| Summary: | In Canada, in the late 1990s, food security was officially recognized as a national and
international problem by the federal government with the formulation of Canada's Action
Plan for Food Security. It was a notable admission; however, the difficulty is that despite
voiced commitment, official approaches to and understandings of food security are
inconsistent at best.
In this context the purpose of the research is to evaluate contemporary approaches to
domestic planning for food security in Canada at the federal level. I specifically analyze
Canada's Action Plan for Food Security. The data derived and information collected are
based on a review of relevant literature, qualitative content analysis of key government
documents and the proceedings of a national conference, and semi-structured interviews with
knowledgeable experts, within and outside of government, across Canada.
I compared the case study to a set of substantive and procedural criteria constructed
from a review of the literature on food security and planning. I found that while on the
surface there is genuine merit in Canada's Action Plan for Food Security, the state's
approach to planning for food security as formulated, structured and executed is severely
deficient in its excessive reliance on market forces. The notion that food security can be
achieved at the 'flick of a button' (Pottier 1999) persists and there is little to no indication
that food security is a priority for government.
I conclude that so long as the dominant hierarchy of values persists much of what
matters to life is vulnerable to erasure because prevailing market-based thinking cannot
adequately value or protect life, human or ecological. Indeed, food security is as much about
values and choices as it is about factors of production. The fact that food security remains a
problem is significant evidence that collectively we have not dealt well with being human.
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