Hi Meredith et al,
The beauty of cut and paste means i can semi-recycle a previous posting.
Hopefully it will help you out.
I strongly agree with Sue in that food insecurity is by far a problem of
adequate income. Any discussion of food insecurity without addressing
income and social supports is not really helpful to solving the problems.
Broader food security discussions around agriculture and sound land use
planning are helpful and part of a package of solutions but they will have
little short-medium term value to food bank patrons. Ultimately, food is
still cheap (in southern ontario) but too many people just can't afford it
and the other basics of life.
As for influencing/developing healthy public policy on the issue of food
security, please be sure that people who volunteer/staff food banks are
involved, as well as food bank patrons. They have much to offer, and
despite lots of platitudes in the healthy community literature, I don't see
such consultation happening in any serious or meaningful manner-yet. That
kind of process may take longer, but with 10s of thousands of food bank
patrons in solidarity with a proposed policy, it will help speed things
along at the end of the day.
Food bank patrons are also voters (although at a much lower turnout than
higher income voters- and politicians know this) and can be engaged with
time and effort and sensitivity to barriers to participation. If some
well-meaning person crafts a set of policy recommendations without involving
these folks, further alienation and resentment is a likely outcome.
Regardless, I hear good things about Nova Scotia and food (in)security work
there so you may be further along than other areas I am more familiar with.
Below is the semi-recycled material. All the best in your work.
Michael Parkinson
House of Friendship
Emergency Food Hamper Program
807 Guelph Street,
Kitchener, ON N2H 5Z2
phone/fax: 519-570-3976
http://houseoffriendship.org
I can offer the following.About two years ago a report was prepared locally
called 'When The Fridge is Bare: Challenges to Food Security in Waterloo
Region". The report is ok, and it uses the FSCM (food security core module)
as a tool to measure household food security. The report itself is
potentially on the web at foodbankwloo.org.
We are at the front end of conducting a formal evaluation of our emergency
food hamper program. The Toronto Health Communication Unit did a lit review
for us and the results are on their web page under 'work done for other
clients', 'lit reviews'.
The Toronto Food Policy Council has lots of information on their web site.
Also, you may try http://www.foodsecurity.org/links.html
Agriculture Canada has some materials at
http://www.agr.gc.ca/misb/fsb/fsap/part2e.html
and finally, Health Canada has materials as well as the Region of Waterloo
Community Health Dept. OHPE and OPH have documents too.
from the UK try http://www.foodpolicy.co.uk/foodpolicy/
The Toronto Food Policy Council released a short document called "The Cost
of a Nutritious Food Basket in Toronto 2002" recently.
The report provides information on what it costs to eat nutritiously in
Toronto, and includes easy to use information for doing the exercise
yourself or for your community. I think it is a good food security-type
exercise that helps illustrate the income problem.
You could get a copy from Wayne Roberts at [log in to unmask]
To access the TFPC site go to:
http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sue Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: call for food security information
> We believe that the key to food security is income security. To that end
> we concentrate on issues of income maintainance, and advocate for adequate
> welfare, dignity for low-income people and access to appropriate social
> services (affordable housing, childcare, etc.). I do not believe you can
> talk about food policy to promote lack of nutritious food without
> considering the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians cannot afford
> to go to the supermarket and purchase the food they need. To that end, I
> recommend you check out a couple of websites created by Daily Bread Food
> Bank: www.dailybread.ca (look at research and public
> education/publications) or by looking at the campaign to Pay the Rent and
> Feed the Kids: website www.paytherent.ca. The latter is being updated
> almost daily as the campaign gets under way. We also have a "Community
> Action Cookbook" of ways to influence legislators. It is not up on the
> webside yet, but you could get it by calling Loreen Barbour at
4160203-0050
> ext. 238.
>
>
> At 04:45 PM 17/02/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> >Could you please post this on the click4hp listserve...thank you
> >
> >
> >We are working on a research project on food security, at both a
provincial
> >and national level, in Nova Scotia. For this project we are seeking
> >information on:
> >
> >1. Existing food security information packages and presentions, and
public
> >education and advocacy tools.
> >2. The process of influencing/developing healthy public policy.
> >3. Engaging policy makers.
> >4. Initiating food in/security and food policy discourse.
> >
> >Any articles/reports/guides/tool-kits that you or your organization are
aware
> >of would be of great assistance. This also includes any information about
what
> >your organization may have done, or is presently doing. We are basically
> >looking for any information that you may have on HOW you have done the
things
> >you have done? What was learned from the process? And the clincher - What
> >would you recommend as a strategy (or best practices, if you will) to
others
> >who are attempting to raise awareness and understanding, and ultimately
> >encourage policy action on an issue that is not widely recognized or
> >understood.
> >
> >Please forward any information, or questions, that you may have to:
> >[log in to unmask]
> >
> >If you are interested in more information on this research project please
see:
> >http://www.medicine.dal.ca/ahprc/FoodSecurity.html
> >
> >Meredith Kratzmann
> >MA Candidate, Health Promotion, Dalhousie University
> >Research Assistant
> >Nova Scotia Nutrition Council/Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre
> >[log in to unmask]
> >
> >Meredith Kratzmann
> >MA Candidate, Health Promotion, Dalhousie University
> >Research Assistant
> >Nova Scotia Nutrition Council/Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre
> >[log in to unmask]
> >
> >To unsubscribe send one line: unsubscribe click4hp to: [log in to unmask]
.
> >To view archives or modify subscription see:
> >http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/click4hp.html
>
> Sue Cox
> Executive Director
> Daily Bread Food Bank
> Tel:(416) 203-0050 ext. 235
> Fax:(416) 203-0049
>
> To unsubscribe send one line: unsubscribe click4hp to: [log in to unmask] .
To view archives or modify subscription see:
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>
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