Northern Food Networks: Building Collaborative Efforts for Food Security in Remote Canadian Aboriginal Communities

Abstract

Canada's northern and remote regions experience high rates of food insecurity, exceptionally high food costs, environmental concerns related to contamination and climate change, and a diversity of other uniquely northern challenges related to food production, acquisition, and consumption. As such, there is a need to understand and develop strategies to address food-related concerns in the North. The diversity of communities across the North demands the tailoring of specific, local-level responses to meet diverse needs. Over the past decade, local networks have emerged as a powerful method for developing localized responses, promoting food security and the development of more sustainable food systems across Canada and North America. Despite this, there is a paucity of research examining challenges and effective approaches utilized by these local networks or their potential applicability for building food security in rural, remote, and northern communities. This research utilized participant observation as a method to examine the experiences of a Northern Canadian food security network. The experience of this network points to strategies that can lead to successful collaborative approaches aimed at implementing programs to address food security in northern and remote communities.