About Coast Food Action.org
Coast Food Action offers information on buying, growing and preparing local foods as well as promotes food security initiatives and projects in the Pacific Northwest of Canada. Coast Food Action is a volunteer run web site whose inspiration and information stems from contributer's work for the Canadian Food Security Initiative.
Coast Food Action appreciates your contributions and welcomes you to submit information on regional food security projects, local sustainable farms, community markets, and food security related events and practices. To do so please fill out the online forms provided. Submissions are moderated by CFA's volunteer crew in relation to appropriateness to the site; and if accepted, we ask for two weeks notice to insure timely posting.
"Community food security exists when all citizens obtain a safe, personally acceptable, nutritious diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes healthy choices, community self-reliance and equal access for everyone." - Hamm and Bellows (2003)
Get involved! Food security education is not just relegated to school teachers and students, it is something that everyone can play an integrated role in. We can all always learn more about Food Security, apply our learning to the world around us, and share this learning with others. In order to implement the kinds of change necessary to set up a sustainable and secure local food supply, we are going to need everyones help as both life long learners and peer teachers in our local community.
Here are some ways in which you can help share information about pressing Food Security issues in our community.
- create newsletters like this one
- make learning worksheets
- produce fliers - do advertising in local media
- join email discussion lists - participate in forums
- write articles for local media
- create food security websites
- make signs for the local community garden or on your own property
- collaborate in making public installations for educating people about Food Security
- organize or attend events, gatherings, workshops, presentations, salons and discussion groups
- participate in related courses in mainstream education system
- grow gardens and produce your own food
- support local growing initiatives
How can you help with Food Security Education? Is there any of the ways visioned here in which you can act to help out in your local community?
What are other ways in which you can play an active role in the Food Security Movement?
- contributed from Delvin Solkinson www.heartgardens.com
The prevalence of food insecurity was higher among households with certain characteristics,including:
those with incomes in the lowest (48.3%) and lower middle (29.1%) categories of household income adequacy, compared with those in the middle (13.6%), upper middle (5.2%) and highest (1.3%) categories of household income adequacy,
those relying on social assistance (59.7%) or worker's compensation/employment insurance (29.0%) as their main source of household income, compared with those with salary/wages (7.3%) and those with pensions/seniors' benefits (4.9%) as their main source of income,off-reserve Aboriginal households (33.3%), compared with non-Aboriginal households (8.8%), those who do not own their dwelling (20.5%), compared with those who do own their dwelling (3.9%), and those with children (10.4%), compared with those without children (8.6%).
Among households with children, the prevalence of food insecurity was higher among:
those led by a lone parent (22.5%), especially a female lone parent (24.9%),compared with households led by a couple (7.6%) those with three or more children (15.0%), compared with those with one or two children (9.6%), and those with at least one child under the age of 6 years (13.0%), compared with those without a child under 6 years of age (8.8%).
Among households without children, the prevalence of food insecurity was higher among unattached individuals (13.7%), compared with couple households (3.5%).
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| income_food_sec-sec_alim_e.pdf | 2.89 MB |
1 million households (9.2%) were food insecure at some point in the previous year as a result of financial challenges they faced in accessing adequate food. In these households, at least one adult or child member experienced multiple conditions characteristic of food insecurity.
Overall, 2.7 million Canadians, or 8.8% of the population, lived in food insecure households in 2004.
Across the country, rates of household food insecurity ranged from 8.1% in Saskatchewan to 14.6% in Nova Scotia.
Among households with children, 5.2% experienced food insecurity at the child level-that is, at least one child in each of these households experienced food insecurity in the previous year. More than 700,000 children lived in households in which either adults or children experienced food insecurity at some time in 2004, including 366,200 who lived in households in which one or more of the children were food insecure.
Food insecurity was generally more prevalent among adults (9.0%) than among children (5.2%) in the household-especially when the experience of food insecurity was severe (adults 2.9%, children 0.4%).
-Information taken from Health Canada's Income-Related Food Security in Canada
http://foodsecurity.nexialist.org/files/income_food_sec-sec_alim_e.pdf
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Help make BC more food secure. CFA is a non-profit, volunteer run web portal, but site maintenance and growth does incur costs. Please consider contributing to this site.
