Our Food Supply

Subject Area

This activity has been designed to work with the Food and Nutrition Science NZD 3G1 curriculum. It fits with Unit 1: Food Choices (core unit) as outlined in the Food and Nutrition Sciences Curriculum Guideline for the Senior Division, August 1988. This material has been assigned to explore objective “D” on page 61.

Learning Outcomes

Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s ability to:

• Investigate and analyze the sources of our food supply;
  
• Research the meaning of terms used to describe the food supply;
  
• Discuss critically the implications of imports on both importing and exporting countries;
  
• Develop and justify a policy for the selection of food.

Classroom Development

1. Students use grocery flyer ads to identify the variety of products imported to Canada and their countries of origin
   
2. Note the source of the products on a world map. Share findings and record them on the worksheet provided.
   
3. Students complete worksheet questions to explore implications of our imported food products.

Timing

Allow one 70 min period for students to complete this activity. Additional time would be required for extension activities.

Resources

Students will need a selection of grocery flyer ads and a large world map which could be an outline on chalkboard, overhead transparency, or chart paper. Food product names/pictures could be pinned/taped to world map. Yarn could be used to join these product origin locations to the location of the school.
The Canadian Green Consumer, p. 47

Cross-disciplinary Links

Human Geography grade 11 Unit 1, Section C general.

Extension Activity

Students might make a bulletin board display with pictures/packages of food products imported to the local area. Students might tour a grocery store or market.

Use grocery flyer ads to complete the chart below.

Answer the following questions using your knowledge of imported foods.

1. Why are products such as oranges and pineapples imported?
2. Name 3 other products imported for the same reason.
3. Why do Canadians buy imported food?
4. List all the resources that are used when foods are transported.
5. What impact does this have on the environment?
6. If countries concentrate their agricultural efforts on cash crops to be exported there is less land available for what other type of crop?
7. How can some food products be produced so cheaply in countries outside North America ?
8. What will happen if consumers continually choose imported foods instead of locally grown foods (For example Florida oranges instead of Ontario apples.)?
9. What are the benefits of selecting locally grown foods?

Answer Sheet

1. Products like oranges and pineapples cannot be grown in Canada’s temperate climate.
   
2. Any tropical foods.
   
3. Foods are obtained for variety, because they are not available fresh in winter, and they are sometimes cheaper.
   
4. Fossil fuels, transportation vehicles, highways and rail corridors.
   
5. Burning fossil fuels causes air pollution and contributes to global warming.
   
6. Foods required for local consumption are often not grown, or are grown at a premium price. For example, in Brazil, sugar cane is grown in large quantities for export but many Brazilians do not have enough food.
   
7. Wages for workers and profits for farmers are much lower in other parts of the world. Also, many pesticides which are considered too dangerous for use in Canada are used in these countries.
   
8. If agriculture is not profitable farmers will lose their farms and we will become dependent on imported food, and the changes in foreign political policy.
   
9. Locally grown food is fresher, more nutritious and cheaper in season. In this country, agricultural chemicals are regulated and minimum wages for workers are guaranteed, so food produced in our country is safer to eat and more socially beneficial.