I would like to situate my remarks in the context of the food movement, which is a social movement that has been active on the ground in this country for decades and has had an impact on the supply chain, as well as positive impacts on human and animal health and the environment, particularly soil and waterways.
Given the commitments of the Government of Canada to the UN sustainable development goals, aligned with the food policy for Canada announced by Minister Bibeau in June 2019, as well as the commitments in the recent throne speech, it is imperative to include citizen perspectives such as ours in your work.
The activities of Canada's local food movement represent some of the most heartening developments for the country in decades. They include horticultural production, food processing and distribution activities, and innovative practices in retail sales, restaurants and waste management, from one end of the country to the other.
Food Secure Canada is proud to support this social movement, which includes the Coalition for Healthy School Food, whose work deserves consideration as part of this committee's work, as I will explain in a few minutes.
This committee has been tasked to look at opportunities and solutions to increasing processing capacity and competitiveness in regions across the country to meet the export objectives and also to support the goal of increasing local capacity to protect food security while providing safe food for all Canadians. The purpose of the study also includes identifying barriers to increased processing capacity in Canada, such as grocery concentration in the marketplace. Let me speak to these issues one by one.
Increasing processing capacity at local and regional levels is urgently and desperately needed as evidenced by COVID-19, and can build on what's already happening on the ground. Besides the explosion in demand for local food, we witnessed bottlenecks in the supply chain and unprecedented food loss and waste as a result. This was partly due to the lack of smaller-scale infrastructure and related diseconomies of scale due to the concentration of facilities controlled by a handful of transnational corporations. Canada needs infrastructure to serve small and medium-sized enterprises such a cold chain, small local abattoirs, food hubs and processing and storage facilities.
The policy priority should be to buttress the development of healthy, just and sustainable food systems in Canada with a full cost accounting of the health, environmental and broader economic impacts in supporting decent and sustainable livelihoods and community-based and -controlled development. The goal ought to be to prioritize lightly processed foods, given that excessive consumption of highly and ultra highly processed foods poses a serious health problem. Diet-related disease is costing this country $26 billion per year, according to a study by Heart and Stroke. Diverse stakeholders such as McKinsey agree that the externalities of the current global food system in health and environmental costs are greater than the value of agri-food itself.
In terms of the link between local capacity and food security, food insecurity is primarily about income inequality rather than a lack of food. Charity models won't get to the root of the problem. Unequal access to land and capital is also an issue for small-scale food producers and processors around the world, including Canada, where farmer debt is a serious concern. Workers' rights also need to be respected up and down the food chain with the goal of creating decent work regardless of immigration status and meeting the demands of temporary foreign workers for permanent status. Having said all that, logistics and supply chains are a distinct but very important issue. Our food system is so highly skewed towards the export of commodities that it hampers the development of opportunities here and poses risks when borders thicken or in emergencies.
The COVID crisis has exposed the interconnected fragility and concentration of power within Canada's dominant long-distance, globalized food supply chain. This isn't just in grocery retailing, but affects all facets of production, processing and distribution. Weaknesses include an over-reliance on import and export systems, especially for fruits and vegetables; the concentration of ownership by a handful of transnational corporations in the food sector; and the need for greater investment in local food infrastructure overall. COVID-19 recovery is an opportunity to build back better in the interests of greater resilience and equity as well as environmental sustainability.
I would like to provide an example of public sector procurement on how well-designed programs can help kick-start the transition we need. Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program and in budget 2019 the Government of Canada committed to consult with the provinces, territories and other stakeholders that already invest, to develop such a program.
There are also compelling examples from indigenous communities, such as self-governing Yukon first nations. If well conceived, such a program could not only positively affect child nutrition, for which UNICEF has pointed out that Canada is grossly underperforming, and reduce hunger where, again, a wealthy country such as ours bears the shame of having one in six children living in food insecurity, but a national school food program could also have positive economic and environmental impacts if procurement prioritizes local small and medium-sized enterprises that produce and process healthy, sustainably produced food, as well as interest youth in related occupations.
Therefore, we should emphasize social as well as technological innovation, support small-scale processing by SMEs and support local food economies. There are opportunities for women, who have particularly been hard-hit by the pandemic, as well as economic potential in solidarity with communities that have been traditionally marginalized by the food system, including indigenous peoples and people of colour, especially Black communities. This is already happening on the ground and can be accelerated and deepened with the right supports.
To conclude, I would like to say a word about the economic aspects of local food. A 2015 study published by the McConnell Foundation showed that if only 10% of the 10 main fruits and vegetables imported into Ontario were replaced by local products, it would lead to a $250 million rise in provincial gross domestic product and the creation…