Ottawa-The government could strengthen Canada's food security without significant new spending, says Sylvain Charlebois, Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

The first step should be using food affordability as a formal lens for federal policy making; he told the Commons agriculture committee.

“Before introducing new regulations, taxes or programs affecting the food sector, government departments should be required to assess their impact on food affordability and food system competitiveness.”

That way Canadians would find out how public policy affects the cost of food before decisions are made.

The next step should be a national review of internal trade barriers affecting food. “Canadians often speak about food sovereignty and local food systems yet we continue to tolerate rules that make it unnecessarily difficult to move food, labour and products across provincial boundaries.”

Improving the movement of food across provinces would strengthen resilience, increase competition and lower costs without spending a dollar of additional public money, he said.

The third step would be establishing measurable national food security benchmarks and publishing annual scorecards.

“We cannot manage what we do not measure. Canada should track indicators such as food affordability, domestic processing capacity, investment levels, productivity growth, food insecurity rates and supply chain resilience.”

The government has announced a 10-year strategy and Canadians deserve to know whether the country is becoming more food secure.

“Food security in an unstable world will not be achieved through protectionism or self-sufficiency. No country can produce everything efficiently.”

“Canada's strength has always been its ability to trade, innovate and compete. Our objective should be to build a food system that is resilient, productive, globally connected and affordable for Canadians.”

Rather than a food security problem, Canada has a competitiveness and productivity problem.

“We are one of the world's largest agricultural producers and exporters, yet millions of Canadians struggle to afford food. The challenge before us is not simply about producing more food, but producing, processing, distributing and marketing food more efficiently and competitively.”

The government’s National Food Security Strategy is an important acknowledgement that food matters and it includes several promising investments in food processing, controlled environment agriculture, food hubs and support for independent grocers, Charlebois said.

“A strategy requires a clear vision, measurable objectives, and a framework for accountability. Food security cannot be purchased through government spending alone. It is earned through investment, innovation, productivity and competitiveness.”

Canada also needs to encourage processing companies to grow.

This news report prepared for National Newswatch