Community Sector Council hosted its annual Policy on The Rock forum this June, to bring people together from the private, public, and community sectors, as well as people with a lived experience of poverty. The endgoal of the interactive morning was to produce an action-based report.
Ethan Doney – Food First NL’s Project Manager for Everybody Eats – led one of the table discussions, where conversation was dominated by the cost of food and household food insecurity in our province.
"It was motivating to hear real life stories from attendees that day," Doney says. "Between the rates of food bank usage in our province, how often shelves can be bare at those banks, and the high cost of store-bought food, it’s clear too many struggle to afford healthy food. We must conceive an action plan to make healthy food more accessible for all residents of our province, and for the collective health of our people.”
Cost of Food & Household Food Insecurity is 1 of the first 3 Action Groups formed through our Everybody Eats project, which is building a roadmap towards better Food Security in Newfoundland & Labrador. Cost of Food was identified as a priority on the basis of its urgency, potential for impact, and the viability of implementing a productive action plan to ameliorate the issue.
The action group is now formed and will, in the coming months, begin exploring and piloting efforts to improve the affordability of healthy food in NL. In fact, they held a meeting immediately following Policy on the Rock, in the very venue the event took place in.
Everybody Eats Action Group on Cost of Food & Food Insecurity Active and Ready for Change
