameters (Deaton & Scholz, 2022). In Canada, the specific instrument used to measure food security is the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM), which is a validated tool consisting of eighteen questions designed to measure a household's food security over the past twelve months (Statistics Canada, 2023).…”

“…While these questions are important, what is missing from the HFSSM are details about what is meant by the changing quality of the foods one eats, including the cultural appropriateness of foods and the ability of one to maintain the practice of cultural food traditions. As such, the FAO parameter of 'accessibility,' which would entail assessments into the cultural relevance of foods, remain unaddressed in current household food security metrics in Canada (Deaton & Scholz, 2022).…”