Local Delicious

Plus: Dialogue on the Regional Food System Strategy for Metro Vancouver

Concerns about food— its impacts on our health; its inaccessibility to many low income people; its vulnerability to climate change, soil erosion, water shortages and rising fuel prices; demand for local food; its role in creating new jobs; and the need for farmers to be able to make a decent living—have vaulted food strategies up the public policy priority list. Find out how Toronto, Portland and California are planning to transform local food production, distribution and land use.

A shoulder program to the Gaining Ground Summit 2010, Local Food Plans: Lessons from Other Communities and Dialogue on the Regional Food System Strategy for Metro Vancouver address  the many interconnected elements of a viable food system.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, 580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
2:00 – 4:00 pm Local Food Plans: Lessons from Other Communities
4:30 – 6:30 pm Dialogue on the Regional Food System Strategy in Metro Vancouver

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 (repeat session of Tuesday)
Compass Point Inn Hotel. 9855 King George Highway, Surrey
2:00 – 4:00 pm Local Food Plans: Lessons from Other Communities
4:30 – 6:30 pm Dialogue on the Regional Food System Strategy in Metro Vancouver

Over the past two years, representatives from all levels of government, the agriculture and food industry, community organizations and the public have provided valuable input on how to make our food system more sustainable, resilient and healthy. At this session, after a brief presentation on the draft Regional Food System Strategy for Metro Vancouver, participants will break into discussion groups and be asked for their feedback. The presentation on lessons learned from other communities from the previous session should provide food for thought for these discussions. Results will be used to refine the Strategy and clarify key areas for collaboration.

These events are free, however pre-registration is required. Click here for more information and to register!
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Speakers:

Sibella Kraus, President/Director, SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture Education), Berkeley, California
Dr. David McKeown, Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto
Judy Shiprack, Multomah County Commissioner, Portland, Oregon
Moderator: Peter Ladner, Fellow of the SFU Centre for Dialogue

I recently came across a new concept in food production masquerading as a local food solution. The way I see it, it’s just industrialized food from the corner manufacturing plant vs. the one thousands of miles away.

Okay, technically that does make it “local”. Scratch the surface, however, and there’s lot more to the notion of eating local than simple geography.

Here’s a summary of the Agropolis idea:

• Employ robots and technology to grow food
• Utilize GMO’s to improve production
• Use artificial — but, hey,  low energy consumption — lighting
• Create a “powerful consumer experience” that’s more funky and far sexier than anything you can find that incorporates, say, dirt

I have so many issues with an engineered version of “urban farming” it’s hard to know where to begin. Okay, not that hard. Let’s start with the list above:

• Robots and technology — Sure, who wants people touching your food
• GMO’s — Absolutely. Hellooo, we can’t have Nature running the show
• Artificial lighting — Brilliant, now there’s no need to rely on the nasty, carcenogenic sun
• Farm “experience” vs. actual farm — Great, it’ll be just like the Disney California theme park; super clean and once you’ve been, you’ll never need to visit the state

The whole premise gets off to a rocky start with the stats Agropolis tosses about to portray food as an enemy of the earth, prefaced by “Food subjugates the earth.”

Whoa, Nellie. Food subjugates the earth? No, more like messing with natural food systems messes with the earth. More like, taking plant-based food that would feed 10 people and feeding it to one cow so a handful of folks can eat steak, that messes with the earth.

The local manufacture of food, while accurate on the geographic technicality, in no way constitutes a farm and misses the locavore boat.

Genuine Food

A big part of eating local is about eating food. Real food. Not a reasonable facsimile thereof, even if it was just picked this morning. I mean food that has soaked up the nutrients it needs and gives us the nutrients we need and then gives nutrients back to the earth when we’re done, in a beautiful, self-sustaining cycle. Just as it has for millennia, well, right up until we started messing with it post-WWII.

Science actually knows relatively little about the complexities of how real food works it’s wonderful magic, but we can see the effects when we behave as if we can manage it better than it can manage itself. Let’s face it, food’s got a huge head start on the evolutionary sustainability track.

Food Security

Another huge part of the “eat local” trend is focused on food security. Unlike the image that phrase initially conjures up, food security is not about locking down food so production is in the hands of a tech-savvy few. It’s quite the opposite. It means opening up the guide book, learning how we can each produce our own food, and creating systems to ensure everyone has secure access to quality food, no matter their income or location.

Forget the pleasure and satisfaction that’s derived from growing your own food, and let’s just look at the value of being able to eat quality food, when you’re hungry, even on a pauper’s budget. Stop. Ponder.

Respecting the Earth

In addition to a desire for improved taste and nutritional quality, embedded within eating local is a recognition that what we’ve been doing to the planet with industrial food production isn’t actually working, and it’s time to clean up our act. That includes growing practices, water conservation, multitude forms of pollution (including pesticides, cattle feedlot waste…), carbon footprint, and a great many other activities not related directly to food at all.

Does re-engineering food’s fabrication help solve the problems re-engineering created in the first place, or just create different ones?

Eat + Local

Eating local is just what it says…and more than the sum of it’s parts. It ripples into every segment of our lives. Food is our lives. We must recognize that humans are part of a system, not the creators of it. And let’s face it, we haven’t exactly earned a bonus for our management skills.

When our food got off track, a  great many other things jumped the tracks as well. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to go back to where things started going sideways and begin repairing the damage. Maybe by first figuring out how to fit ourselves back into the greater ecosystem, instead of trying to subjugate the system to humankind.

Agropolis Concept Store

Related Post:

Technically Local, But…

I’m sitting here stunned upon reading in this week’s WestEnder that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has targeted a local micro-retailer and seized $20,000 worth of goods because the food doesn’t meet their French labeling standards. A few weeks back Home Grow-In was targeted by the agency whose two inspectors spent 6 hours combing through the store’s inventory.

There is so much wrong with this picture (additional coverage), I’m not sure where to begin:

1. Let me get this straight. Is it now retailers’ responsibility to be up-to-date on all CFIA labeling criteria when selecting from thousands of products they might carry in their stores? Funny, I thought it was the CFIA’s job to ensure producers met food safety labeling criteria.
2. Officially, the focus of the investigation isn’t the store, it’s the producers. Hmmm, that’s odd. Then why did the inspectors not stop by the producer’s facilities instead of nailing one of many small, local retailers and seizing goods the retailer already paid for but now cannot sell?
3. Wow, way to slam small business and cut if off at the knees. A loss like that can kill a business where cash flow is critical. Not only does the business suffer, so do the employees and their families when they can’t get paid. Great ripple effect if you want more people and businesses in financial dire straits.
4. Oh, and the producers of the pulled products?  Many are registered with the CFIA and believed their labels met all requirements — they also haven’t been contacted by the CFIA since the raid to let them know otherwise.
5. Funnily enough, imported goods on shelves all over the city which are also not bilingually labeled are not generating investigations of such fervor.
6. Then there’s the selective enforcement. What about the chain grocery stores down the street where the exact same non-bilingually labeled products are also sold? Why have they not been investigated?

Want to take some tangible action? Put your money where your mouth is and support local micro food producers and the retailers who provide a critical link in helping ensure quality local products are readily available to consumers.

As for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, they are here for our protection, and we need and want them to do a good job. It’s just a good idea to ensure they are playing by rules that are as fair for the little guy as they are for the big guys.

Village Vancouver, Vancouver Food Policy Council, Grandview Woodland Food Connection, and Langara College Continuing Studies presents, Building Neighbourhood Food Networks.

Join with other groups and individuals who are involved in neighbourhood and city-wide food security and food system activities in looking at networking opportunities in and between different Vancouver neighbourhoods.

We invite individuals and groups who are engaged around food, food security, food justice, and building sustainable and resilient food systems to learn what local Neighbourhood Food Networks are doing, and to meet colleagues, share ideas, and explore ways to work together toward common food security goals.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
1:00 – 4:00 pm
Langara College, 100 W. 49th Avenue
Room C509

FREE

To register: Please RSVP by calling Langara College Continuing Studies at 604-323-5322. Be sure to quote course number CRN 60916 and include your email address when registering.

Spring has sprung and planning is in full swing for another great Stone Soup Festival.  This much loved East Vancouver tradition provides an opportunity for the local community to celebrate food together.

This is the Festival’s 15th year of celebrating spring, food, the environment and importance to the health and”‘culture” of our community, and the associated Stone Soup Film Festival‘s 2nd year of showcasing topical films exploring the politics of food.

Saturday, May 8th
Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier Street, Vancouver
12:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Film listing, previews and schedule

The Stone Soup Film Festival responds to the enormous interest in food issues these days. Environmental concerns, globalization, economic collapse are alerting us to the fragility of our food system and the urgency of action. Although the realities surrounding our current land and food systems can be disheartening, our films aim to emphasize the positive efforts being made as a way to empower the current generation to take action.

In doing so, the Stone Soup Food Film Festival aims to broaden the community’s awareness and understanding of food issues, its problems and solutions by screening both locally and internationally films on a range of themes including health and nutrition, food economics, agricultural worker rights, sustainable agriculture, and urban gardening.

Where I’m from, the first name off anyone’s lips when talking seeds is West Coast Seeds, best known for their gardeners’ porn annual seed catalogue. The catalogue IS full of beautiful pictures, but the best part when you’re in the garden planning stage at the start of the season is their regional planting chart.

West Coast Seeds provides valuable information, along with gardening books and tools, but as I understand it, they don’t actually source their seeds locally. There are a variety of companies that produce seeds grown in our own climate, many of which are also organic. Here are some options:*

Stellar Seeds Sorrento, BC

Salt Spring Seeds Salt Spring Island, BC

Full Circle Seeds Sooke, BC

Two Wings Farms Victoria, BC

Sunshine Farm Kelowna, BC

Other suppliers from slightly farther afield…

Wild Garden Seed Oregon, USA

Heritage Harvest Seed Carman, Manitoba

Lindenberg Seeds Brandon, Manitoba

Territorial Seed Co. Oregon, USA

Talk about taking eating local to a whole new level: you can eat regionally adapted plants, while supporting your Eat Local economy! Learn more about organic seeds at Organic Seed Alliance.

*List courtesy of Gourmet Gardens

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Related Posts:

Why Local Seeds Matter
Let the Planting Begin
West Coast Seeds