Eat, Think, Vote wants Canadian voters to push for government policies that support small farmers and local food
Everyone eats. Everyone thinks. But does everyone vote?
An initiative called Eat Think Vote, organized by Food Secure Canada, aims to make food an issue in this federal election and to have voters consider it when casting their ballots Oct 19.
A question posed on the organization’s website and addressed to election candidates had generated 75 responses as of Oct. 7, all in agreement to this:
“Do you agree that Canada needs a bold new vision for a national food policy that will ensure that all people in Canada enjoy the right to food, that all kids have access to healthy food in school and that the next generation of farmers gets the support they need to thrive?”
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Eat Think Vote initiatives have also raised the food security issue at election forums, said Alberta Food Matters chair Susan Roberts, who raised it herself at a forum in Jasper, Alta., last week.
“I spoke to all the candidates and I did ask the question,” said Roberts.
“It resonated with them all. I would say it resonated more strongly with, in particular, the NDP, because of their social justice pillar, and to some extent with the Liberal.”
However, Roberts and others involved in Eat Think Vote aren’t assuming any one party has the platform to address issues of food security for all Canadians. They do hope a policy will evolve within the next government.
“From the Alberta Food Matters perspective, we agree with Food Secure Canada that we need a national food policy, one that considers healthy food for all children in Canada, one that supports young farmers in the business of farming, one that supports eradicating food insecurity and one that looks at practices that are sustainable and ecologically sound,” said Roberts.
“Our hope would be that the party that would come into power would develop a national food policy based on that.”
Brenda Barritt, a farmer near Alix, Alta., is on the national committee for Eat Think Vote.
Her bumper sticker, with those three words, has sparked queries and conversations, which she said is the goal.
“In making food an election issue, it wasn’t about perhaps getting the candidates to talk about it. The first step is getting citizens to be thinking about it as an actual election issue and as something that our leadership can do something about and then begin to bring that more to a platform.
“If we don’t start talking about it as citizens, how can we expect political leaders to?”
Food Secure Canada published A People’s Food Policy for Canada in 2011.
It outlined seven pillars of Canadian food sovereignty:
- focuses on food for people
- values food providers
- localizes food systems
- puts control locally
- builds knowledge and skills
- works with nature
- recognizes that food is sacred
Barritt said she is interested in policies that help young farmers enter the business and support different types of farms and farmers who want to feed their own families and country rather than “feeding the world,” as is often touted in agricultural promotions.
Small farms and local agriculture were also on the mind of Jennifer Tarnowsky, who organized an Eat Think Vote event Oct. 5 at the Lethbridge soup kitchen.
“With the aging farming population, I think Canada needs to come up with a strategy to invite new farmers and provide initiatives and make it easier for them to acquire land and start small and new farms,” Tarnowsky said.
She acknowledged that farms have become larger over the past two decades, in part for economic reasons, and that sustainability depends on farmers’ ability to make a living.
“Food is a right but it’s also a commodity and so how do you balance the two? How do you make it affordable, but then profitable for the farmers?” she said.
“I don’t really have an answer, but I do think it’s something that we need to mull over and discuss.”