Policy ingredients for food sovereignty
These 10 ingredients outline the transformative policies needed to build food sovereignty in Canada.
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples and nations to democratically control their own food systems. It connects everything—from poverty and racism, to trade, Indigenous rights, environment, and health. That's why it takes many policy ingredients to make our food systems more resilient and democratic.
Use these policies as a reference for designing the key topics of your Eat Think Vote event, asking questions to candidates, or talking to the media
All policies are equally important for building food sovereignty in Canada. They are listed in order of relevance to the current moment. That means it may make sense to lead with the ones at the top
Check out our Questions for Candidates in the Event Toolkit for suggestions on how to tailor these policy proposals for your Eat Think Vote event
Thanks to our many partners and experts who helped put together this document!
School Food | ✓ Easy win
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Key Policy - Expand the National School Food Policy and Program to create a universal program embedded in legislation
Goal - All children in Canada receive a healthy, culturally appropriate meal every school day. School Food Programs source locally grown food
Context - The National School Food Program included in the 2024 Budget is an important step. This program should be expanded to ensure a culturally appropriate, nutritious, daily school meal for every child in Canada. This will improve family budgets and child health, provide opportunities for nutrition education and food literacy, and support local food systems.
Resources - Canada’s National School Food Program is Here! (2025). Coalition for Healthy School Food
Trade | ☆ Election winner
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Key Policy - Build food system resilience by expanding Canadian supply management, improve labelling and increasing supports to local markets
Goal - A resilient food system that can withstand geopolitical and climate shocks
Context - Canada imports over half its food and exports over half its food—sometimes importing it again. This leaves us vulnerable to trade wars, global supply chain disruptions, and climate-related crop failures abroad. Tariffs by the US, and retaliatory tariffs by Canada, are expected to raise the prices of many vegetables and fruits, and in some cases limit supplies. To build resilience, we must protect farmers, fishers and domestic markets in international trade deals. Now, more than ever, we need the government to uphold and expand Canada's supply management system and strengthen local markets. We also need to improve labeling for foods so Canadians can be sure of where it is coming from, and what is in it.
Resources - Statement from our co-executive directors on US tariffs and economic instability (February 2025), Food Secure Canada
Trade Basics: Tariffs 101 (2025). Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
From Trump Tariffs to Patient Trays: Healthcare’s Role in National Food Security (March 2025). Nourish Leadership. (Webinar recording)
Reliance on exports (2023). Food Policy for Canada, York University.
Poverty | ☆ Election winner
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Key Policy - Guaranteed livable basic income to ensure no one experiences food insecurity, which can be done through expanding existing benefits programs
Goal - Reduce food insecurity rates by 50% by 2030 and eradicate severe food insecurity, using a racial equity lens
Context - Nearly 1 in 4 Canadians live in food-insecure households. Black and Indigenous families disproportionately affected, facing food insecurity rates of 40%, a result of structural racism. A guaranteed basic income is essential to ensure everyone can afford the basics by expanding and creating new income supports for workers and people on fixed incomes, applying a racial equity lens to ensure the communities most at risk of food insecurity are supported. This can be achieved by strengthening employment insurance, disability, child, and senior benefits, and developing a new Grocery and Essentials Benefit.
Resources - Food insecurity in Canada is the worst it’s ever been - here’s how we can solve it (November 2023). PROOF.
Poverty and Food Insecurity In Your Riding. Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC).
Put Food Banks Out of Business. Coalition led from Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank.
Food Sovereignty for Black Communities in Toronto Paper (2023). Afri-Can Food Basket.
Basic Income: Some Policy Options for Canada (2019). Basic Income Canada Network.
A Groceries and Essentials Benefit for Canada. Food Banks Canada.
Corporate Power | ☆ Election winner
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Key Policy - Break up monopoly power in food retail
Goal - Ensure that no one company or a few companies control food retail
Context - Just five corporations control over 80% of Canada's grocery market, squeezing out independent retailers, suppliers, cooperatives, and farmers—driving up prices for Canadians. Breaking up monopolies will create space for independent and cooperative retailers, and local food markets to flourish, while reducing price gouging for consumers.
Resources - MPs unite against greedflation and monopoly power in Canada’s food systems (July 2024). Food Secure Canada.
What will it take to fix our economy? (March 2025). Jim Stanford.
Corporate Concentration and Power in the Global Food System (November 2022). Jennifer Clapp for the National Farmers Union.
Reconciliation | ✊ Movement goal
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Key Policy - Take concrete steps to support Indigenous sovereignty in managing resources and foodways
Goal - Calls to action in Truth and Reconciliation commission are reflected in policy
Context - Indigenous communities face systemic barriers to accessing traditional foods and managing their own resources, despite their deep knowledge of sustainable food systems. Supporting Indigenous-led food and land access initiatives is a vital step toward reconciliation and food justice. This requires collaboration of federal, provincial, and territorial governments.
Resources - First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study: Summary of Findings and Recommendations (October 2021). Assembly of First Nations.
Inuit Nunangat Food Security Strategy (July 2021). ITK.
Indigenous food sovereignty: A Model for Social Learning (2011). Morrison.
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in Ontario: A Study of Exclusion at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs Robon, Rotz & Xavier, Yellowhead Institute.
Earth to Table Legacies: Rethinking Our Food Systems.
Harvesting Hope and Change: Food Sovereignty on Turtle Island (2023). Food Secure Canada.
Decent Work | ✊ Movement goal
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Key Policy - Reform and improve labour laws ensuring decent work for all and permanent resident status for migrant farmers and factory workers
Goal - Food production is work that is valued, deserving respect and fair wages
Context - From farmers to truck drivers to grocery store workers to restaurant workers to delivery workers, our food chain is held together by low-wage workers, many of whom are migrants who face exploitative working conditions and lack pathways to permanent residency. Growing food needs to be valued as respectable work—otherwise there will continue to be incentives to mistreat workers, rely on temporary workers, and underpay this work. That's why ensuring fair wages and safe conditions, and permanent resident status for migrants is key to building a just food system.
Resources - “Canada has destroyed me”: labour exploitation of migrant workers in canada (2025). Amnesty International.
Closed Work Permits and Temporary Foreign Workers (December 2023). Justicia for Migrant Workers & Migrant Farmworker Clinic.
Farmers | 💯 System-changer
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Key Policy - Restructure the agriculture sector to benefit farmers, not investors, increasing access to those excluded from land access
Goal - Secure a future where farmers thrive and are not forced into debt
Context - The average age of Canadian farmers is 56, and new farmers face skyrocketing land costs and limited access to capital. There is a rise in inequality among farmers, with a few making lots of money, while many barely hang on or can't get started. Canada's agriculture sector produces billions of dollars in wealth every year but most of that is captured by fertilizer and seed sellers, fuel companies, land speculators, and grain buyers. An economically just agriculture sector would need to be completely restructured.
Resources - Canadian agriculture by the numbers (March, 2024). National Farmers Union.
Let’s Get Serious about Building Canadian Sovereignty in response to USA Aggression (March 2025). National Farmers Union.
Growing Common Ground: Pathways to Advance Agroecology Policy in Canada (December 2022). Ahmed, for Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems.
Food Policy | 💯 System-changer
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Key Policy - A whole-of-government food policy that invests in local food markets and government procurement
Goal - Policy coherence on food, especially across health, environment, and agriculture. Strategic investments in support of resilient local markets.
Context - Canada's food policies are fragmented across multiple departments, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities to address food insecurity, climate change, and public health. A coordinated, cabinet-level approach is necessary to create a cohesive national food strategy. For example, strategic investments by the Food Policy for Canada through $50 million for food hubs and a Good Food Procurement Action Plan would simultaneously strengthen supply and demand in support of resilient local markets.
Resources - Civil society Input to a Renewed Food Policy for Canada: Food Policy Governance. Backgrounder and Results (2023). Food Secure Canada.
Civil society engagement in food systems governance in Canada: Experiences, gaps, and possibilities (2023). Levkoe et al from the Participatory Food Systems Governance project, in Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.
Food Supply Chain | 💯 System-changer
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Key Policy - Adopt a principles-based approach to food safety and farming regulations to remove interprovincial barriers to trade for small and medium sized enterprises growing or trading food, while maintaining regulations that protect workers and the environment.
Goal - Empower small food businesses and social economy enterprises to grow and succeed
Context - Small and medium-sized food businesses deal with rules not designed for them and lack scale-appropriate infrastructure. Removing select interprovincial barriers to trade and creating opportunities for local food enterprises will strengthen our food economy. This has to include support for non-profits, cooperatives, and the social economy, since the market has failed to solve our problems. At the same time, it is important to guard against wholesale removal of inter-provincial barriers which sometimes support higher labour and environmental standards.
Resources - Canada’s local food system faces major roadblocks without urgent policy changes (March 2025), Kerr, Levkoe & Potvin.
Zero-profit food grocery stores (September 2024). Food Secure Canada.
Strengthening local food systems: Public markets in Canada as a versatile alternative (March 2024). Food Secure Canada.
Climate Change | 💡 Big idea
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Key Policy - A Canadian Farm Resilience Agency to provide a home for a wide range of mitigation and adaptation programs and research
Goal - Build a climate-ready food system.
Context - Climate change is already disrupting food production in Canada, with droughts, floods, and extreme weather events becoming more frequent. Investing in climate-resilient farming practices, such as agroecology, and infrastructure is essential to safeguarding our food supply for future generations. That's why we need a Farm Resilience Agency to bring together and oversee research, mitigation, and adaptation, with the power to work across different government levels.
Resources - The Canadian Farm Resilience Agency (CFRA): A new institution to lead agricultural emission-reduction and climate adaptation proposal. National Farmers Union (NFU).
Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada Phase 1, (2021) Phase 2 (2023). Indigenous Climate Action.
Farmer-led solutions to support policy development in Canada. Farmers for Climate Solutions.
Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis: A Transformative Strategy for Canadian Farms and Food Systems (2019). Qualman for the National Farmers Union (NFU).
More Resources
Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada (2015). Food Secure Canada.
Growing Resilience and Equity: A food policy action plan in the context of Covid-19 (May 2020). Food Secure Canada.
Alternative Federal Budget 2025 (September, 2024).Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).