Food Matters
Posted by Peter Endisch on May 13th, 2009 at 11:29 PDT (Environment, Green Living)
Do you know where your food comes from? Do you know how far it had to travel to get onto your plate? Did you know that Food Security is becoming a huge issue in many countries around the world, including US and Canada? Have you noticed that prices of food are starting to go up – and wondered why?
There are many reasons to this, but generally speaking, it all has to do with the climate. Many rich and fertile lands around the world are suffering year after year from severe droughts (or flooding). That creates food scarcity, driving up costs. And this trend is predicted to continue and get worst. I have heard a pretty believable statistic that the major cities (in Canada too) get 80% of their food trucked in from quite afar.
Looking at the Lower Mainland (region around Vancouver, where I live), that seems kind of a huge percentage, considering we have some of the most fertile lands in Canada to grow food and longer growing season. Yet most of our food comes from California. I would recommend you to read this short article on the troubles brewing in California – and how it will affect the price of the food you eat – whether organic or not.
So what is one to do?
There are many solutions to this problem. But here are things any of you can do personally to help the environment, avert the food crisis and potentially save some serious money.
1) Grow a garden. If you own a house, you can set up a garden. It is really easy and you don’t need much space. I live in a strata type community and have very little land; yet by the end of this year I plan to grow at least half of my food. If you don’t own a house, you can get a community garden spot or at least grow veggies on a balcony. I have friends that also grow food out of their closet using ordinary CFL light bulbs and they swear by it! (Oh yeah and compost! It makes excellent fertilizer for your veggie garden)
2) For the more adventurous, you can build a ‘cold box’ – basically it’s like a green house, except it is not heated. The simplest design is a box on the ground with plastic or windows on top, slated at an angle. This allows you to extend the growing season dramatically. In many places in Lower Mainland, you can grow many vegetables in such cold houses YEAR ROUND!
3) Support and buy from your local farmer’s market. You keep our economy strong and buy produce from your local community.
Resources:
1) Community Gardens in Greater Vancouver: http://www.cityfarmer.org/vanccomgard83.html
2) List of farms and farmer’s markets in the Lower Mainland: http://www.eatlocal.org/
3) Cold Houses – Search online for ‘how to build cold house’ or ‘cold frame’ for many examples. Here’s one great example: http://www.instructables.com/id/Build_a_SeedHouseMiniGreenhouse/
Note: if you’re not from Vancouver, almost every major city in Canada or US has local farmer markets and community gardens. just search for them online
Contrary to many popular beliefs, taking care of a garden does not take much time. You may have to weed it once every 10 days or so and just make sure to water it. If you don’t like to, you don’t have to plant from seeds and instead buy ready grown plants from garden centres. Gardening is also relaxing and if you have children, it is a great idea to introduce them to it. It fosters in them a sense of responsibility and kids love gardening!
As a side note, the city of Vancouver is encouraging their residents – more then ever – to grow at least some of their food locally. The council has created a Green Action Team and the team has a mandate to make Vancouver the greenest city on Earth by 2020 – a lofty goal, to be sure, but achievable. They have a great document outlining their initiatives. Have a peek!
http://vancouver.ca/greenestcity/PDF/greenestcity-quickstart.pdf
If you have any questions, write back and comment – I love this topic and would gladly engage in a discussion. I look forward to learning from you too.
