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A Critical Examination of Household Food Practices in Saskatoon’s Inner City
Research Start-up Summary and Abstract:
This research looks at how urban areas have become a locus for the development of alternative food networks. An alternative food network (AFN) is a broad term that encompasses networks of producers, consumers and other actors. They are alternatives to the standard industrial food supply, typically accessed through conventional grocery stores, which we assume are the dominant means of food procurement by the vast majority of urban people. AFN producers include, for example, farmers, hunters and gatherers. AFN ‘other actors’ include, amongst others, community- based food interventions, which are food procurement and healthy eating initiatives offered by a non-profit/charitable or health organization. While some community-based food interventions (such as Good Food Box or Fruit and Vegetable Market programs) target underserved groups, AFNs have been criticized as marginalizing people of lower socioeconomic status. Therefore the extent to which the urban poor are marginalized from or are in fact participating in emerging alternative networks is unclear because AFNs in urban areas have been under-studied.
Abstract PDF: UAKN Prairie Spring 2015_ A Critical Examination of Household Food Practices in Saskatoons Inner City_Abstract