Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health helped launch the first black food sovereignty program in North America — an effort to tackle food insecurity by creating a field-to-field food pipeline.
The Toronto Black Food Plan is the result of a partnership between the City of Toronto’s Anti-Black Racism Unit (CABR) and Afri-Can FoodBasket, a community nonprofit that advocates for food justice and food sovereignty. The Toronto City Council unanimously approved the plan last fall.
“It is well established that there is a chronic problem of food insecurity among black communities in Toronto, and we believe a standard approach to dealing with it will not take us far,” Winston Azbands, an associate professor at Dalla Lana who was part of the working group behind the plan. “We want to break away from the normal way we think about food insecurity and talk about food sovereignty, which means that black communities have a certain degree of control that ensures greater access to food.”
Winston AzbandsMore than a quarter of black families in Toronto are food insecure, including about 300,000 children. Research shows that black families are three and a half times more likely than white families to experience food insecurity — statistics that call for community-led solutions, Husbands says.
The plan calls for access to growing space and infrastructure, black-led food centers, and culturally rooted community health and nutrition programs. City agencies will provide resources such as land and water for urban parks and education in creating sustainable food systems and reducing waste.
The plan’s origins go back to the mid-1990s, when Afri-Can FoodBasket began building capacity among individuals and neighborhoods across the city to grow their own food. The group’s efforts led to the creation of over 100 new gardens; composting program food animation workshops; seed conservation Urban Yogama Farm, with locations in Toronto and Brampton; Black Farmer Incubator Training Program; and Cultivating Youth Leadership, a youth community food security program.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity in the city’s black communities worsened. FoodBasket responded with Black Food Toronto, a traditional food bank that helped address immediate needs for access to culturally appropriate food. But husbands and others including them Emara RollstonDalla Lana, an assistant professor, was already thinking about long-term solutions.
“There is this idea of recognizing that access to food is a human right,” says Husbands, former director of research at the Daily Bread Food Bank. “But then we need programs and policies to make it really effective.”
The plan also differs from traditional food security efforts in that it addresses racism as a major cause of food insecurity in black communities. Without this understanding, Husbands says, traditional efforts privilege certain groups and undermine the health and well-being of others. Draw an analogy from his work in HIV research: “You could say that everyone should get tested for HIV without understanding why different segments of the population are not tested. Then some will be left behind, and you end up thinking that people are working against their interest.”
Considering anti-black racism as part of a food sovereignty plan means asking questions like why there are so few black farmers in Ontario, or why many food stores in black neighborhoods don’t have community members, Husbands says — and investing resources to address the problem. Gaps.
The food sovereignty plan came under the leadership of longtime black food activist Annan Lululi, Executive Director of FoodBasket, who spearheaded the plan with CABR’s Melana Roberts.
Anan Lololi“We want to work with nature, and we value urban farmers and nutritionists. We want to make sure that we recognize the sacredness of food,” says Lululi. “Food is a business but it is really a human right. We want to look at it appropriately.”
Lululi says he was surprised by how quickly the council adopted the plan — perhaps a sign of the growing need to create societal resilience in the face of disruptions like COVID-19. During the pandemic, Black Food Toronto says it has distributed 1 million pounds of food with support from CABR, Community Food Centers Canada, and the Black Communities and Public Advancement Network. The vegetables also came from Ujamaa Farm and the Backyard Urban Farm Company, but without the kind of infrastructure that such a complex operation would require.
“We’re doing this with blood, sweat and tears because we don’t have the resources to do it, not even a warehouse,” Lululi says. The next steps for the working group are to mobilize our knowledge base. Bring the people involved in food policy, those who know about agriculture and horticulture, activists, academics, nutritionists and food companies to collectively define the future of food sovereignty in Canada.”