This thesis builds on the Indigenous Health Research Group’s work with northern remote Indigenous communities addressing food security challenges through local food initiatives. The focus will be on the efforts the Moose Cree First Nation in northern Ontario is taking to build local food capacity by introducing community gardening. This thesis applies a participatory action research approach, and its purpose is to provide: 1) an ethnographic description of the creation of local food initiatives in the Moose Cree First Nation; and 2) online monitoring of the resilience of these local food initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and an analysis of the purpose(s) of local food initiatives. Fieldwork for this thesis was conducted in 2019 and a Zoom interview with the Moose Cree Local Food Developer was conducted in 2022. In essence, this research points to the relevance and importance of local food initiatives for remote Indigenous communities who are looking to improve health and wellness, increase food diversity, make fresh produce more accessible in terms of price and availability, and work towards gaining more control over their own local food system.

Pomona College is an institution deeply committed to sustainability and student well being; however these commitments are not reflected in the College’s food purchases. Before this study, an assessment of purchasing had not been conducted at Pomona College. Using the Real Food Calculator – a metric designed to evaluate food purchasing at academic institutions – I tracked all food purchased by one of the College’s dining halls over the course of one month. Each food item was assessed based on the potential health concerns of its ingredients and whether the item was locally produced, ecologically sound and/or humane to determine whether it should be considered Real. The assessment metric also lists ingredients with potential health concerns (including trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and others), which if present in the food item mean it cannot be considered Real. Of the over $150,000 worth of food purchases made during the study, 8.9% qualified as Real Food. Each food that qualified as Real Food met the standards for at least one of the attributes (local, ecologically sound, or humane). A total of 2.1% of all food purchases qualified for two attributes. Of the foods assessed, over one third contained ingredients considered harmful to human health. If Pomona is serious about its commitments to sustainability and student well being, it is time to include food purchasing in these discussions. The study concludes with a series of recommendations to improve food purchasing at Pomona College.

Submitted by Estevan Leopoldo de Freitas Coca null (estevanleopoldo@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-09-05T16:40:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Coca.pdf: 6249018 bytes, checksum: 8141a2a944e4ba04dccff301b1461086 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Juliano Benedito Ferreira (julianoferreira@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-09-08T20:20:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 coca_elf_dr_prud.pdf: 6249018 bytes, checksum: 8141a2a944e4ba04dccff301b1461086 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-08T20:20:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 coca_elf_dr_prud.pdf: 6249018 bytes, checksum: 8141a2a944e4ba04dccff301b1461086 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-24 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Em 1996, a coalização internacional de movimentos camponeses La Via Campesina apresentou a soberania alimentar como uma proposta alternativa de organização dos sistemas alimentares, indo além da hegemonia das grandes corporações. Nesses vinte anos, a soberania alimentar tem evoluído, sendo incorporada como bandeira de luta por outros movimentos do campo e da cidade e por alguns governos. Existe soberania alimentar quando um povo controla seu processo de alimentação, diminuindo a influência das grandes corporações. Assim, nessa proposta o alimento não é tratado como mercadoria, mas como um direito humano. Nesse contexto, o objetivo da presente tese é estudar experiências de compra públicas de alimentos e sua contribuição para a soberania alimentar no Brasil e no Canadá. Para isso, foram estuadas duas ações: i) o Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA), no Cantuquiriguaçu, estado do Paraná e no Pontal do Paranapanema, estado de São Paulo – duas regiões nomeadas pelo pelo Governo Federal brasileiro como territórios da cidadania – e; ii) a rede Farm to Cafeteria Canada (F2CC), na região metropolitana de Vancouver, no Canadá. Defende-se a hipótese de que a soberania alimentar tem se constituído como uma alternativa ao regime alimentar corporativista e que, além disso, ela pode ser implementada por meio do protagonismo do Estado (exemplo do PAA) e da sociedade civil (exemplo da rede F2CC). Como elemento central dos procedimentos metodológicos foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com agricultores familiares/camponeses, representantes de Organizações Não Governamentais (ONGs), membros do Poder Público e outros. Constatou-se que o PAA tem contribuído para a soberania alimentar no Cantuquiriguaçu e no Pontal do Paranapanema através da criação de uma nova oportunidade de mercado para os agricultores familiares/camponeses e da melhoria da alimentação dos proponentes e dos beneficiários pela doação dos alimentos. Por seu turno, a rede F2CC tem sido um vetor para a mudança das relações de consumo de alimentos em Metro Vancouver. / In 1996, the international peasant coalition La Via Campesina introduced food sovereignty as an alternative proposal for organizing food systems, going beyond the hegemony of large corporations. In these twenty years, food sovereignty has evolved, being incorporated as a flag of struggle for other social movements in the countryside, city and by some governments. Food sovereignty exists when the people control their process of nourishment, reducing the influence of large corporations. Thus, in this proposal food is not treated as a commodity, but as a human right. In this context, the objective of this thesis is to study public food procurement experiences and their contribution to food sovereignty in Brazil and Canada. For this, two programs were analyzed: i) the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) in Cantuquiriguaçu, the state of Parana and in the Pontal do Paranapanema, the state of São Paulo – two regions appointed by the Federal Government of Brazil as citizenship territories – and ; ii) the Farm to Cafeteria Canada (F2CC) network, in the metropolitan area of Vancouver, Canada. Thus, the central hypothesis is that food sovereignty has been established as an alternative food regime that, furthermore, can be implemented through the protagonism of the state (PAA as an example) and of civil society (the F2CC network as an example). As a central element of the methodological procedures, semi-structured interviews were conducted with family farmers/peasants, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Government Officials and others. We found that the PAA has contributed to food sovereignty in Cantuquiriguaçu and Pontal do Paranapanema by creating a new market opportunity for family farmers/peasants and a better feeding for proponents and beneficiaries by the donation of food. In its turn, the F2CC network has been a vector for change of food consumer relations in Metro Vancouver. / FAPESP: 2013/01733-1

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a system whereby members purchase shares in a farm in the spring and then receive produce (maple syrup, meat, honey, vegetables, fruit, etc.) over the course of the growing season. The significance of this system is contested with critics, chiefly sociologist Julie Guthman (2008), asserting that CSA reproduces neoliberalism. Guthman's thesis on the relationship between practices, subjectivities, and political imaginaries is generative. My intervention is predominantly methodological. Guthman offers a systemic overview, in keeping with Michel Foucault's scholarship on governmentality, but does not explore the embodied nature of governmentality at the scale of the people involved. I contend that to understand how neoliberal governmentality plays out in CSA, we need to explore embodied practices at the scale of the people involved. I rely on Dorothy Smith's agent perspective and examine the practices associated with CSA for a discursive reading of those practices. My discursive reading employs J.K. Gibson-Graham's diverse economies approach. Participation in CSA cultivates a sense of connection to a local geographic community, and a community of practice, contrary to the seemingly individualized nature of the market transactions which form the basis of CSA. This sense of connection is supportive of prefigurative practices, farming practices, and activism. The relationality experienced by CSA farmers and members undergirds political activism, and the connection to communities of practice galvanizes and supports both discursive and protest practices. Attention to discourse at the scale of the individual provides insight into how discourses are co-produced and allows us to observe discourses in various stages of development, from those just entering the public square on social media, to those further developed, conceptually rich, with saliency for both farmers and members, and linked to political protest. The communities that exist in opposition to the individualization of neoliberalism, the production of discourse that both resists and reinscribes neoliberalism, and the practices that shape our subjects and political imaginaries, visible at this scale, provide insight into the connection between local and global discourses, and the connection between everyday practices and protest.