 ommunity food security is
achieved when everyone in a
community has access to food in
sufficient quantity and quality,
obtained from non-emergency sources,
that has been produced in a way that
respects people and the environment.
A Community Food Security approach
focuses on developing a community's
capacity to meet its own needs. |
Action Communiterre is working to
build community food security in NDG
through:
- Food Distribution
-
Community Collaboration
-
The NDG Coalition for Food
Security
Food is a basic need, and a right.
 adly, people are sometimes forced
to choose between eating and
satisfying other basic needs at
certain times in their lives. For
some, such precarious situations are
fleeting, the stuff of bad memories
later on: waiting a few tense weeks
for a first pay packet or an
employment insurance cheque, a
student loan instalment or a
worker’s compensation payment. And
there are also periods of
transition—moving, migration, a new
set of living arrangements—that can
place people in tough spots.
However, there are others for whom
economic instability is an ongoing
hardship, lasting long enough to
have physical as well as
psychological effects. The
circumstances are many and varied: a
long stretch of unemployment or
reliance on welfare; a divorce; a
dip in income due to retirement;
infirmity; disability and social
isolation, and other situations in
which people find themselves without
sufficient income to meet basic
needs in the longer term.
In such circumstances, food
insecurity means having to choose
between eating and paying the rent
or the heating bill or buying needed
medications. It can mean going
hungry so your children have enough
to eat. It often means buying poor
quality food that fills the belly
but fails to nourish, and going to
the food bank to pick up some canned
goods. Fresh and healthy produce
like organic vegetables are out of
reach for vulnerable groups such as
single-parent families and
low-income seniors.
A number of community organizations
are taking an innovative approach to
combating food insecurity. Food
banks are essential to provide
emergency assistance. But there are
also alternatives that bring people
together to help them help
themselves eat better: collective
kitchens (where individuals pool
resources to cook and share healthy
food for themselves and their
families) food buying groups (in
which people join together to
maximize their purchasing power and
take advantage of wholesale prices)
community restaurants, and,
naturally, collective gardens.
Food Distribution
 hen people get together and share
the work in a collective garden,
they produce up to twice as much
food as they need for themselves.
This leaves up to half the harvest
from our collective gardens to be
distributed through community
partners. This food fuels emergency
food resources such as the NDG Food
Depot, and innovative food projects
like collective kitchens, nutrition
programs, canning workshops and
meals on wheal services.
Community Collaboration
 n 1998 and 2000, Action Communiterre organized two public
assemblies, bringing together over
50 groups and citizens concerned
with food security in NDG to talk
about ways we can work together to
guarantee food access for everyone
in NDG and create projects that help
people provide for themselves and
the community. Out of these meetings
came an agreement to work together
to improve community food security,
initially focusing on Action
Communiterre's Victory Garden
Network.
The NDG Coalition for Food Security
n the wake of these meetings a
network of NDG-based organizations
et individuals sprang up in order to
coordinate joint projects and
facilitate new food security
initiatives.
In 2003-2004, the Coalition has
these groups as members:
- Action Communiterre
- The NDG Food Depot
- le Centre local d'emploi NDG (income
assistance centre)
- Chez mes amis community restaurant
- CLSC NDG/ Mtl West. (community
health and social services centre)
- the NDG Community Council
- the Unitarian Church of Montreal
- the NDG Anti-Poverty Group
Some of the Coalition's projects:
- coordination between the Victory
Garden Network's community partners,
in order to allow the network to
grow and to reach more people.
- The Good Food Box pilot project, a
collective produce buying group
launched last year by the Coalition
at the NDG Food Depot.
A consultation with citizens to
better understand the conditions
under which people don't have enough
to eat.
- Ongoing public education campaigns,
aimed at encouraging residents to
get involved in projects that fill
people's bellies, while also
addressing the social and economic
inequality that causes people to go
hungry.
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