Comparing the value of country foods with other food provisioning systems in Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories.

How can we describe and value harvesting, processing and sharing (costs as well as benefits) country foods in economic, nutritional, environmental and socio-cultural terms? How can we compare the value of country food with food that comes from other provisioning systems (e.g. imported/market-based foods and local food production)? These are important questions for both communities and decision-makers at multiple levels (from local to territorial to federal), and an initial review of the literature shows that there are complex decisions to be made about what value means and how it might be measured before any comparisons with other food provisioning systems can be undertaken. This research will review and synthesize the relevant literature, undertake an environmental scan to identify related projects and potential partners, interview decision-makers at multiple levels, community representatives (including from communities that might be interested in cooperating on this research) and experts in food systems and valuation. It will propose a framework and set of metrics for comparing the value of country foods, locally produced food and market-based imports. This framework will then be adapted for piloting in the context of one or two communities. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Peter Andree

Student:

Molly Stollmeyer

Partner:

Gordon Foundation

Discipline:

Economics

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Program: