‘I know what's gone into it’: Canadian farmwomen's conceptualisation of food safety

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to understand how Canadian farmwomen conceptualise food safety within the context of their daily food provisioning activities. We conducted a conventional qualitative content analysis of interview transcripts from a study that explored the food provisioning practices of farmwomen in Alberta (n = 6), Ontario (n = 6), and Nova Scotia (n = 10). Farmwomen provided a conceptualisation of food safety that appears to stem from their dual role as food producer and gatekeeper of the family meal. As food producers, they have an intimate knowledge of primary food production practices; as gatekeeper of the family meal, they draw on this knowledge to provide safe food for their families, either by growing or raising it themselves, obtaining it from local, trusted producers, or purchasing food that has been subject to Canada's food safety regulatory system, which safeguards the food produced in Canada. By knowing what has gone into their food, farmwomen feel that they are able to provide healthy, quality food for their families.

Keywords:

• food safety
• farmwomen
• food provisioning
• food choice
• Canada

Acknowledgements

We thank the women who shared their insights. We would like to acknowledge Bonnie Anderson, interviewer for Nova Scotia, and Noreen Willows, Sean Cash, and Kim Raine for their comments on earlier versions. Partial financial support was received from PrioNet Canada, the Alberta Prion Research Institute, and the Faculties of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and the Vice-President Research at the University of Calgary.

Notes

1. Food provisioning describes a breadth of complex activities, including the acquisition, preparation, production, consumption, and disposal of food, where technical skills (e.g., growing, shopping, meal planning, food preparation, cooking) and resources (e.g., skills, money) must be managed and coordinated within the social context and demands of the household and its members, as well as with the broader environment in which they live (McIntyre and Rondeau 2009b).

2. The inability to grow or raise one's own food could be attributed to a number of factors, including loss of labour as children leave the home, time constraints, and the loss of food skills as family members age and/or move away (McIntyre and Rondeau 2009b).

3. In Canada, the sale and use of pesticides that have been approved by the federal Pest Control Products Act and Regulations is regulated by the provinces and territories (Health Canada 2009). Currently, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut require agricultural producers to have a valid pesticide applicator certificate, while in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Yukon, producers are exempt from this requirement.

4. This is a reference to the Ontario Landowners Association, a ‘rural libertarian group that opposes excessive government interference’ (Greenberg 2008, p. 1) and who believe government regulations are implemented to benefit the continued expansion of urban areas. See http://www.ruralrevolution.com for more information.

5. Somatic cell count becomes elevated when cows have an infection; it is the clearest indicator of udder infection (Taylor 2006).