From Corporate Settler Food Regimes to Sustainable Urban Food Systems: Food as a Right of Citizenship and the Democratisation of Food Systems

This Major Paper combines an approach from the disciplines of urban planning, political economy, environmental studies and health studies to deconstruct the role of the settler state and economic institutions in Canada in the contemporary urban food system. It examines the inequalities of power and property in the corporate settler food regime to explain the relationship between processes such as colonialism, capitalism, and urbanisation in how food is produced, distributed, consumed and disposed in the city. Part One explores the idea of the food-city nexus, and the application of food systems as a strategic lever to enhance related urban systems, such as housing and transportation in the city. Part Two demonstrates the ways in which the ongoing settler colonial project in the region now-known as Canada is at the heart of the dominant food system in urban space, with examples of the ways in which early colonial violence dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their territory, and destroyed their social and cultural food practices. Part Three argues that the commodification of food and the control of food distribution in cities by market entities is irrational, constricts food access, and is detrimental to the health of consumers, the livelihood of farmers and farmworkers, and the future of the natural environment. Part Four offers sustainable urban food systems as a framework for a way forward; it argues that the alternative to the dominant settler colonial and capitalist food system is to adopt the view of food citizenship and food as commons in the city. Here, we offer six guiding values that are essential to an urban food system where food citizenship is adopted by urban residents, and food is governed as commons: localness, universality, sustainable resource management, culture and social connectedness, food as an essential public service, and citizen-centred policy and engagement. This research has been written with the aim to present academic research in urban food systems planning to public non-academic audiences in a way that feels universal and relevant. The objective is to equip general audiences with ideas, terminology and concepts about the processes and actors in the settler corporate food regime so that they are able to develop a critical understanding of their impact on, and their interaction with, the urban food system. As this information is often hidden behind a price tag at the local supermarket, it may seem distant to urban food consumers. The value of presenting this research to public audiences, rather than to only the academy, is to bring reflexivity into everyday ordinary food practice. This process leads to a careful consideration of the impact of one’s choices and actions on the health and wellbeing of the individual, the collective and the natural ecological environment for present and future generations.