VFPC's Janine de la Salle's Vancouver Sun piece
Submitted by vfpc on Sun, 02/22/2009 - 22:04
Over the 20th century, town planning turned its back on food, in B.C. and everywhere. In fact, today it is easy to see cities as the enemy of food and farming.
Urban development has eliminated agriculture in cities, paved over agricultural land across the province, largely eliminated the mom-and-pop food store from our communities, and located our food supply almost exclusively in large supermarkets that primarily stock foods produced on far away industrial farms and transported long distances by land, air, and water. Our experience of food in our communities is no longer a rich celebration of the senses, culture, family, and health.
While during the 20th century, food and agriculture were seen as an agro-scientific and macro-economic issue, over the 21st century, B.C. is going to experience a renaissance of sustainable food systems — including incorporating all aspects of the food system into the planning and design of our towns and cities.
There are several significant trends driving an awareness of food back into our cities, politics and culture, including health concerns, economic opportunities, increasingly sophisticated tourists, environmental concerns, the impending retirement wave of the baby boomers and the continued rise of the creative class in B.C. These trends will be moving food up the agenda in towns around North America. B.C. has a choice: to ignore its opportunities or to actively develop and implement a multi-dimensional strategy to leverage the potential that food offers our communities into greatness.
Food is a cornerstone of our health. As baby boomers age and we are increasingly faced with the troubling realities of childhood obesity, our awareness of the links between our health and our food is growing. Some of the risks of being blind to the realities of a globalized food supply are becoming highly visible as we have recently discovered melamine in our dairy products and listeria in our meats, and watched our bread and corn rise in price due to the demand for agricultural land to grow feedstock for biofuels. The studies of health are also demonstrating a direct link between suburban living and childhood obesity.
Most of us can remember meals made from scratch by our grandparents and in most cases our parents, often from ingredients grown in the backyard. However, in the past several decades, the proportion of our food that is pre-processed and packaged has grown significantly and the knowledge of how to grow and preserve food has dropped. With respect to cities, as the percentage of people living in multi-family areas grew, access to space to grow food has dropped significantly.
The provincial government is wisely investing in programs that address food and our health, and now the challenge goes out to B.C. towns and cities to ensure that planning and design incorporates elements of a healthy and local food system into the fabric of every community.
The economics of food is a significant opportunity for B.C. Currently, most of the focus in B.C. on food has been on industrial agricultural production. All too often we export raw foodstuffs, leaving behind the returns from a value-added product and purchasing refined food products that have been shipped back to us at a significantly higher price.
Addressing the economic opportunity our food system offers B.C. requires that we go far beyond programs to support farmers. We need to bring home, and promote within every town and city in B.C., all of the other elements of our food system, including processing, packaging, distribution, education and celebration of a strong culture of local food. The difference between the price paid for a potato from a B.C. farmer, and the price you and I pay for French fries in a restaurant is significant. Let’s claim the opportunity to realize the considerable value from all steps in the food system and reconnect farms to tables in B.C. and in our towns and cities.
Great food is inseparable from a great tourist experience. The Hilton Hotel chain put out an advertisement a few years back for its hotels in Hawaii. A picture of a couple enjoying a beautiful sunset with a waiter bringing a platter of fresh seafood toward them was presented, accompanied by the observation, “You didn’t travel all this way to eat food that made the same trip.”
The growth of importance of local, handmade food in a great tourist experience is coinciding with the growth of the profile of “food” on television (eg: the Food Network) and in other media. The baby boomers are at a point where they have the most disposable income of any generation in history, and food is playing a very large role in their choices for disposable income and time.
Any B.C. town that wants a healthy tourism economy will need to visibly embrace and put in the foreground great food if it is to compete successfully in an increasingly competitive tourism market.
The creative class loves food. This educated and discerning group whose members drive our companies and innovations across all sectors, have many choices as to where they live. They are educated, travelled and drawn to communities with great restaurants and a strong culture of local food and wine.
The “local food movement” is no longer the domain of the idealist or the lower-income rural family in B.C. Indeed, it has become the domain of the wealthy, the cultured, the privileged, the innovative and the thoughtful. Food in our cities no longer means a messy community garden on the edge of a park or a food bank. Rather, it now means great restaurants, wine festivals, tourism opportunities and local celebrity chefs, in addition to urban agriculture, food security and much more.
Food is a key issue in planning for climate change. We are all aware of the 100-mile diet and the concept of “food miles” — courtesy of leadership by two B.C. residents. Reduced food miles means reduced emissions embodied in our food. However, there are other key issues as well. The future of a changed climate, whether that is a small or large change, will change the story of water in agriculture with less predictability, more droughts and more floods. Planning ahead to preserve our food economy in light of climate change is critical.
So what can B.C. do to claim the great opportunity food offers? We propose a six-dimensional strategy:
1) The provincial government needs to switch its focus from agriculture to food and bring additional attention and programs to address every aspect of the food system in all sectors of the economy and in B.C. communities in an integrated manner.
2) Farmers need to transition away from fossil-fuel-based farm practices towards more organic farming as the market increasingly will be demanding this level of performance. One of the most important things farmers can do is to develop new, high-intensity organic approaches to high-value agriculture that can co-exist in and around cities. Currently, the dominant model of farming in B.C. is industrial-scale agriculture that uses equipment, sprays and other elements that make it inappropriate near cities. While large-scale agriculture is important, this other approach to food is now required to better integrate food into our towns and local economies.
3) Developers need to include places to produce, procure and enjoy food such as intensive green roofs, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets and farmers’ markets. These aspects need to be planned and designed into any large project. In addition, community gardens that offer space for the residents of an appropriate percentage of multi-family units should be included in central, sunny areas.
4) Academia needs to train new farmers and take an integrated systems approach to food and agriculture. There is strong leadership currently being shown in this area at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and the University of British Columbia.
5) The citizens of B.C., all of us, need to embrace local food: buying locally sourced food and drink at every chance, participating in festivals and celebrations of food, and supporting the integration of food production in our towns and cities.
6) Local governments — regions, towns and cities — have some of the most exciting opportunities associated with food. They can take many policy, program and regulatory actions to promote a strong local food culture and industry. A new movement called agricultural urbanism is growing in B.C. that lays out a strategy for local governments to promote food and sustainable agricultural productivity in and around our towns and cities, including supporting urban agriculture, local food processing capacity, food security, local food culture and festivals and education in food.
We can not overestimate the transformative power of food and agriculture. A sustainable agri-food system can be harnessed to realize enormous benefits to B.C. community objectives such as improving B.C. health, strengthening local economies, and reducing climate emissions.
Planning communities in B.C. around food to create sustainable food and agriculture systems is not only possible, it is essential. “Foregrounding” food across this province is one of the top priorities for B.C. in the 21st century.
Mark Holland is a co-founder of HB Lanarc, one of Canada’s leading sustainable community consultants.
Janine de la Salle is a food system planner and project manager with HB Lanarc and works with local government, health authorities, developers, and non-profit organizations to build sustainable food and agriculture systems in B.C. © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
