Abstract
Food insecurity became recognized as a problem in Canada in the early 1980s when community groups began to establish charitable food assistance programs in response to concerns that people in their midst were going hungry. Since then, the number of Canadians affected by food insecurity has grown, but food charity remains the primary response. Children's feeding programs, prenatal nutrition programs, and a number of smaller scale, community development programs have also been instituted. However, growing recognition of the limitations of these efforts to address food problems rooted in chronically inadequate household incomes has led to a renewed emphasis on advocacy for social policy reforms.