Milk Insecurity: Accounts of a Food Insecurity Phenomenon in Canada and Its Relation to Public Policy

Abstract

We investigated the phenomenon of milk insecurity among low-income lone mothers in Nova Scotia, Canada. Focus group and in-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed to assess challenges mothers faced in accessing milk for their families and the ways in which they coped with milk scarcity. Milk insecurity is a distinct feature of food insecurity for this population, with potentially serious health implications. Just as food insecurity is structurally determined through inadequate income, so too is milk insecurity. However, in Canada it is further exacerbated by public policy that sets the price of this staple too high relative to the purchasing power of the poor.

KEYWORDS:

• milk insecurity
• food insecurity
• poverty
• public policy

This project was made possible through Open Operating Grants competition funding of the Dairy Farmers of Canada and through supplemental financial support from the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation. We express our sincere thanks to the women who participated in the project. We are also grateful to Trudy Reid for her coordination of the project and for interview and focus group assistance. Thanks also to Suzie Officer for interview and focus group assistance, Tanya Palmer for data analysis for Phase 1, and to Rebecca Green, Janet Hemming, Jessica Penner, Krista Rondeau, Aaron C. Bartoo, and Bronwyn Whyte for their assistance with various aspects of the preparation of this manuscript.