Government Response on Food Security Report

Earlier this year, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food tabled a report entitled Feeding the World: Strengthening Canada’s Capacity to Respond to Global Food Insecurity. The Government of Canada’s official response to the report is now available.

The response pointed to a new national network that Transport Canada has completed to use cameras and AI to monitor train shipping containers. It also notes that “as this new commercial platform falls outside the data collected under the department’s Transportation Information Regulations, greater scope now exists for the publication of system-wide performance measures and enables greater access to detailed supply chain performance information for all supply chain participants under a subscription model. The RailState camera platform should become a critical piece of digital infrastructure for measuring rail-based supply chain performance for years to come.” GCCA is also following Transport Canada’s plans to hold a summit this fall on digital supply chain data, and will be participating.

The government response to the report also noted that “there are many factors that contribute to food loss and waste, including lack of awareness and quantification, operational inefficiencies, quality standards, inadequate transportation and storage, inaccurate forecasting and inventory management.” In response, “the Government of Canada remains committed to accelerating efforts to address food loss and waste in a sustainable way that makes our food systems more productive and resilient. This includes creating a No-Waste Food Fund to help all players along the food supply chain to commercialize and adopt ways to eliminate, reduce or repurpose food waste.”