Food Security Action Plan Update: Phase 1 - Food Justice

Project Update April 26, 2023: Thank you to all who participated and shared their experiences and perspectives on food justice and food insecurity in New West. City staff and community partners have reviewed the input collected and are pleased to share the complete engagement findings.

Please click here to read the What We Heard Report.

Staff have also prepared the following visual summary to highlight a few of the experiences you shared related to food insecurity. Our gratitude to the many folks with direct experience of food insecurity, whether themselves or someone close to them, who shared their stories in our survey. These personal experiences and stories help to demonstrate the wide-ranging impacts of food insecurity in the New Westminster community, and beyond.

Please click here to view a larger version of the graphic.

The City of New Westminster is preparing to update the 2018 Food Security Action Plan. The 2018 plan seeks to address barriers, gaps, and needs within the community, and raise community awareness about food security. As a first step before the plan is updated, we sought the community’s perspectives on our food system through a food justice lens. There will be more opportunities to participate as the project continues through 2023.

As part of Phase 1 of the project to update the plan, the City received funding from Fraser Health to form a working group made up of diverse community voices, including individuals from equity-denied groups and those with lived experience of food insecurity, to develop a survey for the wider community and to inform the report, "Everybody Needs to Eat: Food Justice Project." The goal of the early engagement was to confirm barriers and potential strategies to address them, applying a food justice framework.

What's food security? Food security means that: everyone has equitable access to food that is affordable, culturally preferable, nutritious, and safe; everyone has the agency to participate in and influence food systems; and food systems are resilient, ecologically sustainable, socially just, and honour Indigenous food sovereignty.

What do we mean by food justice? Food justice recognizes that our current food system is unfair when we look at where, what, and how food is grown, transported, distributed, accessed, and consumed. Some people benefit more, while others face greater barriers or burdens - for example, Indigenous people, racialized individuals, people with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression (LGBTQ2S+), people with disabilities, those with low incomes, etc. Click here to access more information and resources such as articles, videos, etc.

The Community Food Security Continuum demonstrates that achieving community-wide food security requires moving beyond food charity for individuals towards system-level changes to address the underlying reasons for food insecurity, such as poverty.

How can I engage? 

Community members were invited to provide their perspectives through an initial set of questions that were open through February 2023. The goal of the engagement was to help confirm and identify current barriers to food justice, and potential strategies to address the barriers. Results from this initial engagement will inform additional engagement opportunities later this year. Check back for more opportunities to get involved.

Your stories and perspectives will help inform an updated Food Security Action Plan with the goal of creating a just and sustainable food system in New Westminster. We want to ensure that diverse voices are reflected in the updated plan, and your input will help us identify actions to support a more equitable and holistic local food system.