Mapping Food Sustainability in Canada: Addressing Food Insecurity and Skills Pathing to the Agriculture Sector
Canadian agriculture is closely tied to the country’s prosperity and food security. While Canada is a major agricultural exporter, the sector is struggling to attract new and diverse talent. Many Indigenous Peoples and equity-deserving groups do not participate in the sector, and are food insecure, revealing significant gaps between agricultural output, sector participation, and equitable access to food. For instance, about 46% of Indigenous Peoples experience food insecurity, and Black households have about double the odds of white households to be food insecure.
Community food production through gardens and greenhouses has gained traction to address food insecurity, and offer skills pathing and sector visibility for agriculture and agrifood careers. These programs and community initiatives are essential in skills pathing and improving sector visibility for agriculture and agrifood careers. These programs can ensure food security, address sector barriers to participation, and improve technology adoption among Indigenous Peoples and equity-deserving groups across rural, urban, and remote environments. Nonetheless many of these programs are small in scale, lack formal skills training components or have limited connection to the wide agrifood industry.
In this report, the authors mapped the current ecosystem of food sustainability initiatives to understand the current coverage of food sustainability programs in Canada. The ecosystem mapping exercise mapped 228 initiatives or programs. The report analyzed what training programs offer, if any, as well as the targeted interventions for Indigenous Peoples and equity-deserving groups.
Key insights
Food sustainability programs predominantly offered foundational skills programs (78% of initiatives) showcasing basic gardening and cultivation skills, with somewhat less focus on analytical skills training (e.g., operations management), and less than 50% providing technical training in advanced agricultural technologies (e.g., use of sensors or greenhouse technologies).
Targeted programming for equity-deserving groups in food sustainability programs shows important but uneven patterns, with Indigenous Peoples in urban areas, rural women and immigrants and newcomers, and 2SLGBTQ+ people underserved relative to other equity-deserving groups.
Food sustainability program offerings vary geographically, with Ontario hosting the largest share of initiatives, accounting for nearly 30% of programs, while Quebec and Alberta are underrepresented, despite the relative contribution of their population to the sector.
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