Map of West Island shows the food-access gaps
Imagine a map of the West Island showing every food source available — from grocery stores to dépanneurs, specialty shops, food banks, farmers’ markets and community kitchens. Now, imagine the same West Island map with STM bus routes superimposed on it.
That map highlighting “gaps” in access to food, especially for people who rely on public transit, is just one of many new resources that will be made available as a result of a unique partnership between McGill University’s Faculty of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at Macdonald College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and Corbeille de Pain/Breadbasket Lac-St-Louis in Pointe-Claire.
The map, which will be presented at the Global Food Security Conference at McGill on Oct. 9, is the centrepiece of a two-year research project being funded by Quebec’s Ministère de l’Éducation, de Loisir et du Sport.
Since June, Katheryne Kästner, a researcher with the project who is in her second year in dietetics at Macdonald College, has located close to 100 different food sources in the West Island and put them on an interactive, colour-coded map.
This month, she began to add stops on the STM’s West Island bus routes — there are 20 routes in all — and, once they are done, she will add income and education data from Canada’s Household Survey for each postal code area.
The project’s overall aim is to create a food security model that will ensure that nutrition outreach programs, food banks and collective kitchens are located where they need to be. The map will eventually be made available online to organizations involved in food security as well as the public.
“Food security is not just about whether people eat enough fresh vegetables and fruits,” said Caroline Begg, a Macdonald College professor in plant sciences and, co-ordin- ator of the project along with Kristine Koski, director of McGill’s school of dietetics.
“It’s about access too,” Begg said. “If you are a senior on a fixed income without a car, a disabled person living on welfare and dependent on public transportation, a single mother with young children,” she said, access is often the obstacle to eating well.
A few years back, Begg said, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service began making maps to better understand the effect that food prices, proximity to public transit, locations of nutrition-assistance programs and community characteristics, like average income and education levels, have on food security.
“We wanted to bring the same resources to Canada,” Begg said. “It’s a misconception that food security only exists in urban areas.”
An estimated 9,000 people living in the southern half of the West Island, from Lachine to Senneville, do not have access to sufficient amounts of food at all times of the month and are forced to rely to some extent on food banks, family and friends.
Although the West Island food security map is still a work in progress, Begg noted, it’s already showing patterns that could help policy-makers and program providers target at-risk populations in the future.
For example, the map shows Senneville, which is an affluent part of the West Island, has no grocery store. If you are socially isolated senior no longer able to drive, that’s an issue.
The map’s maker, Kästner said, she was surprised how fast the patterns emerged once she started looking up the various food sources, determining their latitude and longitude and then geo-coding them onto the map.
She said what struck her was all the grocery stores, restaurants and fast-food outlets on the arterial roads — St-Jean, StCharles and Sources Blvds. — and, how there is often nothing other than a dépanneur in the residential neighbourhoods off the thoroughfares.
The preliminary findings have already sparked interest at Breadbasket Lac-St-Louis in offering a cooking course based on what you can buy at the dépanneur, Kästner said, noting that others services could also be repositioned so they better meet community needs.
“I’m putting the information that is out there, together, so that we can draw conclusions,” Kästner said.
At Breadbasket Lac-St-Louis, director Lucy Baum said she could not say enough good things about the project and the partnership that has been forged between McGill and the community-based food security service.
From September to June, Breadbasket Lac-St-Louis offers community kitchen events at six different locations throughout the southern West Island and, offers nutrition workshops to targeted groups, for example, young people through Carrefour Jeunesse emploi de l’ouest de l’île in Pointe-Claire.
The insights provided by the map and other research associated with the project, could lead to repositioning of services now provided by food banks, community kitchens like Breadbasket and other social services on the West Island.
Baum said the project has also meant additional staffing for the community kitchens. McGill dietetics and nutrition students will be interviewing Breadbasket clients about their needs and will share the latest nutrition information with them.
“We try to help people to help themselves,” said Baum. “It is so important. We know kids who are better nourished do better in school, that doesn’t change in adulthood,” Baum said.