enhancing food security and physical activity for maori, pacific and ...

Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income PeoplesChapter 4: Cost of healthy nutritious food4.1 Community-based initiativesDelvina GortonSummaryCommunity-based food projects such as community gardens and food cooperativeshave potential to impact on food insecurity at a local community level. Whilst it is notexpected that they would eliminate food insecurity on their own, there has been littleresearch to determine what level of impact they do have on food insecurity. Experiencewith such food projects in the UK has shown that to be successful they should becreated within a supportive and comprehensive over-arching food policy environment,along with secure funding and long-term support. Community-based food initiatives canprovide the opportunity to obtain healthy food at lower cost and are likely to be importantto the people they reach. They should be supported where there is community demandfor such initiatives, alongside robust evaluation.The evidence for impact on food security of these additional community-based initiativesis insufficient to make a firm recommendation. Community-based food initiatives can,however, offer the opportunity of good food at lower cost and can be important to thepeople they reach. Hence, they show potential to improve food security for someindividual households, provided they are contained in the context of a comprehensivepolicy and programme package and issues of sustainability are addressed.Specific recommendations are to:• Support community-instigated and led gardening and food cooperative projects.A formalised means of providing funding and support in setting up the projects,for example, from a Nutrition Fund for communities, is recommended.• Further investigate and evaluate gardening projects and food cooperatives todetermine whether they should be part of a more comprehensive populationbasedapproach to improving food security.Problem DefinitionThe next chapter in this portfolio addresses the role of the food industry in relation to thecost of healthy food. This chapter addresses the topic from a different perspective –using community-based initiatives to reduce the cost of healthy food. At the ENHANCEworkshops, participants suggested various community-based initiatives such as locallygrown gardens, micro-level programmes for women to generate income, cutting out themiddle men, and food co-operatives as means of enhancing food security. This chapterexamines the literature to assess the merit of such interventions. There is an obviousoverlap between some potential community-based initiatives and those discussed inother chapters of this report, and initiatives discussed elsewhere will not be duplicatedhere.96