Food Access and Farmer Livelihoods: Policy Reflections From Stakeholders in Eastern Ontario

This study addresses how critical food organizations (CFOs) working to increase access to local foods for people living on low incomes and those working to improve economic viability for food producers can pursue mutually beneficial initiatives and how the state may provide support. Drawing from focus groups and interviews with stakeholders throughout Eastern Ontario I argue that organizations face substantive barriers in achieving mutually beneficial initiatives in the absence of direct state involvement. Moreover, I argue that the state ought to foster these initiatives by providing support for CFOs so long as CFOs remain their independents. While this approach may perpetuate neoliberalization, a process that has contributed to the marginalization of these populations, I conclude that this engagement with the state need not pioneer a post-neoliberal policy regime. Instead, by addressing the marginalizing effects of neoliberalization, it stimulates conversation on elements of neoliberalization that might transcend into post-neoliberal policy regimes.