Good Food Principles

Good Food Solutions: Building Sustainable Food Communities for All Canadians

We have all read the headlines: climate change is worsening, the health crisis is growing, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. But it is not all bad news. By working alongside farmers, fishers, hunters and gatherers, business owners, government officials, and passionate communities members, FLEdGE researchers and practitioners learned that food can be a big part of addressing these challenges. Together we continue to work towards building equitable, green, fair, healthy, and sustainable community food systems that are economically regionalized and work with the environment, not against it. The projects FLEdGE supported offer a roadmap for change and points to levers we can use to build a different kind of future across Canada and beyond.

Communities throughout Canada use food strategies, food charters, food hubs, community gardens, food sharing programs, seed banks, and digital tools to provide the people that produce, harvest, and eat food with more control over our food systems. These innovative solutions connect urban and rural places, provide fairer wages to food workers, improve access to healthy foods, celebrate cultures, and help make sure farmers, fishers, hunters and harvesters can earn a living from the land.

FLEdGE’s six Good Food Principles thematically link the findings from over 30 reports, more than 100 public presentations, and 35 workshops. These can be found on the individual pages dedicated to each of the Good Food Principles, a starting point for learning more about what FLEdGE helped to produce.

The Good Food Principles

Farmer Livelihoods – We need to help the people who produce our food adapt to changing economies by co-creating new opportunities for training, accessing capital, and connecting with consumers.

Food Access – We need to work together with people along the values chain to make local, healthy, and culturally appropriate food more accessible to everyone.

Indigenous Foodways – We need to support Indigenous food sovereignty by safeguarding traditional foodways that rely on the health of the land and intergenerational knowledge sharing supported by technologies, capacity, and infrastructure.

Ecological Resilience – We need to encourage ecological farming because it supports diverse ecosystems and communities by regenerating the natural environment.

Food Policy – We need good food policy that involves cross-cultural collaboration, all levels of government and reflects the needs of people and their communities.

Food Connects – We support community-driven research as a way of connecting people and food.