Food Knowledge

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This page is part of the Knowledge Base and is an integral part of the Food Working Group

Food!
Food!

Contents

[edit] Framing the Problem

If you go into a grocery store, you will see aisles of endless varieties of fruits and vegetables: British Columbian apples, Mexican tomatoes, bananas from El Salvador, and kiwis from New Zealand. Every day our stomachs are filled with exotic and mundane foods from all corners of the earth. We are so distanced from the sources of our food and the people who produce it that many children can no longer explain how a carrot is grown, let alone conceptualize how far it has travelled to their lunch boxes. This has serious ramifications for the long-term health of our bodies, our communities, and our planet.

A great article placing our food system in the broader context is by David Waltner-Tows and Tim Lang: “A new conceptual base for food and agricultural policy: the emerging model of links between agriculture, food, health, environment and society.” You can find it through google scholar with UVic article access.

Healthy Bodies

It is a biological reality that the longer food is transported, the less nutritious it becomes. This means that while global agricultural trade makes it possible for us to pay less for apples from New Zealand than from our own region, we get what we pay for. Our food is less nutritious and less healthy for our bodies.

  • "Unhappy Meals", the readers most e-mailed article in the New York Times for almost a week, goes in depth into the strangely unhealthy world of industrial "nutrition."

Healthy Ecosystems

The transportation of food from one corner of the globe to another is an often neglected and significant contributor to climate change. To calculate how the environmental impact of your food choices, check out the Lifecycles Food Miles Calculator: http://www.lifecyclesproject.ca/initiatives/food_miles/.

Healthy Communities

We are increasingly distanced both geographically and psychologically from the sources of our food. This distancing creates food insecurity for those in both the producing and consuming communities, as social and environmental damage become “externalities.” That is, waste production, ecosystem degradation from industrial farming processes and transportation, and poorly waged, unsafe jobs, are not included in the global accounting of food production. These exploited people and ecosystems are hidden from view, leaving us to consume their products in blissful ignorance, until the environmental repercussions become so severe that they impact our supply.

More Resources on Food and Climate Change

  • Livestock's Long Shadow is a recent report that presents a strong indictment of the impact of livestock on the climate. This report was produced by the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the European Union, the World Bank and others governmental agencies. (There's a good executive summary on page 22).

[edit] Possible Solutions

From short-term to long-term self-interest

The solutions to the problems surrounding food and climate change go far beyond the basic level of transportation = emissions. While this basic equation is important, many different solutions are needed to address the greater problems surrounding our unsustainable ways of feeding ourselves. One key problem is our disconnection from the people and places that produce our food, because this disconnection enables large-scale ecological and social exploitation.

One possible solution to the problems resulting from our disconnected food systems is a shift from short-term to long-term self-interest. For example, instead of buying the cheapest and most convenient food, we must stop to consider the long-term effects of those purchasing choices. Instead of relying on imported food for our sustenance, we will learn how to garden and teach our children the skills they need to feed themselves. This shift means recognizing that it is in our own self-interest to fight for more local and equitable food systems. It means recognizing that we must reconnect to the people and places that we depend upon for sustenance in order to ensure our long-term survival and the survival of our planet.

Long-Term Self-Interest in Structural Change

However, while individual value change is important, to be effective, it must be coupled with larger institutional changes. There are a wide range of initiatives at the institutional and government level that are needed to transform our relationship to food. For example, changing the purchasing policies of an institution's cafeteria, improving the land use policies of a municipality to prevent suburban sprawl, and creating micro-financing for urban garden projects are just such initiatives. (For information on some examples from American Universities see Farm to College Website)

Because individuals are agents in structures, their value changes shape the structures (e.g. creating better land use policies in municipalities). Conversely, the policies and practices of institutions shape the individuals (e.g. credible certification systems encouraging better purchasing decisions.)

[edit] Program for Action

Food is a very concrete way of dealing with overwhelming problems like climate change. One carrot grown is one less carrot transported across the country. One local beet bought is one local farmer supported. One meal shared is one connection formed.

Here are some of the initial ways in which we can use food to begin to go beyond climate neutral:

Buy Local

  • Buy directly from local farmers (farm markets or directly on farm: check this directory)
  • Support stores that carry local food. If they don't carry some, ask that they do!
  • Shop or volunteer at the UVic Sustainability Project’s weekly Pocket Market – Thursdays, 2:30-5:30pm in the Student Union Building.
  • Check out local farm markets, they are great fun!
The Pocket Market in action! (Note the variety available on March 7th)
The Pocket Market in action! (Note the variety available on March 7th)

Buy Seasonal

Grow your own organic food (or buy it!)

Volunteer for some of the great local organizations working on food

Celebrate

  • Share food with friends, family or strangers
  • Dine at a Sustainable Feast or host your own 100 mile/sustainable feast!

[edit] Resources

General

  • Michael Pollan [1], an activist for local food and an incredible writer on food security issues, has produced a short document on how to eat sustainably [2].
  • Check out Deconstructing Dinner, a radio show about current food issues. You can listen to this Kootenay Co-op Radio show online or live on CFUV every Wednesday from 2-3pm.
  • Eat BC! is a initiative to get more restaurants and universities eating BC products. It runs Sept 16 - 30 2007.

Urban Agriculture

Edible Landscaping

CJVI Lands

Local Food Purchasing

  • CR-FAIR (Capital Region Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable) and the CRD Roundtable on the Environment Healthy Communities Sub-Committee Working Group on Institutional Food Procurement - More info here
  • Farm to College is a great resource to find out more about local food purchasing in post-secondary institutions across North America (with a focus on the US).
  • Sustainable SFU's Local Foods Project at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver
  • Harvard University Dining Services has a great Food Literacy Projectin Boston
  • The Yale Sustainable Food Project integrates university classes with local food purchasing and popular education.

Cooperative Local Food Purchasing

  • The Good Food Box is a program run in communities across Canada where a central organisation buys wholesale local organic food and divides it into boxes for delivery to individual consumers (via a central pick-up point or to their homes).
  • The Centre for Women and Trans People at the University of Toronto also has a Good Food Box Program.
  • Le Frigo Vert is a cooperative health food store at Concordia University in Montreal that is funded by a student levy. That means all undergraduate students at Concordia pay a small fee that is included in their student fees that makes them all members of Le Frigo Vert coop.
  • Sprouts Natural Food Coop in the SUB at UBC is another campus consumer coop providing produce from the UBC Farm as well as other organic and fair trade products.
  • Amaranth was an organic dry goods buying group and store promoting organic foods that was run out of VIPIRG (the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group) in the SUB from 1995-2002. Has the time come for something like this to flourish again at UVic?

Community Supported Agriculture

Deconstructing Dinner radio show has a podcast explaining how community supported agriculture functions. The most local one going is in Duncan at Alderlea farm (johnkaty(at)shaw.ca). Other B.C. CSAs include:

Reports

  • Edible Strategies Enterprises is a small consulting group working with partners to develop approaches to relocalize the food system. They offer a variety of services to enterprising non-profit organizations and co-operatives. They published the Contending with the Local Food Access Puzzle report which highlighted the access issues to local food here on the island. The also have a listing of other publications by their group.

Local Food Purchasing Policies

TILMA

Composting





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