Avocados
from South America. Apples from New
Zealand, instead of the next valley.
Industrially-grown carrots with no taste, no vitamins, but a microscopic
coating of carcinogenic pesticides.
We are paving
over the nearby farms, making our cities utterly dependent on global
corporations. On cruelty to workers and
animals. On oil and daily long-distance
trucks. If something breaks down, or
just runs down into collapse, your city can go to a starvation in a single
week.
And the
great food system keeps heating the planet, threatening all agriculture.
Against
all that, is a rising tide of support for local food producers. It is a food revolution, and I don't use
that word lightly. You will hear two voices
of sanity, and yes, of hope.
The local
food movement started with a book "The
100-Mile Diet" by Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon. In Vancouver, Canada, this couple went a
year eating only locally produced food.
It wasn't easy then. It is much
easier now, in many North American cities, as the idea of sustainable cities
catches on.
Five
years beyond the success of their first book, Smith and MacKinnon give us a
rapid-fire tour of great ideas, the 10 best local food projects in the United
States and Canada. With a culture
check against a tiny village in Northern Spain. Are the Europeans really better with their food?
You'll be
surprised as local food networks spring up in Toronto, New York, Michigan, and
Los Angeles.
This talk
was recorded by Alex Smith, for Radio Ecoshock, at the Museum of Vancouver, Canada, on
November 25th, 2010. The Museum was one
of the sponsors, along with the Tyee magazine,
and the Tides Canada Foundation, who
funded a series of 10 talks on transition and localization.
We'll
tune in just after the introduction by David Beers, the editor of Tyee, close
friend and a food activist at the beginning of this localization of food.
I'm going
to share a few of my rough notes from the talk - but I encourage you to listen
to the real thing.
After the
success of eating only food grown within 100 miles of Vancouver, critics said
"You couldn't do that in the rural North of British Columbia". James and Alisa were invited to try eating
locally at Smithers, in Northern B.C.
They got a 12 course meal - all grown locally.
The
invitations to try local food came in from all over North America and the
world. As they traveled, the pair found
supermarket food was almost the same everywhere, especially in the Safeway
chain. But local food fare varied
dramatically, according to the region.
That is the hidden story of real food.
James
points out the two decades it took for organic food to take off, and establish
a market. Getting local and sustainable
food into cities may take a while as well.
We hear
about Ward Teulon, also known as City
Farm Boy, who runs a business farming in people's back yards, and on
rooftops. The owner gets a share of the
produce, but most goes to about 160 people who subscribe for a weekly basket or
box of fresh vegetables, grown right in the city, picked that day. Even the much-maligned "Iceberg"
lettuce can actually taste good, when grown and picked same day.
MacKinnon
says it goes way beyond food, into a revolutionary way of how we see the
city - as a more natural place, that grows things. And our relationships with the people who
grow our food is just as important.
Alisa
picks up with the big steps taken in the Canadian province of Ontario - to make
cities more food sustainable and secure.
Local governments are taking this very seriously. Five years ago, Ontario was behind Vancouver
in local food, but making up for lost time, they have surged ahead.
Eight
cities in Ontario have set strict limits on how far food can travel, before
appearing in a "Farmer's Market".
Gone are the long-haul truckers pretending to be local farmers. The big city of Toronto, and surrounding
cities, are looking at their "food-shed" and how to encourage local
growers.
In Toronto, any food service associated with the city, such as day cares, and homeless shelters, must serve at least 20 percent locally grown food. That's an 11 million dollar budget, helping to support local farmers. Of course, kids in day care are now getting better food, that has traveled fewer carbon miles.
Nearby,
the City of Markham insists on both local and sustainable food. There is a new grading system which
determines what food sustainability is.
Big
universities can play an important role. The University of
Toronto spends a guaranteed 20 percent of their food budget on local food. That's $350,000 guaranteed to local
growers. By contrast, the University of
British Columbia spends about $3,000 to buy vegetables from their own teaching
farm. The rest is agribusiness food
shipped from all over the world.
I won't
go into the details of measuring "sustainable food" - Alisa covers
this well in her talk.
Another
aspect in Toronto, is an excellent "local food" (only) store, called Culinarium. That brings everything under one roof for people who want to eat
local. Even the locally grown dried
beans, and cooking oil, so hard to find for a vegetarian diet.
The City
of Vancouver has recently allowed both bee hives and chickens within the
city. Toronto has a poorly designed bee
regulation, which makes it impossible for most home owners. However, there is a bee co-operative in some
waste land in Toronto, and on some downtown roof-tops. Chickens are still prohibited within that
city.
James
MacKinnon next takes us to Michigan, for an unbelievable tour of "hoop
houses" that keep greens growing even in a Northern winter - without
outside fossil fuel heat at all.
Can't be
done you say? Me too! - but it is
already happening. A Maine farmer, Elliot Coleman, is already making
most of his income from produce grown and sold in the Winter. He makes $140,000 a year, from just one and
a half acre.
Anne
Arbor, Detroit, and Flint Michigan are also doing winter farming, and more
local food growing, partly due to the declining economy. John Biernbaum, a University
of Michigan Professor, is leading the way.
He talks about incubator farms, where people can come and learn the
techniques, and then go start their own local small-scale farming
business.
MacKinnon
finds the barriers to growing local food are not technical, but cultural. We have been bred and propagandized out of
the agricultural and gardening way of life, taking up our time with screen
identities.
The
incubator farm models are one way to combat this - so people can go and see for
themselves, and pass on what they know.
Alisa
explains there is a large and growing number of Farmer's markets in New
York. Even deep in the poorest
neighborhoods, where fresh vegetables were almost non-existent previously.
She
compares the opportunity to shop locally in the urban core of Manhattan, 1. 6
million people, compared to Vancouver, with an urban core of 600,000
people. Manhattan has doubled the
number of Farmers' Markets since 2002.
They have 27 locations, up to 4 days a week. That's 39 market shopping opportunities a week, or 1 Farmers'
Market per 41,000 people.
In
Vancouver there are only 4 markets, one day a week each - meaning 1 shopping
opportunity per 150,000 people. New
York is way ahead, and most of the markets are easily within walking
distance. Many stalls have maps and
photos to show shoppers where the food is coming from.
There is
a wheat revival in the American North East, as there has been in the Pacific
West. In New York, the Green Market
Society has been funding construction of local mills, and every baker selling
goods at a Farmers' Market in New York City has to use at least 15 percent
locally grown grain.
New York
also has a "New Farmer Development Project." They help mostly
immigrant groups, especially Spanish-speaking, with training through Cornell
University, to grow local crops, and how to run a micro-business.
As James
MacKinnon explained, there are "food maps" of different cities posted
on the Internet. You can find out where
chestnut, fruit trees or other food sources are located on public land, or
within public reach from the street.
Sometimes
people also raid neglected trees where nuts, for example, go wasted every year.
In L.A.
the group "Fallen Fruit"
has mapped out the foraging food resources of the city. They sometimes lead poor people on forage
trips. But Fallen Fruit also uses art
to communicate the value of getting local food. And they have given away hundreds of fruit trees, with the
understanding that at least some of the branches will go over public property
(like the sidewalk) so others can share in the produce.
You can
find similar free food maps for place like Malmo in Sweden, and in Spain. In Sweden, the maps also show wild herbs,
and resources like Rose Hips. The
Spanish maps reveal the lack of public property, with the fruit trees gathered
only in the few public squares. Food
maps tell a lot about a city.
The whole
idea is to plant food trees and shrubs to help a city feed itself, and
especially for the poor.
Alisa and
James spent 4 months living in a village of 40 people in Northern Spain. It is mountainous, and a bit rough.
Do
Europeans really have the leading edge in local food production? Yes and no.
The
villagers raise cows which go up into the mountains to feed every Summer. That system still goes on, and even someone
with just 4 cows is considered a farmer.
The National land system recognizes and protects their right to graze
cattle in those places.
The
surrounding hill-sides are covered with nut and fruit trees which are
traditionally allotted to each family.
These uses are not protected, the land could be developed. Also, as the older generation passes on,
less of this local food is harvested.
There is
also fierce protection, by law, of the production of local specialty foods. In
the case of this village it is a type of cider. The technical term is "Denomination of Origin" which
specifies exactly what the product is.
Other villages make cheese or whatever.
These specialty items are sold outside the area, and draw some tourists
in.
But
beyond these local initiatives, and house gardens, much of the food is trucked
in, produced by agribusiness. And there is no way to for a visitor to buy food
from local gardens or harvests. No
Farmers' Market. In some ways, this
part of Europe lags behind North America in sustainable food.
James
recommend the book "Empires
of Food, Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations" by Evan
Fraser and Andrew Rimas.
The
strongest possible food system requires two features:
1. a
specialization for that landscape, (like the Spanish growing cows) and
2.
embedded diversity (don't go too far into the specialty, keep the other food
crops growing).
With
these two, a bit of trade and economy are enabled, without sacrificing the food
base. These kinds of civilizations keep
going.
In
British Columbia, we are losing a wide variety of fruit growing, to a rising
tide of profitable wine making. The
extreme example of this is the Napa Valley of California. It was once a diversified food production
area, but is now entirely swept over by grape growing.
In 1968,
grapes accounted for 26% of the agricultural production of the Napa
Valley. Last year it was 99%. That is not a sustainable food system, and
does nothing to make nearby cities food secure.
One Non-Profit
trying to counter act that is called "California Farm Link." One thing they do: link up would-be growers
with available patches of land. People
without a lot of money can start up a small scale food growing business,
without having to buy expensive land.
There are a lot of places to grow.
Farm Link
also tries to save family-owned operations (instead of selling property off to
developers). There are low-interest
loans available by law - but that legislation has not been funded yet.
"Farmers
who are older than 60 years, outnumber farmers who are under 25, 60 to 1,"
says James. The people who know how to
grow food are literally dying off. Farm
link tries to get younger people involved, while the farm is still producing.
Alisa
admits they missed two things in their experiment with the 100 Mile Diet. First, they wanted olive oil, and
couldn't find a local product. Second,
was chocolate.
There are
some interesting experiments to bring in such products without adding more
carbon to the atmosphere - using sailboats and electric vehicles in the supply
train.
Sustainable
Ballard is a good example. Local
food is taken to Seattle by sailboat, and sold in the Farmer's Market.
There is
similar local food action in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Food can be grown, still within 100 miles of
the city of Vancouver, and brought over by sail. There is even a sail transportation network on Kootenay
Lake. Local farmers are trying to use
horses instead of tractors, to save on carbon emissions, and to prepare for a
carbon-short future.
As for
the Chocolate, the Mast
Brothers in New York are hiring a 70 foot sail ship to bring in the beloved
beans from the Caribbean. There may be
more of that, including olive oil from Europe, by sail.
James
MacKinnon wraps up with the story of the local aboriginals harvesting a tuber
much like a potato. The Wapato grows in
rivers and streams in the Pacific Northwest.
It used to support many First Nations people.
As James
explains, the
Wapato is one of the few wild foods which grows better the more we eat
them. That is because the Wapato is
harvested, in the freezing river water of November, by stomping on the roots,
to free up the tuber. This frees other
parts of the plant which migrate in the river, to start new Wapato beds.
Some of
our rivers are quite polluted, and we cut back on marshes for development, but
there is no reason not to bring back the Wapato, which can feed literally
thousands of people, just for the small cost of harvesting it. Historians found that just one island in
the Columbia River produced enough Wapato to feed 31,000 people.
Again,
James emphasized that part of his journey of growth was just meeting the people
who knew about wild food, and how to grow things locally. That personal connection with the food
source is restorative for us all.
The idea
of sustainable cities, with low-carbon local food, is taking off
world-wide. In the founding city of
Vancouver, there is finally a Winter Farmers' Market as well.
Alisa
says the move toward city bee hives and chickens is important. One bee hive can yield 100 pounds of
honey (whereas Alisa uses about 12 pounds of honey a year). One heritage Chanticleer chicken lays about
200 eggs a year. Vancouver allows 4
chickens per yard - that's 800 eggs a year!
There is
also an urban grain cooperative in Vancouver, supply hundreds of people and
hundreds of restaurants.
Is your
city able to feed itself at all? Do you
want to know who grew your food?
Our speakers
are James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith.
Their book "The 100-Mile Diet" has set off a cascade of efforts in North America, and beyond, to
support the production of local food.
It helps save the atmosphere, makes your city more secure, and gives you
more nutritious organic food.
Please
pass this Radio Ecoshock special on to your friends, co-workers, and local
government. We can do it, and survive.
I
recorded this talk at the Museum of
Vancouver, on November 25th, 2010.
My thanks to the speakers, the Museum, Tyee
magazine, and the Tides Canada Foundation
for this really worthwhile presentation.
Download this program
as a free mp3 from the food page, at ecoshock.org
I'm Alex
Smith, thank your for listening, and caring about our future together.
We go out
with music from Dan Mangan.
“Sold” is from the album “Nice, Nice, Very Nice.” Here is a Youtube live version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVpHp_jgwG0
Dan starts out:
“I thought the suits had come for me. found
alternatives to honesty. body and soul were bought and sold. patented and out
of reach, so i reach but it hurts, it kills, it screams and it fills my heart
with chills and i take my pills but i’m still tired of sleeping with the light
on…. “