The Guardian Op-ed – P.E.I. made history by setting a timeline for eliminating food insecurity: Here’s how they can achieve it.

June 23, 2021

Read our new op-ed, “P.E.I. made history by setting a timeline for eliminating food insecurity: Here’s how they can achieve it.“, by Jennifer Taylor, PhD, RD, Professor at the University of Prince Edward Island; Tim Li, MSCom, PROOF Research Program Coordinator; and Valerie Tarasuk, PhD, Professor at the University of Toronto and principal investigator of PROOF.

In this op-ed, we discuss the significance of the food insecurity reduction targets set by the new Poverty Elimination Strategy Act and 4 evidence-based actions that the PEI government can pursue to reach these targets. We highlighted this historic bill in our previous blog post, “Prince Edward Island: The first jurisdiction to set explicit targets for reducing food insecurity“.

During the spring sitting, the P.E.I. legislature unanimously passed the Poverty Elimination Strategy Act, which lays out a timeline for reducing and eliminating poverty by 2035 and eliminating food insecurity by 2030. That means that, by 2030, every household in P.E.I. will be able to access the food they need.

What does it mean to be food-insecure? When Statistics Canada measures food insecurity, they are identifying households who have experienced insecure or inadequate access to food due to a lack of money. These experiences range from worrying about running out of food, to children not eating for whole days. As researchers in food insecurity and nutrition, we’ve learned a lot about this problem and ways to reduce it from the Statistics Canada data.

Continue reading at The Guardian.