Food Citizenship and Community Food Security: Lessons from Toronto, Canada

Abstract

The Toronto Food Policy Council (TFPC) was created in 1990 as a vehicle for “food citizenship.” Its creators challenged the assumptions that hunger was mainly a problem of income and that the food system was nourishing all Canadians adequately. Working from a vision of food security based on both social justice and environmental sustainability, the TFPC was designed to be multi-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional, and to support project innovation and policy advocacy. The paper develops the concept of “food citizenship,” emphasizing the need to move beyond food as a commodity and people as consumers. Critiques of corporate control and a loss of food skills, or “de-skilling,” within the public, and the limits of anti-hunger advocacy, or charity for achieving food security are offered.