Developing an Urban Food System Resilience Framework to Assess Vulnerabilities to Extreme Weather Events

April 23, 2019

Kim Zeuli, The Feeding Cities Group Austin Nijhuis, AIR Worldwide Zachary Gerson-Nieder, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)

Presented at the National Adaptation Forum #NAF2019 @Feeding_Cities The Importance of Food Systems in Resilience Planning

Hurricane Irma (2017)

2 Resilience Timeline: New Orleans Example

Goal: A resilient food system in that provides all residents with adequate and equitable access to food within walking distance immediately after an extreme weather event. 3 Creating Resilience to Climate Change

• Process of adjusting to climate change and its effects in order Climate Change to moderate harm or exploit Adaptation beneficial opportunities

• Interventions to abate climate Climate Change change and its effects in order Mitigation to moderate harm

• Interventions to mitigate impact Disaster of natural disasters through Natural Preparedness Disaster Disaster preparedness, emergency Mitigation Response response and recovery. Disaster • Requires understanding risks Recovery and vulnerabilities 4 Food System Overview

5 Extreme Weather Scenarios in Toronto Included in Analysis

• Flooding from an extreme rainfall event • 100 mm in less than one day • Heat wave • 3 or more days with max. temperature ≥ 35°C • Ice storm • 30 mm of ice

6 The City of Toronto’s Food System

7 Approach and Methodology

Data Analysis and Interviews

• Guided by FCG’s Framework for Analyzing Urban Food System Resilience and the Climate Change and Health Vulnerability and Adaptation Guidelines. • Analysis of numerous public and proprietary data sets. • Conducted comprehensive literature review. • Interviews with 49 individuals from both public agencies and the private sector (conducted between July and October 2017).

City of Toronto’s High-Level Risk Assessment Tool (HLRA) • HLRA tool developed to help implement Toronto’s Climate Change Risk Management Policy. • Facilitated workshop to solicit input from 23 stakeholders. • Workshop held on August 23, 2017 at and led by Meister Constants Group and ICIC.

8 FCG’s Urban Food System Resilience Framework for Toronto

Sector Description Sector Description

• All agriculture (urban farms, vertical farms, community • Chain and independent gardens) w/in a 160 km Regional & local restaurants. food production radius of Toronto. Restaurants

• Food banks, food pantries, • All food cleaning, meal delivery programs, packaging, processing and soup kitchens & mobile manufacturing facilities. Food assistance Food processing network soup kitchens.

• Warehouse suppliers that move food from processing • Home food storage and to retail food outlets & other meal preparation. Includes food access points. Includes Home meal high-rise apartment units. Food distribution Ontario Food Terminal. preparation Interdependent Infrastructure • Supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores & farmers markets. Public Road Electrical Telecom. Fuel Food retail transport. network power

9 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #1:

Flooding Risk: The impact of an extreme rain event is probably the least well understood, because “urban flooding” has not yet been modeled for the city, and likely poses the greatest risk for the food system of the three weather events studied.

Flooding Risks:

• 8% of supermarkets • 6% of dairy processing facilities • 5% of grocery stores • 10% of commercial bakeries Food processing Food retail • 6% of convenience stores

• 20% (1 of 5) of supermarket suppliers • 11% of local warehouses suppliers • 5% of restaurants Food distribution • Ontario Food Terminal Restaurants

• Small food businesses are less likely to have insurance or business continuity plans in place. • The Ontario Food Terminal carries flood insurance and business interruption insurance; their tenants also carry business interruption insurance.

10 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #2:

Electricity, Road Network and Fuel Infrastructure: The impact of extreme weather events on critical infrastructure poses the greatest risk to Toronto’s food system, with electricity, the road network, and fuel posing the greatest potential vulnerabilities.

Infrastructure Risks: • Critical for all of Toronto’s food system sectors • Critical for all food system sectors Electrical • All 3 events could cause some Fuel and interdependent infrastructure power degree of power outages

• Flooding and ice on secondary roads • Traffic congestion Road • Sufficient drivers after extreme network weather event

• The functioning of the food system depends on critical infrastructure: public transportation, the road network, the electrical power system, telecommunications and fuel supply transportation, storage and distribution infrastructure.

11 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #3:

The Ontario Food Terminal: The Ontario Food Terminal represents a significant vulnerability for the supply of fresh produce in Toronto because of its market dominance, especially for smaller, independent food retail stores.

Ontario Food Terminal Risks:

• Between 35-40% of produce sold • Market dominance, especially for in Toronto is estimated to come smaller, independent food retail stores Food distribution from the Ontario Food Terminal Food retail

• Power supply configuration makes it susceptible to power outages Electrical • Does not have sufficient backup power power generators

• OFT does not have sufficient resources to invest in permanent backup power generators, which would be costly for their large structures. • The Ontario Food Terminal Board, which is a provincial organization, would need to raise additional capital for backup power investments.

12 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #4:

Food Access in Inner Suburban Neighborhoods: Food access in three inner suburbs will be disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events because of a lack of large food retail stores, higher rates of food insecurity and their older residential high-rise communities.

Food Access in Inner Suburban Neighborhoods Risks:

Toronto Neighbourhoods Facing the Greatest Risk for • These seven neighbourhoods have Limited Food Access after an Extreme Weather Event both food retail and food insecurity Neighbourhood Location in Toronto vulnerabilities Scarborough -Roding-CFB* North York * North York • Represents 126,266 people * Scarborough – 26% are low income Rustic* North York – 16% receive social assistance * Scarborough – 15% are aged 65 years or over -Beaumond Heights* – 40% of dwellings are high-rise apartments

*denotes neighbourhoods designated as Neighbourhood Improvement Areas.

13 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #5:

Food Insecurity and the Food Safety Network: Food insecurity is a systemic vulnerability in Toronto that would be exacerbated by extreme weather events. The resilience of food banks are critical to help low-income households recover and access adequate food.

Food Insecurity and the Food Safety Network Risks:

• In the Toronto region, 12.6% of households are food insecure • 78% of food assistance agencies in Toronto are not able to Food assistance network provide enough food for their clients under normal conditions

• All of Toronto’s food banks would be impacted by critical infrastructure failures. • The greater risk is their limited capacity to meet a prolonged increase in demand for food assistance as more households become food insecure due to disaster-related expenses or loss of income. • The City of Toronto has actively sought to address food insecurity over the last two decades.

14 Six Critical Vulnerabilities of Toronto’s Food System

Vulnerability #6:

Coordination, Collaboration, Planning and Preparedness: Various municipal and provincial government agencies will need to be actively engaged in helping the food system recover quickly after an extreme weather event.

Coordination, Collaboration, Planning and Preparedness Risks: • Food system stakeholders that informed this report worried about: – Inadequate and uncoordinated preparedness planning, – Not inviting private sector representatives to participate in the planning process, – Lack of clear communication about road closures and power outages, – Food safety inspection delays. • During an extreme weather event, businesses may be confused about who to contact for relevant and timely information and, in turn, government agencies may not know the best way to effectively share information to all food businesses. • The numerous reports and working groups focused on various aspects of resilience planning in Toronto can create additional confusion if not coordinated.

15 Next Steps

• Activate private sector work in Toronto with ARISE Canada— Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilience, launched in 2015 by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

• Continue to advance field with launch of The Feeding Cities Group (www.feedingcitiesgroup.com)

• Refine/expand assessment tool by testing in Global South

16 Kim Zeuli The Feeding Cities Group [email protected] 608.347.1923 feedingcitiesgroup.com

@Feeding_Cities