Ottawa-Food security is an income not a supply issue and the difference between the two concerns needs to be more clearly understood, says Tyler McCann, Executive Director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI).

The increasing levels of food insecurity across Canada are separate from whether the Canadian food production system can meet the needs of consumers, he told the Senate agriculture committee.

While the committee’s study of the issue seems aimed at linking food security and food production systems, it is important to understand the differences between them. One is the ability of the domestic food-production system to meet the needs of consumers in Canada and around the world while food security focuses on what consumers can afford.

“I think Canada’s food policy and the lack of progress on it is an example of what happens when there is not an adequate understanding of the difference between the two sides of the food security and food production system,” McCann said.

“Most food-insecure Canadians live in communities where food is available, accessible and relatively affordable. During the last couple of years, food inflation has shone a light on the challenge of food affordability, but the reality remains that, on average, Canadians pay a small share of their income on food.”

“The average household in Canada spent 10 per cent of their disposable income on food in 2024, a historically low amount. For most Canadians, food may be more expensive, but it remains affordable and accessible.”

That does not mean there is not an increasing food insecurity challenge in lower-income households. “The greatest point of failure today in food security in Canada is income, a challenge that is made worse by increases in the cost of living across the variety of costs that households have to pay.”

An interdisciplinary research team at the University of Toronto, called PROOF, calls for policy interventions that improve the financial circumstances of households at the bottom of the income spectrum.

The PROOF team has concluded that supporting household incomes is a better way to deal with food security concerns, he said. “It’s also important to acknowledge that the drivers of food insecurity in Canada and in developed countries is often different from other places around the world where the food system plays a much greater role.”

It is also important to acknowledge that the system in which food is produced in Canada is a complex, challenging one. “A reliable, sustainable food system is one where food increasingly moves across borders, is produced in increasingly innovative ways, is increasingly concentrated but faces increasing volatility and risk.”

A fundamental challenge in food-production policy is that the food system is asked to deliver on competing outcomes. The Senate committee study focuses on food security, farmers, local food systems and food sovereignty. “While we like to think that we can achieve all of these outcomes at the same time, these outcomes create competing pressures on the farmers and the rest of the food-production system that is being asked to deliver on them.”

For example, increasing the availability of affordable food may lead to more imports, while a focus on food sovereignty may limit markets for farmers and disrupt profitable global supply chains.

“There is a need to ask whether the food system is being used to deliver economic, social or environmental objectives. Ideally, we could do all three, but in reality, choices need to be made and those choices have consequences.”

In this era of increased instability around the world, there is good reason to take the money and spend the time and energy needed to better leverage these procurement programs to support the local food systems that are there, McCann said.

“Ultimately, what the food-production system needs - and that includes the farmers, food processors and input suppliers and transportation systems and others that are key to it - is profitability, stability and the conditions to grow, all three of which are under pressure today.”