IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v35y2018i1d10.1007_s10460-017-9815-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Jordan Powell

    (University of British Columbia
    University of the Fraser Valley)

  • Hannah Wittman

    (University of British Columbia
    University of British Columbia)

Abstract

Farm to school programs have been positioned as interventions that can support goals of the global food sovereignty movement, including strengthening local food production systems, improving food access and food justice for urban populations, and reducing distancing between producers and consumers. However, there has been little assessment of how and to what extent farm to school programs can actually function as a mechanism leading to the achievement of food sovereignty. As implemented in North America, farm to school programs encompass activities not only related to school food procurement, but also to the development of student knowledge and skills under the framework of food literacy. Research on farm to school initiatives has largely been conducted in countries with government-supported national school feeding programs; this study examines farm to school organizing in Canada, where there is no national student nutrition program. Using qualitative fieldwork and document analysis, we investigate the farm to school movement in British Columbia, in a context where civil society concerns related to education and health have been the main vectors of farm to school mobilization. Our analysis suggests that, despite limited institutional infrastructure for school meals, the British Columbia farm to school movement has contributed toward realizing goals of food sovereignty through two main mechanisms: advocacy for institutional procurement of local and sustainable foods and mobilizing food literacy for increased public engagement with issues of social justice and equity in food systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Jordan Powell & Hannah Wittman, 2018. "Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 193-206, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:35:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10460-017-9815-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-017-9815-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10460-017-9815-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10460-017-9815-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alison Alkon & Teresa Mares, 2012. "Food sovereignty in US food movements: radical visions and neoliberal constraints," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(3), pages 347-359, September.
    2. Lyson, Helena C., 2016. "National policy and state dynamics: A state-level analysis of the factors influencing the prevalence of farm to school programs in the United States," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 23-35.
    3. Harriet Friedmann, 2007. "Scaling up: Bringing public institutions and food service corporations into the project for a local, sustainable food system in Ontario," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(3), pages 389-398, September.
    4. Betty Izumi & D. Wright & Michael Hamm, 2010. "Farm to school programs: exploring the role of regionally-based food distributors in alternative agrifood networks," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(3), pages 335-350, September.
    5. Congressional Budget Office, 2015. "Child Nutrition Programs: Spending and Policy Options," Reports 50737, Congressional Budget Office.
    6. Congressional Budget Office, 2015. "Child Nutrition Programs: Spending and Policy Options," Reports 50737, Congressional Budget Office.
    7. Patricia Allen & Julie Guthman, 2006. "From “old school” to “farm-to-school”: Neoliberalization from the ground up," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 401-415, December.
    8. Congressional Budget Office, 2015. "Child Nutrition Programs: Spending and Policy Options," Reports 50737, Congressional Budget Office.
    9. Jessica Clendenning & Wolfram Dressler & Carol Richards, 2016. "Food justice or food sovereignty? Understanding the rise of urban food movements in the USA," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(1), pages 165-177, March.
    10. Aya Kimura, 2011. "Food education as food literacy: privatized and gendered food knowledge in contemporary Japan," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(4), pages 465-482, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mercado, Geovana & Nico Hjortsø, Carsten, 2023. "Explaining the development policy implementation gap: A case of a failed food sovereignty policy in Bolivia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Raquel Rosas & Filipa Pimenta & Isabel Leal & Ralf Schwarzer, 2022. "FOODLIT-Trial: Protocol of a Randomised Controlled Digital Intervention to Promote Food Literacy and Sustainability Behaviours in Adults Using the Health Action Process Approach and the Behaviour Chan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-14, March.
    3. Sarah Riggs Stapleton, 2019. "Parent activists versus the corporation: a fight for school food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(4), pages 805-817, December.
    4. Palumbo, Rocco & Adinolfi, Paola & Annarumma, Carmela & Catinello, Giuseppina & Tonelli, Marco & Troiano, Ersilia & Vezzosi, Stefania & Manna, Rosalba, 2019. "Unravelling the food literacy puzzle: Evidence from Italy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 104-115.
    5. Elvira Molin & Michael Martin & Anna Björklund, 2021. "Addressing Sustainability within Public Procurement of Food: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-21, December.
    6. Xiangping Jia, 2021. "Agro-Food Innovation and Sustainability Transition: A Conceptual Synthesis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, June.
    7. Jennifer E. Gaddis & June Jeon, 2020. "Sustainability transitions in agri-food systems: insights from South Korea’s universal free, eco-friendly school lunch program," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 1055-1071, December.
    8. Megan Grubb & Christian R. Vogl, 2019. "Understanding Food Literacy in Urban Gardeners: A Case Study of the Twin Cities, Minnesota," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-15, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sara A. L. Smaal & Joost Dessein & Barend J. Wind & Elke Rogge, 2021. "Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(3), pages 709-727, September.
    2. Shawn A. Trivette, 2017. "Invoices on scraps of paper: trust and reciprocity in local food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 529-542, September.
    3. von Germeten, Jan-Paul & Hartmann, Monika, 2015. "What determines suppliers' intensity of participation in the EU School Fruit Scheme," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211915, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. William Lacy, 2023. "Local food systems, citizen and public science, empowered communities, and democracy: hopes deserving to live," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 1-17, March.
    5. Lesli Hoey & Allison Sponseller, 2018. "“It’s hard to be strategic when your hair is on fire”: alternative food movement leaders’ motivation and capacity to act," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 595-609, September.
    6. Kate Cairns & Josée Johnston, 2018. "On (not) knowing where your food comes from: meat, mothering and ethical eating," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 569-580, September.
    7. Alana Siegner & Jennifer Sowerwine & Charisma Acey, 2018. "Does Urban Agriculture Improve Food Security? Examining the Nexus of Food Access and Distribution of Urban Produced Foods in the United States: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-27, August.
    8. Sarah Riggs Stapleton, 2019. "Parent activists versus the corporation: a fight for school food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(4), pages 805-817, December.
    9. Giaime Berti & Catherine Mulligan, 2016. "Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-31, July.
    10. Yuki Kato & Laura McKinney, 2015. "Bringing food desert residents to an alternative food market: a semi-experimental study of impediments to food access," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 215-227, June.
    11. Charis Linda Braun & Meike Rombach & Anna Maria Häring & Vera Bitsch, 2018. "A Local Gap in Sustainable Food Procurement: Organic Vegetables in Berlin’s School Meals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.
    12. Becot, Florence & Conner, David & Nelson, Abbie & Buckwalter, Erin & Erickson, Daniel, 2014. "Institutional Demand for Locally-Grown Food in Vermont: Marketing Implications for Producers and Distributors," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 45(2), pages 1-19, July.
    13. Hannah Pitt & Mat Jones, 2016. "Scaling up and out as a Pathway for Food System Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Xiangping Jia, 2021. "Agro-Food Innovation and Sustainability Transition: A Conceptual Synthesis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, June.
    15. David McIvor & James Hale, 2015. "Urban agriculture and the prospects for deep democracy," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(4), pages 727-741, December.
    16. Rebecka Daye, 2020. "Competing food sovereignties: GMO-free activism, democracy and state preemptive laws in Southern Oregon," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 1013-1025, December.
    17. Weir, Jonathan Z., 2018. "The Impacts & Distribution of State Incentives on Farm to School Programs: A Probability Model," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273851, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Alison Blay-Palmer & Roberta Sonnino & Julien Custot, 2016. "A food politics of the possible? Growing sustainable food systems through networks of knowledge," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(1), pages 27-43, March.
    19. Jorge Coque & Pilar L. González-Torre, 2017. "Adapting Nonprofit Resources to New Social Demands: The Food Banks in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, April.
    20. Joshua Sbicca & India Luxton & James Hale & Kassandra Roeser, 2019. "Collaborative Concession in Food Movement Networks: The Uneven Relations of Resource Mobilization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:35:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10460-017-9815-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.