Patterns of our Footsteps - Where's our next meal coming from?

September 28th, 2012

Last week, we released our Action Agenda on Rethinking Growth and Prosperity, a report containing 10 key actions for Canadian leaders and decision-makers to transform our current economic system to more sustainable development pathways. One of the ten actions called for the development and implementation of policies designed to stimulate re-localization innovations to increase community resilience to exogenous shocks. To emphasize the importance of this action, we would like to show you the extent of ‘de-localization’ in Canada of one sector in particular that is vital for human survival, food.

The graph below shows that Canadian food production (green) has increased steadily over the last two and a half decades. However, this increased amount of food production is not necessarily ending up on our dinner tables. Similar to food production trends, both food exports (red) and imports (blue) have increased showing that Canadians are relying more on global trade to get a bite to eat.

 

Watch this video from the CRC Degrowth Video Series, featuring Seth Klein, BC Director of Canadian Policy Alternatives, to learn more on re-localization of economy.

 

Data sources - Food production index data was retrieved from the World Bank Group, and food import and export data was retrieved from Statistics Canada.


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