Reimagining food systems for a sustainable and equitable future

Rob Newell was awarded funding from the New Frontiers in Research Fund to examine food systems from an equity perspective and develop tools for supporting food systems planning.

COVID-19 has highlighted multiple food system vulnerabilities, revealing equity and social justice issues along the supply chain and in food system governance. These issues disproportionately impact marginalized groups (e.g. Indigenous, racialized, seniors, single parents) and are rarely centered in visions and interventions to create sustainable food futures. The issues are also not limited to pandemic-related crises; communities will experience such food systems impacts with other major socioeconomic disturbances, such as climate change. Developing resilient, equitable food systems is a critical challenge for sustainable communities, which requires rethinking approaches to how the ‘benefits and burdens’ of local food production are distributed and how processes for decision-making navigate issues of representation and difference. Participatory approaches are needed to ensure plans are grounded in local realities, sociocultural and environmental contexts, and food justice. Such approaches are supported through frameworks and tools, such as placed-based visualizations, that enable meaningful participation of diverse groups in participatory processes.
This research uses an equity lens to develop planning and engagement tools, namely interactive visualizations (using video game software), for exploring sustainable, equitable local food futures. The project will (1) develop an equity framework for guiding food systems planning, and (2) apply the framework to create a visualization tool for examining different local food futures. Using a community-based participatory approach in Revelstoke, British Columbia, researchers work with local government and civil society to contextualize the equity framework by planning with the voices and considerations of diverse community members. It then applies the framework in a co-development process of a visualization tool that is user-friendly (to diverse users) and accessible through multiple means (e.g., online, personal devices, public computers, etc.). The visualization centres on both regional scales and local neighbourhoods, allowing users to virtually walk through these spaces, visualize different food strategies, and gain insight on how these strategies benefit and impact community members differently. The project involves workshops with local government, community groups, and community members, who will explore the visualization and discuss ways for developing sustainable, resilient, and just local food systems for a post-COVID world.