scholarly journals Building Healthy Community Relationships Through Food Security and Food Sovereignty

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 25-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treena Delormier ◽  
Kaylia Marquis

ABSTRACTBackgroundFood insecurity disproportionately affects Indigenous Peoples and is linked to poor health outcomes. Indigenous Peoples’ food systems once sustained their thriving societies; however, colonial policies of displacement and imposed assimilation severed connections to Indigenous food systems and lands, disrupting identity, culture, and well-being.ObjectiveIn this article we share a grass-roots designed program that addresses food security and heeds Haudenosaunee teachings. The Story of Creation, the Great Law, and Ohénton Karihwatéhkwen (the words that come before all else) were the basis of the framework. The program acknowledges and uses community strengths and skills to enhance social connections and links with land and creation.MethodsThe program brought together interested and knowledgeable community members and stakeholders to discuss and better understand food security in the community. This group formed as an advisory group called Ieiénthos Akotióhkwa – ‘Planting Group’ who shaped the food security activities.ResultsThe program delivered workshops to build skills and share knowledge about food production and preparation. It targeted diverse participant interests and needs within an environment meant to nurture social connections. The program planted food-bearing trees and plants and created a seed library to create edible landscapes. We invited a broad scope of community knowledge- and skill-holders to share their talents with the community, to reinforce positive connections with each other, and to carry on cultural practices.ConclusionsChallenges included program sustainability linked to short-term funding and personnel turnover. Strengths involved using a culturally based framework that enhanced program coherence, and facilitated collaboration with local initiatives focused on well-being, practicing culture, and respecting the environment. Haudenosaunee teachings hold values and principles for a society that provides food for all. These teachings are a framework for a culturally rich program to support food security skills and resources, but also Indigenous cultural identity and practices.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13094
Author(s):  
Adam Burke

International esteem for Galápagos’ natural wonders and the democratization of travel have contributed to a 300% increase in annual tourist entries to the archipelago from 2000 (68,989) to 2018 (275,817). The attendant spike in tourism-related anthropogenic impact coupled with deficient infrastructure development has put the archipelago’s natural capital and carrying capacity at risk. The complex nature of Galápagos’ food insecurity is linked to the archipelago’s geographic isolation, its diminishing agricultural workforce, international tourists’ demand for recognizable food, and a lack of investment in sustainable and innovative agricultural futures. Food security is key to the long-term well-being of Galapagueños, who sustain Galápagos’ tourism industry. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the vulnerability of human systems in Galápagos, especially the fragility of Galápagos’ ecotourism dependency. Galapagueños’ struggle to endure the tourism sector’s slow rebound following the 2020 travel restrictions points to an urgent need to implement food security measures as an indispensable component of the archipelago’s long-term sustainability plan. This article presents ethnographic data to discuss the tourism sector’s impact on local food systems, Galapagueños’ right to food sovereignty, efforts to increase agricultural production, and why strengthening institutional partnerships is vital to Galápagos’ food self-sufficiency.


Author(s):  
Mapuana CK Antonio ◽  
Kuaiwi Laka Makua ◽  
Samantha Keaulana ◽  
LeShay Keliiholokai ◽  
J Kahaulahilahi Vegas ◽  
...  

Health and well-being are a function of familial relationships between Native Hawaiians and their land. As a result of settler colonialism, Native Hawaiians face systemic and social barriers, which impede their relationship to land, with implications of adverse health outcomes. This qualitative study explores changes in health among Native Hawaiians, with a specific focus on food systems and the environment. Community-engaged research approaches were utilized to recruit 12 Hawaiian adults. The major themes include the following: (1) health as holistic and a harmonious balance, (2) nutrition transition and current connections to ‘āina (land extending from the mountain to the sea; that which feeds or nourishes), and (3) food sovereignty and community solutions to uplift the Lāhui (Nation of Hawai‘i). Consideration of cultural values, community strengths, and traditional lifestyle practices may address health inequities and changes in food systems related to health that stem from colonization, determinants of health, and environmental changes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Majing Oloko

Having stable access to nutritious and culturally preferred food to maintain health and well-being is still a challenge for many people across the globe. Food insecurity and environmental degradation is rising across the world with interrelated drivers. There has been increasing advocacy for the creation of sustainable food systems to support food and nutritional security without degrading the environment. Bridging sustainability and food security ideas is a step towards building such food systems. However, how to apply ideas of sustainability and food security into building sustainable food systems remains a challenge, given the connection between the two concepts is not well appreciated. I introduce a sustainability and food security assessment framework as a first step for bridging sustainability and food security concepts, towards building sustainable food systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-218
Author(s):  
Yara M. Asi

Food aid is a common response to the food insecurity brought by conflict and inadequate development. Yet the very well-intentioned actions that are meant to stave off immediate humanitarian crises may, in the long-term, serve as tools that promote dependence, decrease the likelihood of sustainable development, and make peace less possible. In this article, I examine food insecurity and food aid in the conflict-affected Palestinian territories. I will describe ways in which Palestinian efforts to localise food production and increase food security are actively hindered, as well as how the system of humanitarian food assistance meant to fill these gaps may in fact perpetuate them. Finally, I discuss policy recommendations for stakeholders in the conflict that can encourage Palestinian food sovereignty in a manner that increases prospects for long-term peace and development, while providing immediate benefits for Palestinian quality of life and well-being.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tabitha Robin ◽  
Kristin Burnett ◽  
Barbara Parker ◽  
Kelly Skinner

There is a deep and troubling history on Turtle Island of settler authorities asserting control over traditional foods, market-based and other introduced foods for Indigenous peoples. Efforts to control Indigenous diets and bodies have resulted in direct impacts to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of Indigenous peoples. Food insecurity is not only a symptom of settler colonialism, but part of its very architecture. The bricks and mortar of this architecture are seen through the rules and regulations that exist around the sharing and selling of traditional or land-based foods. Risk discourses concerning traditional foods work to the advantage of the settler state, overlooking the essential connections between land and food for Indigenous peoples. This article explores the ways in which the Canadian settler state undermined and continues to undermine Indigenous food sovereignty through the imposition of food safety rules and regulations across federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions.


Water Policy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 871-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Lundqvist ◽  
Olcay Unver

Abstract Remarkable successes and new challenges to cope with requirements for food and water are analyzed. Trends in demography, food preferences and consumer habits are scrutinized together with their implications for human well-being and natural resources. Making best use of variable and limited water resources presumes proper management and efficient technologies, but also a worthwhile use of goods and services produced, for example, food. Reduction of food losses and waste, and reversing trends in overweight and obesity promise significant water savings. Transformations of food systems in this direction provide opportunities to meet human nutrient and food requirements in a resource-effective manner. In line with the principle of the Sustainable Development Goals, ‘no-one should be left behind’, governments, producers and consumers must be involved in efforts to ensure food security and nutrition. Naturally, farmers are major actors in food systems. The business community is showing a commitment to contribute to food security and nutrition and to reduce water risks. Consumers are dynamic drivers as well as beneficiaries, victims and culprits in water and food systems and need to internalize resource-use efficiency in their behavior, for example, by reducing food waste and aiming for better nutrition and sustainable diets.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
Mariaelena Anali Huambachano

This article explores the Quechua peoples’ food systems as seen through a traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) lens and reflects on the vital role of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge for global food security. Data was collected from two Quechua communities, Choquecancha and Rosaspata, in the highlands of Peru, from March 2016 to August 2018. This data was collected via participatory action research, talking circles with femalefarmers, oral history interviews with elders, and Indigenous gatherings at chacras with community leaders and local agroecologists. Analysis of this data suggests that Quechua people’s in-depth and locally rooted knowledge concerning food security provides an Indigenous-based theoretical model of food sovereignty for the revitalization of Indigenous foodways and collective rights to food rooted in often under-recognisedaspects of their Indigeneity and TEK.


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