Philip Steenkamp: Food security should be next on B.C.’s political menu

For years, it’s been easy for many of us in B.C. to think of food security as somebody else’s problem, or just not to think of it at all.

Certainly not all of us — anyone who has relied on a food bank knows what it’s like to worry about where the next meal is coming from. But many British Columbians, especially those in positions of power and influence, are used to the luxury of leaving food security questions to other people.

Those days are over.

We got a taste of food insecurity early in the pandemic as grocery-store shelves emptied. The race for the last package of toilet paper or bottle of hand sanitizer got the headlines, but even the availability of household staples like flour and eggs was suddenly in doubt.

Then, just as that was settling down, the November 2021 atmospheric river swept in. Floodwaters overtook huge swaths of Fraser Valley farmland, and drowned cows, chickens, pigs and even bees by the thousands. Landslides and bridge collapses cut off trucking routes and rail lines — and once again, supermarket shelves emptied out.

On the heels of that disaster came a massive surge in inflation. COVID-19’s on-again, off-again supply-chain disruptions were supercharged by Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine. And while prices rose across the board, food prices have been the ones to keep stubbornly increasing. (Not that frustrated consumers will be willing to place the blame entirely on supply chains while grocery chains are reaping record profits and memories of the 2017 bread price-fixing scandal are still fresh in customers’ minds.) In one of the most expensive places to live on Earth, that’s having a serious impact on the ability of people with a limited income to feed themselves and their families.

Today, in the aftermath of an even more devastating atmospheric river and widespread flooding in California — the source of a lot of B.C. produce, especially in the winter and spring — questions are arising of where the next shortages will show up. Even at that, our situation pales in comparison to developing countries that until now relied on wheat from Ukraine. Russia has not only blockaded exports from that country, but is also launching relentless attacks on the energy infrastructure that helps keep food production running.

If there was any doubt before, it’s gone now: Food security is a critical issue. The assured, ready supply of a wide variety of food that we’ve been accustomed to is in jeopardy.

That may be disheartening to hear, given the many other dangers and challenges we’re facing, but then those crises have more than a little connection to a safe, reliable, affordable supply of food. Climate disruption means more extreme weather events; rising authoritarianism and nationalism threaten to unleash more wars; our global economy, built on assumptions about stability that today seem hopelessly naïve, can be expected to falter again and again.

All of these conditions erode the security of our food supply.

In turn, an insecure supply of food can undermine the stability of governments and local economies, prompt large-scale migrations and humanitarian crises, and heighten conflicts between countries.

This is life under the polycrisis — interconnected, mutually reinforcing crises that affect everything from severe rainfall warnings to the ever-rising prices at the grocery checkout.

Addressing food security requires a broad range of co-ordinated responses at every level, from individual neighbourhoods to international co-operation. We urgently need to have long-overdue conversations about just what that response must look like.

But not all the answers will have to be planetary in scale — or even provincewide.

As you read this, the Giving Garden in the Farm at Royal Roads University is nearly ready for the first harvest of 2023. Driven by Dr. Hilary Leighton, program head in our School of Environment and Sustainability, it is both a living laboratory for Royal Roads students and a growing source of fresh produce for the Greater Victoria community, directly addressing food insecurity in the region.

The impact of the Farm at RRU is real and significant, with over 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables distributed last year to food-insecure seniors, single parents and newcomers to Canada. That contribution will keep increasing in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Dr. Robert Newell, the new Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability, is studying the use of systems mapping to show relationships among local farms, transportation networks, grocery stores, communities and key social and environmental issues. His program also looks at sustainability and novel food production methods, such as vertical agriculture (growing crops indoors using stacked shelves) and cellular agriculture (growing meat directly from cell cultures instead of relying on animals).

Solutions like these are being developed throughout B.C. and Canada. But we need to co-ordinate them. One obvious vehicle for that co-ordination is government: Indigenous, municipal, provincial and federal. There are many ways they can support that work — from developing up-to-date standards for measuring food insecurity to bringing a food security lens to bear on every aspect of public policy.

That can only happen if leaders at all levels start convening the public conversations needed to shape that vision.

If any good is to come from the food supply shocks of the past three years — and the more severe incidents that are sure to come — it’s that they’ve given us all an appetite for those conversations. It’s time for our leaders to get cooking.

Dr. Philip Steenkamp is president, Royal Roads University.

1. California death toll reaches 20 as atmospheric rivers finally fade

2. A year later, farm flood recovery still a work in progress in B.C.'s Sumas Prairie

3. This Surrey field produces millions of vegetables for B.C. But it could be paved over for warehouses

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