As if it wasn’t hard enough growing food out of the concrete jungle, consider the plague of the two-legged pest.

Most of us have lost food at some point to the urban ingrates. Thieves may not not be our most destructive pest  — slugs take more from me every year — but for mental [...]]]>

As if it wasn’t hard enough growing food out of the concrete jungle, consider the plague of the two-legged pest.

Most of us have lost food at some point to the urban ingrates. Thieves may not not be our most destructive pest  — slugs take more from me every year — but for mental aggravation they’re public enemy number one.

Criminals hate exposure, so try to bring more community into your community garden or farm. Get the neighbours on side so they know the difference between the real growers and the freeloaders. During harvest season schedule work times so there’s always someone on site who can approach intruders with a friendly, “Hi! Are you here to help? What’s your name?”

The more people know about and watch for veggie robbbers the better off we’ll be, which is why it’s encouraging to see the New York Times cover the issue. It’s also gratifying to see who they quoted:

Garden theft is by no means unique to New York. In 2007, David Tracey, a Vancouver journalist and environmental designer, published “Guerrilla Gardening, a Manualfesto.” Tips from the book appear on Ecolife, a Web site devoted to green living. He says yellow tomatoes are less enticing than red ones; protective fencing and belligerent signs are acceptable; and hiding desirable fruits like raspberries behind beets or parsnips is smart strategy. He also has a Zen-like attitude to dealing with stealing. “Invent some better scenario,” he wrote, “where the stolen food somehow ends up in the stomachs of people who need it.”

Community Gardens Find Theft Is a Fact of Life – NYTimes.com.

Will Allen is in Vancouver rallying the urban agriculture troops.

Today it included a meeting at City Hall, where Mayor Gregor Robertson is a former organic farmer himself. Even though inspirational Dutch urban planner Jan Gehl was in City Hall speaking in another room at the same time about sustainable urban [...]]]>

Urban Agriculture Guru Will Allen

Will Allen is in Vancouver rallying the urban agriculture troops.

Today it included a meeting at City Hall, where Mayor Gregor Robertson is a former organic farmer himself. Even though inspirational Dutch urban planner Jan Gehl was in City Hall speaking in another room at the same time about sustainable urban design, guess which topic had the buzz? Will Allen’s room was packed with city councillors, senior city staff, Vancouver Food Policy Council members and others hanging on every word. Which included the following:

Right now there’s more excitement than action in urban agriculture. We need to get going with action.

We have hundreds of thousands of urban farms. We need millions.

It isn’t enough to talk about it. You need to have an actual project that you can show people, then they’ll get it.

Aesthetics are important. You don’t want ugly farms with weeds growing around the edges.

Look at the Growing Power example in Chicago’s Grant Park. We grow a mix of 159 kinds of vegetables, edible flowers, herbs and edible fruits. We’ve been there seven years, farming two acres of park that used to be run by the city’s landscape department. It looks so good some people don’t even understand it’s food growing there.

In urban agriculture every square foot is valuable. If you can make $5 per square foot, you’re making $200,000 per acre.

It isn’t easy growing professionally. It takes a lot of skill to know about things like multiple cropping. Training is important.

Sprouts are an easy way to get started. At Growing Power I grow 3,000 trays of sprouts every week.

The most important thing you need is passion.

You can never get too cocky and think you’ve got it made. I just had a talk with an 80-year-old farmer, and I asked him, Jake, how’s it going? He said, I’m just learning how to farm. You have to stay humble, and be willing to learn. It becomes a lifestyle.

You need to hire professional people who like what they’re doing. You can’t make money using interns and students. It’s an important principle to have everyone you hire make a living wage. Otherwise you won’t be able to keep them.

The most important connection is with your local community. You have to get them engaged. If they don’t want you there, you shouldn’t even start farming.

How can you explain to business people that urban farming is a viable business? It’s not a viable business at this point. We’re just at the infancy stage. You have to educate people. You can’t do it just by saying urban agriculture. You need to connect them with projects.

We’re at a prime time to make this work. The situation has never been better.

Three years ago it was a puzzle when the food price crisis starved millions. It was a time of record harvests; the world never had so much food. Turns out speculators — the same banks, hedge funds and capitalist investors who brought you to the brink of global financial wipeout — [...]]]>

Urban farmer in Cuba

Three years ago it was a puzzle when the food price crisis starved millions. It was a time of record harvests; the world never had so much food. Turns out speculators — the same banks, hedge funds and capitalist investors who brought you to the brink of global financial wipeout — were doing the same with crops, driving up prices to make a bigger profit. Turns out they’re still doing it, and more are going to die.

From the Guardian story: Food speculation: ‘People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food’

What does it mean to people in developed countries? Everything, including chocolate:

But the speculation is not just in staple foods. Last year, London hedge fund Armajaro bought 240,000 tonnes, or more than 7%, of the world’s stocks of cocoa beans, helping to drive chocolate to its highest price in 33 years.

That’s the question being asked near Nanaimo and throughout British Columbia as a 2.5 acre organic farm has been given 90 days to shut down because…it’s a farm, when it’s supposed a yard. The area is zoned residential. But what do the words “farm” and “yard” really mean as we [...]]]>
Is it a yard or farm?

That’s the question being asked near Nanaimo and throughout British Columbia as a 2.5 acre organic farm has been given 90 days to shut down because…it’s a farm, when it’s supposed a yard. The area is zoned residential. But what do the words “farm” and “yard” really mean as we stride into a precarious food future?

A letter from farmer Dirk Becker:

Farmers Dear friends and supporters:

We have recently been instructed by the RDN, at the request of the District of Lantzville, to cease “all agricultural activity” on our 2.5 acre farm due to us being “residentially zoned”. This followed a letter in September telling us to “remove the piles of soil from the property” (which we worked out with the Bylaw Enforcement Officer and agreed to and moved the one pile in question within 48hrs).

Our goal is to have the bylaw updated to reflect the current awareness and future needs of our communities. Yes, we could apply for rezoning, however this would only help “us” not the many people who are urban farming or SPIN farming.

We are writing to you because this issue impacts all of us on Vancouver Island. Many of you are aware that only 5% of our food supply is grown on Vancouver Island, thus 95% is imported. It may shock you to know that there is only 2 days fresh food supply on Vancouver Island. That means, that any disruption in ferry service, trucking or problems at the US border (75% of BC’s food comes from California) would have a dramatic and immediate effect on our food supply.

To us, “urban farming” is much more than a growing “trend” throughout North America. It is the way of the future; and the future is now.

Each year:
- land prices increase, preventing new farmers – especially younger ones – from acquiring land.
- remaining farmable land (even including the Agricultural Land Reserve) is forever swallowed up by development, further reducing our ability to sustain ourselves and increasing our already extreme dependence on imported food.

In light of this, we strongly believe it is our responsibility as individuals and as a community to stop and reverse this trend of complete UNsustainability and at least work towards a model of self-reliance.

Our intention:
That together, we see this as an opportunity to “change the system”. Please understand that we do not want the focus to be “us”. When you read the attached letter we received from the RDN, keep in mind what they are saying means: ALL “urban farming” and SPIN farming is illegal! (Small Plot InteNsive – where young farmers use people’s city backyards to grow food for sale). This includes: honey, vegetables, meat, eggs, plants, flowers, fruit, nuts – you name it! Of course, this affects Urban and SPIN farmers at the Bowen Road Farmers’ Market as well as other farmers’ markets in Canada where municipal bylaws have not been updated to reflect support for sustainable, local food production.

We are asking:
That you contact the individuals whose information we have provided below beginning with Lantzville Council members (and anyone else you feel compelled to). We suggest that you approach this issue in the more general terms of local food and sustainability rather than what “the authorities” are doing – focussing it on our specific case merely limits the potential for us to work towards meaningful change in broader terms.

Please share whatever is important to you about this issue (links are posted below). In your letter, make sure you ask questions, especially if you want a response. If your children would like to write, that would be great.

It is likely that Lantzville council and the RDN will respond by telling you that we can apply for rezoning (which may or may not pass). This certainly does not help the SPIN farmers in downtown Nanaimo! Again, our goal is to have the existing bylaw changed for the benefit of our entire community
(much like what Victoria and other cities have done – http://postcarboncities.net/node/3686 )

Here is a brief background of our property, which lends some context to our current activities (before and after photos attached):

The previous owner, Billy Binns, used an excavator and dump truck to mine and scrape the land bare. He had a soil screener set up on the property, selling the soil, then sand, then gravel, which resulted in lowering the level of this property by about four feet. When we assumed ownership of this property, all that remained was gravel. There were no worms, no grasshoppers, no birds, no butterflies; essentially – no living creatures!

Since 1999, we have made a tremendous effort to heal the land, beginning slowly – one wheelbarrow at a time. It has been a gradual, organic process – from planting a few fruit trees and having a small growing area, to expanding with more hand-made soil using wood chips from local tree companies and a small amount of horse manure from local, Lantzville stables. Now we have 4 kinds of bees, several types of dragonflies, numerous types of butterflies, frogs, toads, snakes, and hundreds of birds and much more! We have dedicated our time to supporting hundreds of community members who have sought guidance on how to become more sustainable in their own lives; from educating people on how to support sustainable local initiatives, to teaching families how to grow their own food. Three years ago, we also started Nanaimo’s most successful farmers’ market, The Bowen Road Farmers’ Market at Beban Park.

Healthy, fresh food is the cornerstone of healthy families and communities. As time goes on, the importance of this issue will continue to grow. We hope that you feel the same way and we thank you in advance for your support.

Yours in service,
Dirk Becker and Nicole Shaw

PS: Please, if you would, “cc” us in your communication with authorities so we can keep track of the progress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Topics and links related to these matters:

- Food security: The average meal has traveled 1,500 to 3,000 kms to get to our dinner tables, a model which is only affordable so long as the oil industry experiences no upset, whether resource, market, or technology-based.
- urban agriculture, http://postcarboncities.net/node/3686 ,
http://victoriavision.blogspot.com/2007/08/urban-farming-and-food-security.html ,

http://www.cityfarmer.info/category/urban-farm/

- transition towns, http://transitioncowichan.org/
- emergency preparedness
- ongoing increases in population
- sustainability

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact info:

District of Lantzville Councilor’s phone numbers and email addresses:

http://www.lantzville.ca/cms.asp?wpID=465

Mayor Colin Haime said this email should also be used: council@lantzville.ca

Regional District of Nanaimo Board of Directors phone numbers, mailing and email addresses:

http://www.rdn.bc.ca/cms.asp?wpID=1886

Brian Brack, RDN Bylaw Enforcement Officer and
Lantzville Emergency Program Coordinator Alternate
250-390-250-390-6530
Email: bbrack@rdn.bc.ca

Twyla Graff, Chief Administrative Officer, District of Lantzville
Telephone: 250-390-4006, ext.116
Email: twyla@lantzville.ca

Chris Midgley, Manager of Energy and Sustainability
Regional District of Nanaimo
250 390 6568
email: cmidgley@rdn.bc.ca

Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about [...]]]> Marilyn Tower, owner of Abbotsford’s Tower Foods, with some of the products seized from Vancouver’s Home Grow-In Grocer by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency due to alleged inadequate labelling. Credit: Doug Shanks — From the Weekender

Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about (because it sells only local goods and supports organic growers and lets you “buy” stuff with a goodwill promise to pay later) is being hassled by our ever-diligent bureaucrats. Hard to believe, I know, but not entirely surprising, is it?

I’d planned to whip myself up into an appropriate froth for a sardonic response, but Herb Barbolet did it so well already I’m going to quote his post to the BC Food Networks listserve. First a link to the story in the Westender.

–
RE: GROCER’S STOCK SEIZED

Had George Orwell read this story he might not have believed it. It is Animal Farm and 1984 rolled into one.

The Canadian government refuses public demand for labelling of genetically modified foods, closes small abattoirs (putting farmers and ranchers out of business), lets Chinese food with melamine into the country and “watches over” Maple Leaf.
But if a small neighbourhood grocery is selling quality local products without proper French on the label… woe to them, the full force of the federal government will set things right.

Hell, “the store wasn’t even the target”. It was the supplier!
Makes sense from a government that shoved HST on to the province.

And the CFIA spokesperson has the gall to say that the rules are applied evenly and “we can’t be everywhere at once”.
Who is pulling the Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors’ strings?

Herb Barbolet
–

Link to the Guardian story, [...]]]> Here in Vancouver the prospect of allowing backyard chickens got some residents all aflutter. In the UK they’re talking about home-raised pigs. A yard big enough for a medium-sized dog, says one expert, is big enough for Porky, although they’re party animals so you want to keep more than just one.

Link to the Guardian story, “The sale of pigs for domestic use has risen sharply” here.