1.5. Value networks & four fundamentals

1.5. Local food systems: value networks and four fundamentals

1.5.1. Local Indigenous food systems as a value chain network

Because most Indigenous food systems research focuses on impacts and outcomes, there is a risk of overlooking the food system itself. The material basis of local food systems is the diversity of wild organisms that are consumed as food, their species identities, and their ecological niches (Kuhnlein and Humphries 2017). The cultural basis of local food use includes not only traditional ecological knowledge about the land and wildlife, and the equipment and know how required for travel and harvest activities, but also issues of taste, preference, identity, and spirituality, all of which come to define food sufficiency, nutrient adequacy, cultural acceptability, safety, certainty, and stability. Documenting contemporary local food systems impacts and outcomes and predicting those that will occur in the future requires a detailed and comprehensive understanding of ecological and cultural determinants of local food use and how these determinants coalesce as a social ecological system.

We have adopted a value chain approach to conceptualizing local food systems and to consider climate change impacts and adaptations within these systems. From this value chain perspective, local Indigenous food systems can be thought of as a sequence of primary activities, enabled by supporting conditions, that generate value (Figure 8).

A research objective of our project was to facilitate assembling and synthesizing the highly heterogeneous knowledge, data, and experience that define this local food value chain, with an emphasis on characterizing how the system has changed and continues to change within a highly dynamic social and environmental context. Local knowledge and lived experiences are of course paramount, both as drivers of the local food value chain and creators of the epistemological context in which the local food system is understood, protected, and valued. However, in the contemporary context, local knowledge and practice routinely intersect with formalized research and policy landscapes, which creates both the need and opportunity to describe the diverse set of components and interactions that define local food systems.

In our value chain conception of a local food system, nodes represent primary activities and supporting conditions, whereas links represent interactions and relationships between nodes. Our adoption of a value chain approach might, to some, suggest we view wild food systems as the wealth created by a linear progression through a series of discrete primary steps that are impacted by separate and discrete supporting conditions. But our motivation is not to emphasize linearity and simplicity but rather that local food systems are a complex socio-ecological system characterized by diverse activities, conditions, inter-dependencies and values contributed and created by men and women, youth and elders. Thus we view and refer to this value chain framework as a network model. Because primary activities tend to occur sequentially, we anticipate the links connecting them to be more in one direction than the other (e.g., harvest then eat), but we remain open to the possibility of all directionalities and any inter-dependencies as contributors to the local food system. As a network model, this framework can capture the importance of social capital and social relationships in local food systems, including the sharing of knowledge, labour, skills, and food that occurs in different parts of the value chain.

The framework will also facilitate extending beyond a sometimes too-exclusive focus on (usually male) hunters and hunting in climate change and local food research, to be more attentive to the (usually female) contributions, knowledge, adaptations, and vulnerabilities concentrated in other portions of the value chain, particularly in relation to food preparation, food choice, nutrition, and health.

Finally we seek to use the framework as an opportunity for communities to communicate the heterogeneity of value generated by the wild food system, beyond calories and nutrients and kilograms of meat, to the cultural assets of knowledge, identity, art, kinship, worldview, and being alive well.

In the face of climate change, the sensitivities and adaptive capacities of Indigenous food systems are reflected through some of these primary activities and supporting conditions . Although direct impacts of climate change may occur at the level of ecological production, adaptive capacities to these impacts may be found through other supporting conditions and primary activities. For example, with the necessary equipment, knowledge, know-how, and institutional and policy frameworks, it is possible to consider adaptation strategies that can mitigate the impacts of changes in ecological production.

1.5.1.1. The Importance of Preparation

Our original presentation of this local food chain model had access as the starting point of primary activities. But at a regional climate change forum organized by Cree Nation Government in Eastmain in 2018, it was suggested to us that preparation was a critical primary activity missing from our draft model; that the first step in successful wildlife harvest is not access, the act of travelling to access wildlife, but that access must be preceded by preparation. Preparation was noted to us to include short-term and practical preparations like i) gathering and packing necessary equipment and supplies required for successful harvest and safety on the land, ii) securing the participation of other harvesters and the equipment and supplies they will contribute, and iii) arranging time off work, child care, and other arrangements involved in spending time away. But, beyond these immediate concerns, preparation was also noted to us to include the life-long ceremonies and learnings that are essential in ensuring harvest activities follow traditions and are successful, safe, and respectful. Accordingly, we added to our value chain model preparation, defined as gathering, packing, and preparation for harvesting activities, including life-long ceremony, learning, and knowledge.

1.5.1.2. A Value Chain Situated in Place and Time

It was also suggested to us, at the 2018 Eastmain climate change adaptation forum, the importance of recognizing that the value chain is always situated in place and time. Some place-based and time-dependent factors communicated to us as being centrally important to the local food system include i) directions, wind, weather, and the time of day, ii) conditions on the land, water, and the sea, iii) the location and condition of varied habitat types, iv) annual harvest calendars reflecting seasons and the seasonality of harvest, and iv) life cycles of animals and people relating to their condition, knowledge, and roles. The importance of space and time to a local food system can be highlighted by situating our value chain network model at the centre of seasons, harvest calendars, and directions (Figure 9).

1.5.2. Four pillars of local Indigenous food security

Another way to conceptualize the impacts of environmental and social change on local food systems is in relation to four or more pillars of food security [1, 2]. Food security pillars have been previously adapted to a local food security context by [3] and are presented and defined here in further modified form as: 1) availability, relating to there being sufficient local food to meet needs; 2) accessibility, relating to physical, social, and economic access to local foods that are available; 3) adequacy, relating to the nutritional quality, safety, and cultural acceptability of local foods that are available and accessible; and 4) use, relating to the harvest and consumption of local food that is available, accessible, and adequate. As illustrated in Figure 10, species extirpation, population declines, or shifting range distributions represent impacts on local food availability (Figure 10a). Increased difficulty of travelling to harvest locations and returning safely to communities, or a lack of equipment required to successfully and safely harvest available wildlife represent impacts on local food accessibility (Figure 10b). Reduced body condition, altered taste, parasites and disease, or increased contaminant burden of preferred species, or the spread and establishment of non-preferred species, represent impacts on local food adequacy (Figure 10c). Reduced harvest and consumption of local food that is otherwise available, accessible, and adequate, represent impacts on local food use.

We define four pillars of local food security as:

1. availability: relating to there being sufficient local food to meet needs, which may be affected by species extirpation, population declines, or shifting range distributions;

2. accessibility: relating to physical, social, and economic access to local foods that are available; which may be affected by increased difficulty of travelling to harvest locations and returning safely to communities, or a lack of equipment required to successfully and safely harvest available wildlife

3. adequacy: relating to the nutritional quality, safety, and cultural acceptability of local foods that are available and accessible; which may be affected by reduced body condition, altered taste, parasites and disease, and increased contaminant burden of preferred species, or the spread and establishment of non-preferred species, and

4. use: relating to the harvest and consumption of local food that is available, accessible, and adequate; which may be affected by a wide range of social, cultural, and environmental factors

These four (or more) food security pillars are often conceptualized and illustrated as four (or more) vertical columns supporting the structure and the desired state of food security (Figure 11A). Our above definitions and conceptualizations of the pillars of local food security emphasizes that the four pillars are stacked on top of each other, with availability in the environment forming the broad foundation of local food security, the accessibility of what is available the second level, the adequacy of what is available and accessible the third level, and use of what is available, accessible, and adequate the highest level and connector between the other three foundations and local food security (Figure 11B).

The availability foundation is broadest because it reflects the outcomes and general ethos of looking after the land and respect for nature that ensures the health of lands, waters, and wildlife. The accessibility foundation is next broadest as it relates to access not just in the narrow sense of being able to travel to and return from a place, but also in the broader sense of the affordability and availability of the equipment required for access, having the time required, possessing the requisite knowledge and experience, and maintaining land rights, title, and tenure. Adequacy focuses on the narrower question of whether the local food that is available and accessible is something that people would want to eat. But this is actually a much broader question than it may seem. Adequacy is influenced by many things, including the kinds of wildlife that are available and accessible, their condition, health, and taste, how they were harvested and by whom, how they were prepared and by whom, the condition of the land and the environment where they came from, and many other cultural norms, expectations, and identities. Use is the final essential requisite of local food security, representing the tradition, practice, and ceremony of harvesting and eating local food, which connects people to nature in land-based and food-based relationships.

This discussion of the stacking of the four foundations of local food security is not merely academic. One example, of direct relevance to Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik with meanings and interpretations that have substantial consequence for wildlife harvest and management in northern Quebec, is Section 24.6.2 of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. This section focuses on Hunting, Fishing and Trapping and specifically the Priority of Native Harvesting. The section reads as follows:

“The principle of priority of Native harvesting shall mean that in conformity with the principle of conservation and where game populations permit, the Native people shall be guaranteed levels of harvesting equal to present levels of harvesting of all species in the Territory.”

To guarantee levels of harvesting equal to levels documented at the time the agreement was signed, presumably in perpetuity, is a strong, binding commitment within the JBNQA. Exactly what this means, including how and by whom it can be guaranteed, is, we understand, the subject of ongoing debate. But the clause within the section “with the principle of conservation and where game populations permit” to reflect a recognition that harvest rights (and the local food security they contribute) are stacked on top of a foundation of availability. How can someone have the right or exercise the right to harvest something that isn’t there? What happens to guaranteed levels of harvest and native harvest rights in northern Quebec if the foundation of availability is not protected.

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