A people-centred approach to food policy making: Lessons from Canada’s People’s Food Policy project

Abstract

This paper reflects on a major public engagement process that was established to develop a Pan-Canadian food policy based on the principles of food sovereignty. We present an account of the People’s Food Policy (PFP) as a social and political experiment that mobilized a diversity of civil society networks and Indigenous people to establish transformative spaces and processes for (re)claiming control of the food system. We argue that the PFP process was a successful, yet imperfect model of a people-centred, counter-hegemonic policy-making process enacted through food movement networks that provided important lessons for advancing public participation in decision making and action.