Food Activism Across Generations
Moe Garahan and Cathleen Kneen
In the late seventies, Inter Pares and 125 organizations held hearings across the country. In 75 cities over 5,000 people shared their difficulties in producing and consuming quality, affordable food, and their visions for change. The People’s Food Commission inspired a vibrant community of food activists and organizations that have been working to reclaim the food system for the past thirty years. Taking into account what has been accomplished, and looking forward to the challenges ahead, two Inter Pares collaborators, Cathleen Kneen, Chair of Food Secure Canada, and Moe Garahan, coordinator of Just Food and a farmer herself, share experiences and lessons learned across generations of food activism.
How did you become involved in food activism?
Cathleen: My first political engagement was as an eighteen year-old activist campaigning for nuclear disarmament. It was the late sixties, and the whole mix of social justice
analysis, feminism, and anti-war activism came together for me. In 1971, our family moved to Nova Scotia, and fifteen years of farming there instilled in me an analysis of social justice that is based on a daily practice of growing food. It didn’t really hit me till I left the farm that the dominant paradigm of agriculture was rooted in the same violent patriarchal model that I had been fighting in other parts of
my life. That was a “Eureka!” moment for me.
Moe: I had a very personal beginning. I lived in Northern Ontario and when I went to university in the nineties, I made a decision to become a vegetarian. In university, I was exposed to the theory that supported some of the choices I had made as an individual. When I moved to Ottawa, I worked in an emergency food bank. I was struck by the lack of interest in looking at the issues underlying poverty. I came to understand that an emergency food system has become a needed and structured element of our social safety net. A few of us began organizing collective kitchens, community gardens, and food co-ops. Eventually, this led to the creation of Just Food. I began to really understand food production issues when I grew my first tomato. I have now started my first farming adventure, on my own.
What has been a major accomplishment of the struggle to reclaim our food system?
Cathleen: Survival. It’s so hard to look straight at the mess we’re making. It’s so painful. Whether it’s farmers committing suicide because they have to surrender the land that their family has had for generations, or whether it’s women who
live on hot water with pepper and salt in it, calling it soup so that they can feed their children. And this is in our own country. It’s land that’s been made impossible to grow food
on, toxic fish that you can’t eat. We have to help people see the issues without being completely demobilized.
Moe: And help them access food in a way that makes sense for them. I think this is a major accomplishment in the development of a healthy food system.
What is your vision for a healthy food system in Canada?
Moe: If we did one thing to transform the food system – and there are many things that need to change – it would be to choose to pay the actual labour, environmental, and nutritional cost of food production. If we could pay for the full cost of
fair and just food, it would go a long way to transforming the political and economic structures in Canada that maintain a food system that doesn’t work for so many. This vision includes
a social system that would provide for those who cannot access enough quality food on a daily basis.
Access to quality food is fundamental. My vision also includes an edible landscape in urban and rural environments so that children walking down the road to school can identify and take handfuls of currants as they walk down the street.
How do you see the road ahead?
Cathleen: The People’s Food Policy Project starts where the People’s Food Commission left off. It’s a project to work with the organizations and the groups that have grown up over
the last thirty years, some of them very recent, to address the inequities and problems in the food system.
Moe: Not only do we know what the problems with the food systems are, but we have a lot of need-based, people-focused solutions being implemented around the country. As part of the committee for the People’s Food Policy Project, I want to push for policies that enable this healthy food system to emerge much more strongly. I am excited about this road ahead together. It is truly an intergenerational project.
Read the full transcript of this interview.
Pares gratefully acknowledges the support of the EJLB Foundation for this work.
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