Defining Food Security for Urban Aboriginal People

Research Start-up Summary and Abstract:

While food security is an urgent social, economic, cultural and health issue for Aboriginal people in urban areas, and particularly those living in inner city areas, there may be some unique elements of food security related to cultural values. The Environics Institute found that 44% of Aboriginal people in Winnipeg felt that it was important that future generations know about traditions pertaining to food (Environics Institute, 2011). The four pillars of food security – access, availability, utilization, and stability of supply take on unique characteristics in an Aboriginal (Powers, 2008) and urban (Mundel & Chapman, 2010) context. Yet, there is very little research that explores what food security might mean for Aboriginal people in the city.

• Winnipeg’s Urban Aboriginal Identity Population (2011, NHS)

  11% (78,420) of Winnipeg’s population identifies as Aboriginal, 11.5% (82,705) report having Aboriginal ancestry.
• 38.8% are First Nation, 59% are Metis, less than 1% are Inuit and 1.7% report having multiple or other Aboriginal identities.