As part of my work I get to be involved in some really interesting projects. One of the latest is the development of a food charter. A food charter is a statement of values and principles to guide a community’s food policy. People from a broad spectrum of
community interests and organizations meet and discuss their concerns and desires around food and agriculture policy in order to come up with a common vision and set of principles. These form the basis of a unique, local, community food charter.
Food Charters are still fairly new. Toronto has had one since 2000, Sudbury since 2004, and Vancouver since 2007. In the past three years at least half a dozen other communities have adopted them and even more are starting to work on them. When a food charter is adopted by a municipal council it becomes a public document to guide decision-making. It also can be endorsed by other organizations and form the basis of partnerships to work toward common goals. In many ways, the food charters adopted so far look fairly similar. I imagine the small steering committee that I’m on could sit down and write it over an afternoon and it wouldn’t look that different from what we are likely to end up with. But while having a statement of shared values might be the obvious outcome that we want to achieve, an even more important outcome is the relationships that the process of co-developing a Food Charter will forge.
One of the things that I like most about the Food Charter process so far is it has been
a tool to bring together stakeholders from a range of different backgrounds, including health, agriculture, environment, tourism, processing, retail, transportation, local, regional and provincial government, social equity, poverty, waste management, and education. Individuals and organizations that have never been in the same room before have come together to discuss the Food Charter. To me, this means that even in the main goal of getting a Food Charter adopted doesn’t happen right away that’s OK. The relationship building that is occurring during the process of meetings and community engagement is already incubating new projects. Even after one public meeting an action plan to go along with the charter started to emerge and at the top of that list was the need to collaborate, cooperate, network and share. A new food community is budding and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.