Food For All NB is a non-government food security network whose mission is to keep New Brunswick informed, connected, and engaged in food systems work.
The organization, made up of a small paid staff and volunteers, aims to ensure that everyone has equal access to good healthy food.
Director of Food For All NB Laura Reinsborough says that just because grocery store shelves are stocked doesn’t mean that all New Brunswickers are fed.
M: A press release came out from Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries. That said “work so far has confirmed that New Brunswick’s supply chain [for food] is resilient and that demand for most food products can be met.” Is that a statement that you agree with as somebody who works with food security in New Brunswick?
L: Well, I think that’s looking really specifically at food supply chains. So are our major grocery retailers getting food on the shelves, even with disruptions through the pandemic? We have what’s called “just in time” food supply. So that’s often without large stores of food in any particular community, with a very strong transportation network to be able to get food supply to grocery stores. We saw some disruptions with supplies through the pandemics with the very early stages, but I think what they’re commenting on there is that it’s very little disruption. But Food For All NB three years ago did a public engagement process called Everybody Eats and we highlighted some of the strengths but also some of the weaknesses of our food system in there. And part of that, we highlighted is that even with grocery stores being in full supply, it doesn’t mean that there is the equitable economic and physical access for New Brunswickers to get to that food. So it’s a bit of a different lens to view that supply question. So can all New Brunswickers get to that food? Can they afford it? And can they actually physically get there? Self isolation through the pandemic provided a different challenge to physically accessing food, but even aside from that, there are a lot of issues around transportation for a province that is 50-50 urban-rural. So even if you’re close to a grocery store, then can you afford it? So there’s a complexity to that statement that Food For All has looked at before.
Reinsborough says that food security has been an issue in New Brunswick for some time, which the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted.
She believes that New Brunswick’s local food economy has the ability to be much more successful than it is.
L: We have excellent vegetable growing climate throughout New Brunswick. There is a lot of potential, but the vegetable sales tend to have low margins. It becomes quite challenging to be able to grow a lot of vegetables and be profitable as a food producer that way. But the end result is that of the vegetables that New Brunswickers consume, and this is a stat provided to us from the Department of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries is that of the vegetables we consume in New Brunswick 92% are imported, so only 8% being grown here. I think it’s important to note that that does not include what we grow in our own backyards. It doesn’t include the informal economy on backyard growing. A lot of New Brunswickers are really heavily engaged in gardening, and I don’t know if we were able to quantify that, if that would move those numbers at all. However, from what is bought and sold, it’s only 8% that we’re producing here. So that is a pretty staggering statistic. I think we’re also using about 11% of our farmland in New Brunswick. There’s certainly a lot of potential there. That’s the kind of statistic where I’m really curious to see how can we put our heads together and try to move the needle on that?
M: All right, could you ever envision a possibility or a future where New Brunswick could hypothetically be entirely self-sufficient in terms of food production?
L: I don’t think we need to reach too far back in time to see when that was the case. It certainly depended on very active fisheries, a lot of small farms, we’re seeing the number of small farms decrease dramatically since the 1950s. There certainly have been many times throughout our history when we have been much more interdependent among one another, and our communities have been more resilient for producing their own food. I see that there’s a lot of potential even within municipal food policy to be able to take a food security lens, and consider how our policies might enable more food growing and more urban farms or municipal farms. There’s a lot of potential across every level of government and across every factor across every sector, to be able to make some changes in that direction. I think collectively, there is potential to make that 100%, is that the ultimate goal? I don’t know. I think that there we certainly live within a global food system with a lot of trade. I think that that can be done in a way that’s equitable, that’s ethical that promotes and thrives with strong food systems. So I like to imagine all sorts of different positive scenarios where our food systems can be made more resilient.
M: Okay. Just you know, disclosure to our listeners, Laura and I both live in Sackville, New Brunswick. So is there anything that you can think that Sackville, the town of Sackville specifically, could do to highlight more New Brunswick or local producers or encourage food economy locally in that way?
L: Oh, that’s a great question. I haven’t looked specifically through the town bylaws to see what might be changed. I know some great examples of other municipalities where they encourage a lot more backyard production. So allowing, like, actively enabling that front yard gardens can happen close to streets. There can be community gardens and community orchards that take place. I know Sackville has a thriving community garden with a fruit food forest in there. So there’s already some great examples. There are procurement policies that municipalities can put in place to encourage more local purchasing for the food that the municipality purchases and offers at events, for example. But these are also actions that businesses can take. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for our business community to come together and be able to encourage more local purchasing. We know that there’s a strong economic multiplier when purchasing local food in modest calculations, it’s a three to one multiplier. So for every dollar paid on local food, it circulates three times in the local economy. There’s so much opportunity through food that we can affect really positive change. It often does take working across different sectors and really trying to see that we have so many shared goals, and that food can activate all parts of a healthy, thriving society.
Food For All NB is currently working on Indigenous food sovereignty in conjunction with their program “Community Food Mentors” to study the relationship between food and climate change.
Those curious about the organization can access their website, foodforallnb.ca or check out their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
By Meg Cunningham
