The data analysis begins…looking at “availability”

After taking some time – really too much time – from my data, I have now started the process of data analysis. I began a few weeks ago by sorting through all the data (Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security, and the five progress reports) and organizing it into sections in a pages document on my computer. In total, it is approximately 60 pages of data.

Today, I have begun the fun task of reading through the data and picking out key phrases, concepts, and ideas that are associated with the food availability (def: sufficient food for all people at all times). My plan as discussed in the post on research methods is to analyze the data using the five A’s of food security (availability, accessibility, adequacy, acceptability, and agency). I am literally doing this by assigning each “A” a highlighter colour and highlighting text in that colour associated with that “A.”

In brief, what I have learned about “availability” in Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security documents is that the policy is built on the idea that in Canada, and worldwide, there is a sufficient amount of food to feed the entire population; therefore, the criteria of availability is currently satisfied. However, I feel that it is important to recognize that this is just the current situation. Environmental impacts could significantly change this in the future.

This has been the case in Northern Canada, where climate change has altered migratory patterns and availability of animals that comprise their traditional food source. Meaning that without the air shipments of food – that can be altered by weather conditions, etc. – there may not be sufficient food to eat, thus meaning that availability cannot be assumed in this region.

I am now moving on to look at “accessibility” (def. physical and economic access to food). I think that this section will take a lot longer to wade through as the majority of the action plan is about improving access. Wish me luck!

Local organic food – the new gold standard!

This is an article I came across today in the Huffington Post weighing in on the local vs. organic debate by arguing that neither should be compromised. Moreover, I think it highlights the importance of questioning our food sources and industry propaganda. Either way, an interesting read.

Tags: Agriculture, Local, News, Organic

Implementation & Monitoring

This is the last of four post looking at the commitments in Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security, with this one focusing on implementation and monitoring. Here it the excerpt from my literature review:

Commitment Seven: Implementation & Monitoring

As part of the Declaration on World Food Security, the Canadian government agreed to commitment seven, which states, “We will implement, monitor, and follow-up the World Food Summit Plan of Action at all levels in cooperation with the international community” (UN, 1996). Unfortunately, there appears to be little or no progress in working towards the goal of food security in Canada as laid out in Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security, nor has there been progress internationally to achieve the goal of reducing in half the number of under nourished people in the world by 2015 (Thomson, 2001). Thomson (2001) writes that the “FAO has attributed this in part to a lack of substantive progress at the country level in implementing WFS commitments, and a lack of focus on food security issues within major national policy initiatives, such as poverty reduction strategies” (p. 26). It has been noted that, “The problem has been that ‘the treaties to which Canada is a party are not self-executing. Their incorporation into domestic law is dependent on implementing legislation’” (Robertson quoted in Riches, 2002, p. 660). Signing the Declaration on World Food Security alone is not enough.

Thomson (2001) describes the two models that countries most often use when institutionalizing food security issues within the government. The first model described is when the government establishes “a food security division within a planning or policy department or in a cross-cutting department such as the Prime Minister’s Office” (p. 26). However, the problem with this model is that the food security division is perceived as developing strategies for ministries to implement, yet the division has lacks the budget or power to enforce compliance either through incentives or penalties.

The second model described is when the government sets up “specialized units or divisions within line ministries, often the agricultural ministry. Here the problem has been the marginalization of the food security agenda to the main sectoral concerns of the ministry concerned” (Thomson, 2001, p. 26). In either situation, unless the government provides the financial resources and the legislative backing, food securities issues have little weight within the government framework.

It is also difficult to address the issue of food security because, in Canada, there is not a consistent timeline, framework, or methodology used to measure the persistence of food security within the country. For example, Health Canada commissioned a Canadian Community Health Survey in both 2004, and 2007-2008, in which food insecurity levels in Canada where measured. However, directly on their website, Health Canada warns that the results between the two data sets are not comparable because of different methodology used (Health Canada, 2011). Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk (2008) explain:

Because the indicators used on different surveys reflect varying levels of severity of food insecurity, it is not possible to discern whether fluctuations in the estimates over time reflect changes in the prevalence of the problem or whether the proportion of Canadians characterized as food insecure simply varies in response to the fact that different facets of the problem are being captured in the different datasets … Furthermore, while problems of food insecurity have long been linked to shifts in social policy in this country, the lack of comparability between surveys has prevented ecologic investigations of the influence of changing social or economic conditions on the prevalence of food insecurity. Thus, it has been impossible to determine how federal, provincial, and territorial policies have functioned to increase or reduce problems of household food insecurity.” (p. 325-326)

Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk call for consistent and thoughtful monitoring of food security, as it is through reliable information that appropriate and effective policies and interventions can be developed to address food insecurity in Canada.

Tags: Canada's Action Plan for Food Security, Commitment Seven, Implementation, Monitoring, Research

Trade & Security

This is the third of four posts looking specifically at the commitment’s in Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security. Although trade is not normally an area that I focus on as a social worker, I think that understanding how national, provincial, and local governments deal with the issue of trade is important because it showcases their governing philosophy. In addition, because trade often becomes the primary focus of governments, it often limits how governments’ see “success” playing out at the community level.

Commitment Four: Trade & Food Security

The fourth commitment of the Declaration on World Food Security states, “We will strive to ensure that food, agricultural trade and overall trade policies are conducive to fostering food security for all through a fair and market-oriented world trade system” (UN, 1996). However, multiple authors (Amalric, 2001; Lightman & Riches, 2000; McMahon, 2002; Riches, 1997, 2000, 2002; Tarasuk & Dachner, 2009; Valente, 2001) have voiced the same concern as Young (2004) when he writes, “food security is fundamentally incompatible with shifts towards liberalization and globalization” (p. 13). Does this imply that Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security can never attain its goal of food security for all, as that goal is fundamentally incompatible with movement toward a “fair and market-oriented world trade system?”

There has been a rise of neoliberal policies in Canada since the 1980s. However, the rise of neoliberalism has been a global phenomenon working in a cyclical manner — the more governments buy into the rhetoric of neoliberalism and implement policies that are congruent with that governing philosophy, the more governments feel they need to do so to “be competitive.” Young (2004) explains that “liberalization policies exported across the globe with such vigor since the 1980s have dangerously undermined the ability of national governments to protect their population’s health and nutritional status” (p. 2). Moreover, the process of globalization is neither linear or inevitable and Young argues that national governments’ “reluctance may reflect the ideological power of liberalization discourse, rather than any real erosion of state power” (p. 3). Instead, the neoliberal discourse promotes the delegation of power from the state to the marketplace and transnational corporations through international bodies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.

The discourse of neoliberalism and free-market trade assures national governments and their citizens that the concentration and specialization within countries of food stuffs for export in a globalized trade system is more efficient than locally produced goods (McMahon, 2002; Young, 2004). Mass food production through a liberalized trade system thus becomes a moral imperative to feed a hungry world (McMahon, 2002; Young, 2004). However, as stressed by Young (2004), “Most serious is that such productionist perspectives are simplistic and empirically unfounded. This perspective holds that simply increasing the amount of food available will reduce levels of malnutrition” (p. 13). It has been established that there is both enough food produced globally to feed the world, and enough food produced in Canada to feed its population, yet food insecurity continues to exist (Canada, 1998). Young (2004) explains:

Simplistic free market fundamentalists also ignore basic structural asymmetries that overt subsidies do not address. Some of the most obvious of these include: the privilege role of research and development enjoyed by the advanced economies; their ability to modify WTO legislation; and the massive indirect subsidies given to food producers and exporters through the development of agricultural and transport infrastructure, from irrigation through the railways and dockyards. Perhaps the most dangerous assumption by visionaries of the great global free market for agriculture is that petrol will remain readily available and cheap. Industrial agriculture relies on this to produce ‘efficient’ and ‘cheap’ food. Changes in the cost of this fossil fuel would have ramifications for industrial food production systems everywhere. (p. 13)

Ultimately, the current system is unsustainable and will only lead to greater food insecurity both globally and nationally.

The term “distancing” has been used to describe the current system of food production and trade. First coined by Brewster Kneen, the term distancing is used to “characterize the dominate logic of the current food system, capturing not only the increasing distance between production and consumption, but also the distancing from natural products and processes inherent in biotechnology, processing, preservation, and packaging” (Barndt, 2001, p. 133). This is a significant shift in the role of food, as food exchanges in non-capitalist societies where used to build and strengthen social relationships, whereas in capitalist societies it is being reconstructed to create social distance and distinction (McMahon, 2002). For those who have the purchasing power to secure food, often less thought is given into its production and resourcing. Yet, Menezes (2001) writes “each society must be well aware of its own agricultural and nutritional history, ensuring that this heritage is properly appreciated” (p. 32), as “it should be stressed that, thanks to these eating habits, cultures have been able to remain self-sufficient for many centuries with tighter control over the quality of their food products” (p. 33).

However, self-sufficiency was disregarded at the World Food Summit in favour of global trade liberalization as dictated through a neoliberal lens. As Menezes (2001) explains, “the WFS adopted the same logic as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO” (p. 31). This may be in part because of countries delegating their power, trade falls solely under the World Trade Organization, and the commitments made at the World Food Summit have no bearing on this institution (Amalric, 2001). Therefore, it may be that Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security, especially as it relates to commitment four, is more of a communication device than able to effect substantive change.

Tags: Canada's Action Plan for Food Security, Commitment Four, Research, Trade

Food Mail

Today is the second of four posts relating to the commitments in Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security. This post focuses on the now abandoned Food Mail program (as of May 2011 – it is now called Nutrition North). Food Mail was the other program that was consistently mentioned in the reports to the UN as an example of the progress Canada was making in tackling food insecurity. Communities in the north are concerned about these new changes.

Here is the excerpt from my literature review:

Food Mail (Commitment Two: Access to Food)

Isolated communities in Northern Canada are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity (Dietitians of Canada, 2007), with the Indigenous Canadians who live in these communities experiencing substantively greater individual and household food insecurity compared to the average Canadian population (Lambden, Receveur, Marshall, & Kuhnlein, 2006; Myers, Powell, & Duhaime, 2004). Lambden et al. (2006) explain this phenomenon by stating, “Indigenous Canadians, particularly in remote communities, experience food insecurity due to under-employment, unemployment, low-incomes and high living costs” (p. 332). In addition, changes to their traditional lifestyle including the expectation of employment, worries of contaminations in traditional food sources, and increased availability and exposure to market foods have altered food consumption patterns (Myers et al., 2004). Their diet is now comprised of a combination of imported market food and traditional country food, with both being acquired at a high price.

The Food Mail program was introduced by the Canadian government to counteract the high cost of living in northern communities. The government of Canada describes the food mail program as “a combined effort of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Canada Post, and Health Canada. The Program provides nutritious, perishable food and other essential items to isolated northern communities at reduced postal rates” (INAC, 2011). Roseline describes how:

The program reduces the cost of freight from up to $9 a kilogram to 80 cents for perishable items and $2.15 for non-perishables and non-food products, plus an additional charge of 75 cents a carton. Wholesalers truck the goods to 20 designated ‘entry points,’ where Canada Post officials corral the freight onto airplanes contracted to fly the ‘food mail’ to northern retailers. (Roslin, 2007, para. 6)

This program has been successful in reducing the cost of perishable food in the north. Between 1991 and 2002 the gap between the prices of food in northern communities and those in the south narrowed significantly, with perishables in northern communities costing less in 2002 than in 1991 (Myers et al., 2004).

Despite the shipping subsidies provided by the Canadian government through the Food Mail program, the cost of import food in the north remains high. Roslin (2007) reports that, “In Igloolik, Nanavut, a four-liter bag of milk at the Northern store costs $13.99 and a dozen oranges $13.79, while a 1.8 liter jug of cranberry juice has been known to cost $41.99 in Pond Inlet, Nunavut” (para. 4). In addition, the food is often rotten or of poor quality (Roslin, 2007). Myers et al. (2004) also explain that, “Despite the excellent intent of the Food Mail Program in making nutritious foods more affordable, the federal programs have the general effect of moving Inuit away from a traditional diet, by supporting subsidized imports of southern foods but not northern produced foods” (p. 439).

The transition from a diet wholly composed of traditional country food to a diet that more and more incorporates import market foods has been detrimental to the health of the Indigenous People, with a rise in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease (Dietitian of Canada, 2007; Lambden et al., 2006; Myers et al., 2004). This is intensified, as a balanced diet in Northern Canada would use ninety-five percent of social assistance income after shelter costs (Roslin, 2007). Therefore, many stretch their food dollars by purchasing the cheaper processed food that lasts longer (Roslin, 2007).

Lambden et al. (2006) conclude that, “Although the governmental Food Mail Program has made a significant contribution to the affordability of market food in many northern communities, food security can be greatly improved by further improving the affordability of market food, and by increasing the affordability and accessibility to fishing and hunting” (p. 339). In addition, a move to subsidize north to north shipping of traditional country food as well, could lead to greater food security through both enhanced employment opportunities and access to food. Food security in Northern Canada must include measures that include both traditional country food and import market food.

Tags: Canada's Action Plan for Food Security, Commitment Two, Food Mail, Research

National Child Benefit

Over the next four days, I’ll be posting excerpts from my literature review relating to commitment two (access to food), commitment four (trade and food security), and commitment seven (implementation and monitoring).This first post is about the National Child Benefit, which I would consider to be the backbone of Canada’s food security policy, as it is the one (out of two programs – the other being Food Mail) that is consistently held up as the “good work” Canada is doing in it’s reports to the UN. It is apparent from what I write below, that I do not fully agree. Also if you want more information on the National Child Benefit click here.

The National Child Benefit (Commitment Two: Access to Food)

The Canadian government advertises the National Child Benefit (NCB) as being “a partnership among federal, provincial and territorial governments which extends to First Nations, and First Nations that aims to help prevent and reduce the depth of child poverty, support parents as they move into the labour market and reduce overlap and duplication of government programs” (NCB, 2011).

First established in 1997, the program accomplishes these stated goals by providing an income-tested tax credit to low and moderate income families based on the family’s previous year’s income tax assessment (Hunter, 2006; McKeen & Porter, 2003). However, the provinces and territories then have the “flexibility” to “adjust social assistance or child benefit payments by an amount equivalent to the NCB Supplement” (NCB, 2011), as the intention is that these savings will be redirected into benefits and services for low-income families with children. The Canadian government assures its citizens that, “In all jurisdictions, no family receiving social assistance experienced a reduction in its overall level of income support as a result of the NCB” (NCB, 2011). Nonetheless, although the monetary income may be no less than what those families on social assistance were receiving before, the result is that they are still systematically being put at a disadvantage if the jurisdiction they live in decides to claw-back the National Child Benefit income from their regular income assistance.

The introduction of the National Child Benefit is a key marker of the fundamental shift in policy in Canada from liberal-progressivism to neoliberalism. Prior to the establishment of the National Child Benefit, the old Family Allowance program was a universal benefits paid out to the mother in all families with children. The Family Allowance recognized the communal responsibility for raising children, and provided a token amount to the mother in recognition of the importance of social reproduction. Whereas, with the National Child Benefit, Hunter (2006) writes “children were no longer viewed as the responsibility of society as a whole as well as parents, children were now seen as part of the budget and expenses for family after-tax income spending” (p. 194). This is a significant shift in policy for two reasons. First, the change represents a downloading of risks to the individual and family/household (McKeen & Porter, 2003). McKeen and Porter (2003) state this is “precisely at a time when those risks and costs have become greater than ever. This is exacerbated as restructuring in the areas of health, education and other social services have also increased individual and household (largely women’s) responsibility for social reproduction” (p. 120-121). The National Child Benefit maximizes the private responsibility for the care of children (McKeen & Porter, 2003).

Second, there is no longer the assurance that a woman will receive a cheque “in her own name.” This is significant because as the Canadian Home Economics Association (1999) explains, “when women control income, household food security improves as women typically spend a higher proportion of their income on food and health care for children” (para. 19).

The ultimate goal of the National Child Benefit is to reinforce work incentives for parents (McKeen, 2009). This is clearly explained on the National Child Benefit website, when the Canadian government states:

Before the NCB, moving from social assistance into a paying job often meant only a minimal increase in family income for low-income parents. It could also mean a loss of other valuable benefits, including health, dental and prescription drug benefits. As a result, families could find themselves financially worse off in low paying jobs as compared with being on welfare – a situation know as the ‘welfare wall.’ The NCB works to reduce the welfare wall by providing child benefits outside of welfare and ensuring that enhanced benefits and services continue when parents move from social assistance to paid employment. (NCB, 2011)

By targeting low-income families who participate in the workforce by rewarding them with a tax credit, it at the same time penalizes those whose only income is social assistance (Hunter, 2006). This is due to the fact that many provinces are electing to claw back a portion of the benefit. Thus, the program is “failing to alleviate the severe poverty of the poorest of poor families” (McKeen & Porter, 2003, p. 121). These families are also the same families that are most likely to experience food insecurity. Hunter (2006) also criticizes the National Child Benefit by saying that “the business sector will gain the most from the program because it tends to subsidize low-wage labour” (p. 196). It certainly does not appear to be children of low-income families as the number of families with children using food banks has been on the rise (Food Banks Canada, 2010). Children now represent thirty-eight percent of food bank users in Canada (Food Banks Canada, 2010). Therefore, although the National Child Benefit may be assisting certain segments populations of low-income families financially, and thus assuming also those families food security, it fails to prevent food insecurity from families who solely rely on social assistance as income.

Tags: Canada's Action Plan for Food Security, Commitment Two, NCB, Research

The Situation of Food Security in Canada

This post is an excerpt from my Literature Review outlining the current food security situation in Canada. Here it is:

The Situation of Food Security in Canada

Internationally, the Canadian government has supported a number of agreements that recognize the need to guarantee basic human rights, including the right to food. These commitments and obligations include: the International Declaration of Human Rights (1948); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966); International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989); World Declaration on Nutrition (1992); World Summit for Social Development (1995); and, most recently, the Declaration on World Food Security signed at the World Food Summit in 1996 (Dietitians of Canada, 2005).

As a demonstration of the federal government’s commitment to the Declaration on World Food Security, in 1998 coinciding with World Food Day, the Canadian government in partnership with civil society published Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security. This policy outlines the actions required to accomplish the goal of the declaration to work towards global food security by reducing in half the number of undernourished people in the world by 2015. The framework for these actions is the seven commitments agreed to at the World Food Summit by the signatory countries to the declaration. In addition to the initial action plan, every two years the Canadian government presents a progress reports on its actions to the Committee on World Food Security of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. To this date, there have been a total of five progress reports, with the last being published in 2008.

The Dietitians of Canada (2005) note that, “Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security takes a comprehensive approach to domestic food security, and includes issues related to food access, sustainable agriculture and rural development, trade, emergency prevention and preparedness, and promoting investment in the agri-food sector” (p. 2). This leads one to believe that since a comprehensive plan is in place, Canada should be moving towards creating a food secure society. However, as Lightman and Riches (2000) state:

In rhetoric, and indeed in international law, the human right to food would appear to be secure. Yet the right hand appears not to know what the left is doing, given that in domestic welfare policy and practice the human right to food has been abandoned. (p. 185)

Their statement is supported in the literature by both the Dietitians of Canada (2005) and Goldberg and Green’s (2009) research for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It is also indicated through Food Banks Canada’s Hunger Count 2010 (2010), which found that between the years 2000 – 2010 food bank use increased nineteen percent and the number of people assisted by food banks in March 2010 numbered 867,948 — the highest ever (p. 1). Moreover, the results of Health Canada’s most recent survey of household food security, conducted in 2004, found that 1.1 million Canadian household or 9.2% were moderately or severely food insecure, meaning that food insecurity was experienced by approximately 2.7 million Canadians (Health Canada, 2007). Some estimates even imply that for every person who uses a food bank “there were four or five more who were also struggling to obtain the food they needed” (Tarasuk quoted in Goldberg & Green, 2009, p. 11).

Furthermore, Health Canada (2007) found that food insecurity disproportionately affects certain sub-populations including:

households with incomes in the lowest  and lower middle income adequacy categories, households with social assistance as the main source of income, off-reserve Aboriginal households, households that did not own their own dwelling, households with children — in particular, those headed by a female lone parent, and households with young children or three or more children. (p. 35)

For these populations, there is an increased risk of poor health because they do not have economic access to nutritious food (Health Canada, 2007). This problem is then compounded by the limited access of those with low incomes to grocery stores, which are most often located in mid and high income neighbourhoods and that “low-nutrient, highly processed foods can be less expensive than healthier options such as fresh fruit and vegetables”  (Dietitians of Canada, 2007, p. 3). Isolated communities in the Northern Canada are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity (p. 3). This is due to multiple factors including the decreased availability of and accessibility to food, the high cost of food, the loss of traditional land use, and worries over trace contaminates in the local food supply (Dietitians of Canada, 2007). Thus, food security remains an important issue to be addressed within Canada.

The Rise of Neoliberalism

Lightman and Riches (2000) argue that, “The policy responses by the federal and provincial governments to the issues of hunger or food poverty in Canada since the early 1980s, as seen through the lens of the human right to food, provide an important litmus test for assessing the current direction of the Canadian welfare state” (p. 184). Prior to this period, from World War Two to the 1970s, the Canadian welfare state was founded on the governing philosophy of liberal-progressivism that guaranteed basic human needs as a right of citizenship, and as Webber (1992) writes, “As a result, from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s, want was almost invisible” (p. 27). Beginning in the 1970s, the governing philosophy of neoliberalism began to gain popularity, and it could be argued that after the 1995 federal budget, it became the governing philosophy (Brodie, 2002). Neoliberalism emphasizes individual responsibility and targeted benefits over universal rights, and since the 1970s federal policies have changed according to this philosophy, essentially eroding the social safety net and changing the direction of social policy (Brodie, 2002).

The rise of neoliberalism and the subsequent erosion of the welfare state have directly affected the amount of people who are food insecure in Canada. In Canadian society, the ability to source adequate and nutritious food is tied to the purchasing power a person/household has within the market (Dietitians of Canada, 2005). With the gradual disappearance of the social safety net, more poor Canadians have slipped into poverty and lack the financial resources needed to secure food for themselves and their households through normal channels (Lightman, Mitchell, & Herd, 2008).  Riches (1997) argues that “the story of hunger in late twentieth-century Canada is directly related to the rise of charitable food banks” (p. 48), which also corresponds to the rise in neoliberalism in Canada.

Food Banking and Food Security

In the early 1980s, Canada entered into an economic recession. The response to this was to curb federal expenditure, including social spending, because through a neoliberal lens unemployment and poverty was viewed as an individual failure, not one of the markets. As Webber (1992) states, “The link between cutbacks and foodbanks is direct, swift and brutal” (p. 31). It was under these conditions that the first food bank opened in 1981 in Edmonton, which was originally intended as temporary emergency relief. As Goldberg and Green (2009) write, “The notion that food provided via charitable organizations should be temporary was reinforced by the inclusion of a three-year sunset clause built into the establishment of the Canadian Association of Food Banks” (p. 10). Despite this, thirty years later, there are over 900 food banks in operation in Canada. Food banks have become an institutionalized second tier of the social safety net (Lightman & Riches, 2000). This is important to note because the growth of food bank use has continued to occur despite favourable economic conditions for most of the 2000s (Goldberg & Green, 2009).

Food banks are not an acceptable solution for the problem of food insecurity. First, they fail to uphold the idea that food should be provided in socially acceptable ways, as the stigma associated with using a food bank and the loss of dignity that food bank users experience provide evidence that food bank use is socially unacceptable (Riches, 2002; Tarasuk & Dachner, 2009; Tarasuk & Reynolds, 1999). Second, the food acquired through food banks does not provide an adequate amount of energy nor macro and micro nutrients to meet nutritional requirements as outline in Canada’s Food Guide to Health Eating (Irwin, Ng, Rush, Nguyen, & He, 2007). Riches  (2002) feel that “it is imperative to ask who is benefitting and why from food banking” (p. 650). To answer this question, he looks to the origins of food banks in 1967 in Phoenix, Arizona where the philosophy was “simple to marry the interests of the food industry to cope effectively with surplus, unsalable food who those of grassroots poverty organizations” (p. 651). This idea continues today through the National Food Sharing System, which transfers excess and unsalable food from national grocers to local food banks in Canada (Riches, 2002). Food banks also work to hide the issues of food insecurity, poverty, and hunger in Canada caused by the cutbacks to social programming as they appear to be providing the solution. Yet, the majority of food banks in Canada limit usage to once per month and provide only a three day to a one week supply of food because they cannot meet the demand of food bank users. Therefore, it appears that food banks are primarily serving the interests and needs of industry and government, and provides further evidence that the focus of neoliberal policy strategies to combat food insecurity has failed the most vulnerable in Canada despite the good intentions of Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security (Lightman et al., 2008).