Abstract
Rural Indigenous communities in Canada’s North face many challenges getting regular access to nutritious foods, primarily because of the high cost of market food, restricted availability of nutritious foods, and lack of government support for nutritious food programs. The consequences of food insecurity in this context are expressed in high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and childhood obesity. Many Indigenous communities are responding to issues related to healthy food access by attempting to rebuild local food capacity in their specific regions. Important first steps have been taken in developing local food initiatives, yet whether these initiatives are improving northern food security remains to be seen. We explore this question by working with the Oji-Cree First Nation in the community of Wapekeka, northern Ontario, to construct a hoop house and develop a school-based community gardening program. Using a community-based participatory approach, we determined that hoop house and gardening initiatives in rural, northern settings have the potential to build up local food production, develop the skills and knowledge of community members, engage youth in growing local food, and align with land-based food teachings. We show that despite widespread and multidimensional community hardships, there was considerable community buy-in and support for the project, which gives hope for future development and provides important insight for those seeking to initiate similar gardening, hoop house, or greenhouse initiatives in northern Indigenous communities.
Highlights
Indigenous peoples of what is known as Canada have experienced dietary and lifestyle transformations that have resulted in exceedingly high rates of food insecurity and diet-related disease (Willows, 2005; Damman et al, 2008; Elliott et al, 2012)
A list of sub-themes was created from the initial interview codes, which included tradition, traditional food, greenhouses, gardening, school, community ownership, school ownership, expansion, development, training, and feasibility
It is for this reason that the theme of tradition, including whether gardening has a place alongside traditional food, formed a key line of questioning
Summary
Indigenous peoples of what is known as Canada have experienced dietary and lifestyle transformations that have resulted in exceedingly high rates of food insecurity and diet-related disease (Willows, 2005; Damman et al, 2008; Elliott et al, 2012). Factors that amplify food insecurity in rural communities of the North include poverty (Kuhnlein and Receveur, 1996; Willows et al, 2009); the high cost and low availability of quality, healthy market food (Power, 2008; Ford, 2009; Socha et al, 2012); the lack of government support for nutritious food programs (Skinner et al, 2013); the loss of traditional knowledge; and reduced access to traditional lands (Power, 2008). The term encompasses aspects such as sociocultural meanings and acquisition and processing techniques While these modes of food procurement are undoubtedly important, research indicates that for rural and northern communities, the net cost of traditional foods procured from the land is comparable to that of food purchased from the store, or even more expensive, and these methods often fall short when it comes to improving population health (Robidoux et al, 2012; Pal et al, 2013). In addition to hunting and fishing initiatives, the adoption of sustainable agriculture in the form of community gardening and greenhouses is slowly emerging as an alternative solution to the unavailability of nutritious market and hunted or gathered foods in many communities (Stroink and Nelson, 2009; Socha et al, 2012; Spiegelaar and Tsuji, 2013)
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