Food Security issues in the North

Northern Manitoba residents typically pay 30-300 percent more for healthy food than residents living in the southern parts of the province.  Furthermore, access to healthy affordable food is severely limited in communities with rail, lake and winter road access only.  Some communities don’t have grocery stores and residents have to travel two or more days to communities hundreds of miles away to buy groceries. 

Traditional diets and food practices used to sustain northern residents and keep them healthier, but cheap, processed foods from the south now dominate people’s diets and can negatively impact their health. Indeed, diet-related diseases like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease are skyrocketing in northern communities since the introduction of these new foods and the loss of traditional food practices. In addition negative environment impacts affect northern communities ability to hunt, fish, and harvest traditional foods.

Apart from the numerous health concerns and issues related to inadequate or poor quality diets, which you can read more about in the Healthy Eating section of this website (see that icon above), health and hunger affects individuals’ abilities to thrive and contribute to their communities.  Some northerners are reclaiming food traditions and producing their own good foods as part of a healthy livestyle.   

Information about what’s happening can be found in the sidebars to the left.

See the Learn More and Take action buttons, top left. Or click here for more information.