“We need a Black food strategy funded by the government of Toronto!” The Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Plan

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Plan has done a survey and came up with some recommendations, and guidelines as well as some geographical information as to how, and where Black folks can start accessing and partly growing their own food in this city.

Now just in case anyone is wondering what Black Food Sovereignty means, here is a description from our source, Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Plan.

“The right of people’s descent to healthy and culturally-appropriate food, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems and build their own institutions to advance community capacity and resilience for food access.” 

According to the data put forward by this survey, it is clear that from a food point of view Blacks are in the back of the line when it comes to proper nutrition. Here are the numbers: 28.4% of Black households are food insecure, 36.6% of Black children live in food insecure households, 63% of Black (food) organizations expect to run out of funding in six months or less.

This report went on to reveal that Toronto neighbourhoods with high Black populations experience less access to community gardens; green space and tree canopy cover and are more likely to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate emergencies. Black Torontonians are 9% of the population and 3.5 times more likely to be food insecure.

A very interesting point made in this paper is that neighbourhoods with the highest density of Black populations also have the greatest density of residents living on a low income.

As I said earlier in this article, the survey has recommended some much-needed things to remedy the food problem, which the Black community faces; however, there is work to be done on our part.

Here are some quotes from some folks who attended the conference:

• “We need a Black food strategy funded by the government of Toronto. We shouldn’t have to worry about chasing dollars; there needs to be access to core services to support health and food access for our communities”
• “There is a lot of shame as a parent when you can’t feed your kids. When you know what is healthy, but you simply can’t do it”
• “Food is in our culture, no matter what part of the diaspora you’re from, food is how we build our resilience and preserve our histories.”
• “Growing our own culturally appropriate food is a social prescription for health.”
• “Black organizations need more support. We cannot keep up with demand.”

Now, for a few things recommended by the participating members:

• Re-imagine public land as an opportunity to advance an inclusive reparative economy approach to build increased community resilience.
• Land -based learning initiatives and healing through identifying, re-fuming and re-purposing land to promote stewardship and urban agriculture initiatives

It would be unfair to close this article without pointing out that interested Black residents of this city can access government owned agricultural gardening spots in this city. These spots are located almost all over the city and interested folks can participate in growing their own food in the warm months, which will alleviate some of the food problems facing our community.

As is evident, food prices are rising at an alarming rate, not to mention the Ontario government is teaching children in science classes that bugs and crickets are the “New Lunch!” Therefore, it will be prudent for those of us who can, to look into planting some of our food indoors as well. There are a number of ways to do so.

Something as simple as looking up indoor gardening on YouTube will be very helpful indeed.

Access to community gardens and kitchens can be found here.  https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ec/bgrd/backgroundfile-170565.pdf