Debbie Field is the executive director of FoodShare and is a recognized leader in the world of food security. FoodShare tries to take a multifaceted, innovative, and long-term approach to hunger and food issues. They are involved in grassroots program delivery, advocacy for social assistance reform, job creation and training, nutrition education, farmland preservation, and campaigns for comprehensive food labelling.

A long standing activist in a variety of social movements, Debbie began her work life in 1976 as a teacher at Brampton’s Sheridan College. Next she was Canada’s first Equal Opportunities Coordinator, working for OPSEU (the Ontario Public Service Employees Union). In 1979, along with four other women, Debbie was successful in her Human Rights’ complaint against Stelco in Hamilton for their no-women hiring policy. She was then hired and worked in the coke ovens until the strike in 1981. In the 1980s she was the Coordinator of the Development Education Centre, a non-profit resource centre specialising in third world issues. Prior to coming to FoodShare in 1992, she was Executive Assistant to Metro Councillor’s Dale Martin and Olivia Chow.

I met Debbie at Food Secure Canada’s November 2008 Conference in Ottawa. I had only been in my job at Hamilton Eat Local for little more than a month. The experience meeting the women there was unforgettable; they are brilliant, passionate women like Colleen Ross from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), Lori Stahlbrand, President of Local Food Plus, Tania Morrison, representing the First Nations and Inuit Branch of Health Canada, and the tireless conference organizer and publisher of The Ram’s Horn, Food Secure Canada’s Cathleen Kneen. They are all women who are working against huge odds for food security for all Canadians.

But what, exactly, is “food security?”

There are two commonly used definitions. The first comes from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO):

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s definition is somewhat more comprehensive:

Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.

Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).

Together, these definitions cover the most crucial points.

That conference in 2008 was where I became acquainted with another important term used by those concerned with community food access: “food desert.” If you need to walk twice as far to get a fresh potato as you do to buy a bag of potato chips, you are living in a food desert. Many people in affluent neighbourhoods actually live in “food deserts” without being aware of it.

The summer that I lived in a tiny-but-cheap basement apartment just south of Locke and Aberdeen, I experienced challenges in both of these areas. My finances were so bad that I did live with hunger from time to time. I kept that fact to myself because I felt ashamed. When I did have money to buy food, the nearest grocery stores included a very expensive health food store and a big shiny supermarket. There was no direct bus service there; I would have had to go downtown first and double back on a second bus into my own community or take the bus to Westdale and then transfer to another bus to get my groceries. Walking felt dangerous as I travelled along the very pedestrian un-friendly Dundurn Street South, while cycling along that stretch of road between Aberdeen and Main was even more daunting. The logistics of getting to the supermarket made living in my safe, comfortable neighbourhood unbearable and was one of the biggest factors in my decision to move out.

It feels awkward to complain about such difficulties when there are people in this city who have even greater obstacles to getting nourishing, affordable food—it is very difficult to get that food in a dignified manner when you have no money.

Fortunately, for the most destitute, food banks in this city continue to provide some basic calories to people on limited incomes who cannot manage to get the food they need. We have to understand that there are folks in our community who simply cannot look after their own nutritional needs. To abandon them would be cruel and inhumane. They need to be cared for. Period. The alternative to this (no food for the poor) would have unimaginable consequences for daily life in this city (not just for those folks and their neighbours; we would all be touched by the ensuing calamity).

Food banks were first established in the early 1980s to address the food “emergency” caused by tough economic times, and were meant to be a temporary measure to supplement the work that had been traditionally and quietly undertaken by churches and other organizations. Unfortunately, the growth in need has continued unabated.

Statistics on hunger in this city are abundant and very disturbing. But the numbers alone don’t tell the story.

I have heard first-hand accounts from users of food banks, and they have expressed frustration and sometimes anger over the food made available to them, the way it is distributed, and the way they are treated by frontline staff (who are often volunteers).

But if food banks aren’t the answer for everyone, what else can be done?

The good news is that there are abundant examples from around the province and around the globe of how communities can use their ingenuity, energy, and humanity to close the hunger gap. The following are three examples of people and cities which have done so: Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a famous example of a city that rose to the challenge of feeding all of its citizens healthy food in an egalitarian way. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin former professional athlete Will Allen received a McArthur Fellowship for the work of his pioneering community food access organization called Growing Power.

On a provincial level there is groundbreaking work being undertaken by Sustain Ontario under the leadership of Lauren Baker. Her academic record, hands-on experience, and her ability to bring people together were the driving force behind the recent “Bring Food Home” conference in Kitchener-Waterloo in early March. It brought together many food heroes: farmers, processors, professors, students, and activists gathered to listen, learn, and organize working groups to push forward the issue of food security in this province. The fact that the new Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner is the former Vice-President of the non-profit organization Local Food Plus (LFP), suggests that sustainable food will be on Ontario’s political agenda in a way that we have never seen before.

Cities across Canada are taking action, too. British Columbia has an impressive network of community kitchens in various cities. Sudbury is only one example of a city which has a Food Charter that sets out access to food as being an identified responsibility of its civic government. And Toronto boasts the Toronto Food Policy Council headed by the energetic Wayne Roberts (who is soon to retire from this role, but that won’t stop him, if I know Wayne!).

Toronto has two internationally-known organizations that have developed the model of the community food centre in a big way. Nick Saul’s The Stop started out as a food bank thirty years ago, and has come to be a shining example of community empowerment through food: their facility boasts a greenhouse, community garden, community kitchen, and a farmers market at one of its sites. The other original site, located in a struggling neighbourhood, benefits from its ties to its newer sister location.

And then there’s Toronto FoodShare. Please visit their website and learn more by coming to hear Executive Director Debbie Field tell it like it is. You won’t forget her.

Links:

Toronto Food Policy Council: http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm
Sustain Ontario: http://www.sustainontario.com
Local Food Plus: http://www.localfoodplus.ca
Food Secure Canada: http://foodsecurecanada.org
National Farmers’ Union: http://www.nfu.ca
Growing Power, Milwaukee: http://www.growingpower.org