Access to Healthy Food Stores for Residents of Aboriginal Reserves in Rural British Columbia

The rate of food insecurity has increased tremendously over the past decade in Canada. This increase has been more pronounced in rural and remote areas especially among Aboriginal peoples. Substantial studies indicated that nearly half of the on-reserve Aboriginal households in British Columbia （BC） suffer from some degree of food insecurity. Despite the valuable research about obtaining traditional food, the issue of access to market food has been less discussed in the literature. The aim of this study was to assess the local food environment of on-reserve Aboriginal peoples by using a proximity-based approach tool in terms of access to healthy food stores such as supermarket and grocery stores. In the first stage, the addresses of all healthy food stores were geocoded into a map layer. Then the locations of Aboriginal reserves were geocoded to a separate map layer. In the second stage, using ＂Closest Facility Analysis＂ tool in ArcGIS Version 10.3, the distance based on a 15-minute driving time was measured from each reserve to the closest healthy food destination on CanMapRouteLogistics network. The results indicated that 25% of Aboriginal reserves did not have reasonable access to healthy food stores. We concluded that Aboriginal peoples in low access rural reserves with lower socioeconomic status are at potential risk of perpetuate food insecurity.

健全粮食储备确保粮食安全

粮食作为人们赖以生存的生命基础,从国家到个人都与粮食密不可分。无论在何种情况下,食品安全均占有举足轻重的位置。而具有良好的食品流通体系,不但是国家的幸运也是老百姓的幸运。本研究从食品安全储备的含义及中国的视频储备体系,分析当前我国粮食储备的相关问题,并提出了下一步建议,为更好地完善粮食储备提供理论依据。