Food assets for whom? Community perspectives on food asset mapping in Canada

Abstract

Food asset mapping is an emerging tool to promote food security and food resiliency in Canadian cities. It provides a baseline of a city’s food assets and identifies local food infrastructures that can support community food security. Mainstream food asset maps predominantly focus on the built environment, giving less consideration to the natural environment and social assets. Moreover, in the absence of community perspectives, informal, and racialized food spaces might not even be considered. Drawing upon the findings from a community focus group and food asset mapping workshop, we engaged diverse community members from the City of Vancouver (n=20) to further define and identify key food assets in Vancouver. Of note, several participants raised their discomfort with the term “asset”, especially within the context of colonialization in Vancouver, and raised the question of who gets to define what is and what is not a “food asset.”.