Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food informatio... more Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food information rules and practices may not be optimal to support their achievement. In the absence of a stated consensus on the purposes of public information about food, the information provided is frequently determined by the marketers of product. No institution or agency has responsibility for determining the overall coherence of consumer food messages relative to these broader social goals of health and sustainability. Individual firms provide information that shows their products to best advantage, which may contradict what is provided about the product by another firm or government agency. Individual consumers do not have the resources to determine easily the completeness of any firm's messages, particularly in light of the size of food industry advertising budgets. Government rules confound this problem because there is also little coherence between the parts of government that have responsibility for point of purchase, advertising rules, and labelling. The healthy eating messages of health departments are often competing with contradictory messages permitted by the regulatory framework of other arms of government. Investments in programs that successfully promote environmental stewardship in agriculture are undercut in the market because consumers cannot support those efforts with their dollars. This problem exists despite the emergence of “citizen-consumers” who have a broader approach to food purchasing than individual maximization. Only recently have some health professionals and sustainable agriculture proponents turned their attention to these factors and designed interventions that take them into account. In this paper, which builds upon earlier work by MacRae [1], we outline key short, medium and long term initiatives to facilitate the citizen-consumer phenomenon and better support consumers in their efforts to promote health and sustainability in the Canadian food system.
This paper is a case study of the formation and early development of one civil society organizati... more This paper is a case study of the formation and early development of one civil society organization (CSO), Sustain Ontario, the Alliance for Healthy Food and Farming (Sustain, the Alliance, the Network). Sustain is an example of a non-governmental, crosssectoral policy coalitiona. In an era of complex problems and constrained resources such policy coalitions or networks appear increasingly common in Canada, yet there has been limited research into their approaches. This paper investigates the choices Sustain made related to structures, strategies and processes; it presents integrative research on the relationships between Sustain’s choices, and the Alliance’s ability to cultivate legitimacy and influence policy in Ontario, Canada. Sustain’s network organizational structures and membership enabled Sustain to engage and leverage requisite skills and knowledge. The Alliance employed five core strategies that enabled it to facilitate widespread member engagement, develop and disseminate research and other materials, and establish constructive relationships with policy makers. While I appreciate the limitations of a single case study, I think Sustain’s experience and choices may be of interest to provincial food networks and cross-sectoral policy coalitions addressing similarly complex challenges.
Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food informatio... more Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food information rules and practices may not be optimal to support their achievement. In the absence of a stated consensus on the purposes of public information about food, the information provided is frequently determined by the marketers of product. No institution or agency has responsibility for determining the overall coherence of consumer food messages relative to these broader social goals of health and sustainability. Individual firms provide information that shows their products to best advantage, which may contradict what is provided about the product by another firm or government agency. Individual consumers do not have the resources to determine easily the completeness of any firm's messages, particularly in light of the size of food industry advertising budgets. Government rules confound this problem because there is also little coherence between the parts of government that have responsibility for point of purchase, advertising rules, and labelling. The healthy eating messages of health departments are often competing with contradictory messages permitted by the regulatory framework of other arms of government. Investments in programs that successfully promote environmental stewardship in agriculture are undercut in the market because consumers cannot support those efforts with their dollars. This problem exists despite the emergence of “citizen-consumers” who have a broader approach to food purchasing than individual maximization. Only recently have some health professionals and sustainable agriculture proponents turned their attention to these factors and designed interventions that take them into account. In this paper, which builds upon earlier work by MacRae [1], we outline key short, medium and long term initiatives to facilitate the citizen-consumer phenomenon and better support consumers in their efforts to promote health and sustainability in the Canadian food system.
This paper is a case study of the formation and early development of one civil society organizati... more This paper is a case study of the formation and early development of one civil society organization (CSO), Sustain Ontario, the Alliance for Healthy Food and Farming (Sustain, the Alliance, the Network). Sustain is an example of a non-governmental, crosssectoral policy coalitiona. In an era of complex problems and constrained resources such policy coalitions or networks appear increasingly common in Canada, yet there has been limited research into their approaches. This paper investigates the choices Sustain made related to structures, strategies and processes; it presents integrative research on the relationships between Sustain’s choices, and the Alliance’s ability to cultivate legitimacy and influence policy in Ontario, Canada. Sustain’s network organizational structures and membership enabled Sustain to engage and leverage requisite skills and knowledge. The Alliance employed five core strategies that enabled it to facilitate widespread member engagement, develop and disseminate research and other materials, and establish constructive relationships with policy makers. While I appreciate the limitations of a single case study, I think Sustain’s experience and choices may be of interest to provincial food networks and cross-sectoral policy coalitions addressing similarly complex challenges.
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Papers by Sandi Trillo
engagement, develop and disseminate research and other materials, and establish constructive relationships with policy makers. While I appreciate the limitations of a single case study, I think Sustain’s experience and choices may be of interest to provincial food networks and cross-sectoral policy coalitions addressing similarly complex challenges.
engagement, develop and disseminate research and other materials, and establish constructive relationships with policy makers. While I appreciate the limitations of a single case study, I think Sustain’s experience and choices may be of interest to provincial food networks and cross-sectoral policy coalitions addressing similarly complex challenges.