Abstract
Introduction: Climate change contributes to instability in Northern food systems. Food insecurity disproportionately impacts Indigenous Peoples contributing to poorer health outcomes connected to food-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease compared to the general population. There is a disconnect among climate and food policymakers and Indigenous leaders (called change champions) working to address the health impacts of food insecurity in the North.
Health and care systems have important preventative and therapeutic roles in addressing food insecurity as a determinant of health. However, these systems are governed by policies that are poorly integrated with Indigenous communities and often do not reflect their views, priorities, and colonial history. This project reimagines communication strategies and integrated approaches to joint working among policymakers, health and social care providers, and Indigenous food security leaders. Our aim is to co-produce new integrated, equity-focused alliances that leverage public policy as a tool to amplify the voices of Indigenous change champions and sustainably resource their work on climate-related food insecurity in the North.
Approach: We are a collaboration of an Indigenous Advisory Circle of three food security change champions from communities in the North and Indigenous and allied researchers. We engaged with chiefs and councils in each Northern community to understand how they see policy as supporting their community’s priorities and where they see opportunities for change. We completed a comparative content analysis of 14 national, provincial/territorial, and Indigenous public policies on climate change and food insecurity in Canada to identify food security leaders. We deliberated on how policy can be better used as a tool to shape decisions about integrating health and social care services with climate initiatives to sustainably address the issue of climate-related food insecurity in the North in ways that resonate with Indigenous communities.
Results: Although political decision-makers are increasingly interested in tackling climate-related food insecurity, it is unclear what policymakers in Southern Canada know about how change champions work in Northern communities. Federal documents were aligned with policy documents from Indigenous organizations in identifying the most important leaders in Northern food security as those who work “on the ground”. Examples included hunters, harvesters and fishers; knowledge holders and elders; and food banks and food programs. Provincial/territorial documents were less aligned, sometimes listing actors (e.g., food transporters, aviation workers, grocers) as “leaders” that our advisors saw instead as “exploiters” of Indigenous communities.
Implications: From the perspectives of the change champions on our team, the most relevant “food policies” to Indigenous communities are treaties because they govern access to hunting and fishing rights and those that outline subsidies because they directly impact the costs of purchased market foods. They do not see other policy documents as impacting food security in their communities in a significant way. Our next step is in-person sharing circles with change champions in our three Northern communities. Our goal is to co-produce strategies to strengthen capacity for knowledge sharing among change champions and policymakers to encourage integrated health, social, and climate policy initiatives that sustainably resource Indigenous-led, community-driven food security work.