We invite you to propose your own "guest column" with CITinfoResource. Currently we are hosting a discussion about food and sustainability.
Food production, access to affordable and arable land for food production – these are only part of a successful strategy for community sustainability. In our last CITinfoResource post we featured a guest column by George Penfold, BC's Community Economic Development Regional Innovation Chair at Selkirk College. There is currently great passion for local food self-sufficiency. George posed some sobering questions about our willingness, even our capacity, to seriously live out this passion. He suggested that there are significant choices facing us as consumers of food-stuffs and as local decision-makers if we are serious about developing locally self-reliant food systems.
The following article by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland adds another challenge – and opportunity – by suggesting some of what urban areas – even small urban areas, including the many small cities and towns of BC's non-metro regions – can do to support existing local food production. We hope encourage you, both as readers of CITinfoResource and as consumers of food-stuffs, to chime in with your own experiences of supporting or working with the food systems in your communities.
Beyond urban agriculture and farm land preservation
by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland
Food and agriculture have finally caught the attention of the planning and other professions – perhaps for the first time in modern history. At least that's what the 2009 summer issue of Plan Canada (Vol 49: No. 2) suggests.
This is a good thing. It shows that, as a profession, we are in a receptive mode, constantly learning how to balance the tools we have right now with the need to develop new ways to think about problems and their solutions. For example, urban agriculture and the protection of farmland are priority issues; but other opportunities and approaches are beginning to present themselves, and we must be quick to add them to the "food planning toolbox."
A comprehensive approach
The strategies for creating sustainable food systems in a city must take a comprehensive approach and consider the full range of elements of a food system – not just the current favourites like urban agriculture (eg: community gardens). Improving the food system has values beyond the production of food. We suggest that such improvement begins to give food the power to be an economic driver, a potent community building agent, and a key opportunity to decrease energy demands.
In order to capture these benefits, sustainability in food and agriculture must be approached with a systems perspective. This includes: addressing food processing, packaging, distribution, wholesaling, retailing, restaurants, procurement, education, culture, and food security. Easily 75% of the economic value and climate emissions associated with food come after its agricultural production. If we, as planners, fail to invest as much of our time looking at these other aspects of the food system as we spend on local food production and farmers markets, then we miss the biggest opportunity of all.
Agricultural Urbanism
A movement called Agricultural Urbanism is emerging based on planning cities and neighbourhoods around sustainable food systems. At it's outset, 10 principles have been identified for this movement:
- Address the whole food system – Promote the greatest range possible of the elements of the food system in community planning and design;
- Foreground the food experience – Make food visible and enhance the experience of the greatest possible range of the food system in the city;
- Build the local and regional food economy – Build this food economy through land use planning, education, economic development, and cultural enhancement and celebration;
- Provide access to food – Provide access for all everywhere, including food stores, restaurants, food banks and others;
- Promote education on food – Embed food education in every aspect of urban life, both formally in the school system, and informally through wherever people access food;
- Integrate sustainable food into institutions – Integration into all levels of government policy, programs, and institutional mandates;
- Address food for other species – Incorporate urban habitat into all food production areas wherever possible to maintain a healthy ecosystem;
- Waste no food – Support and develop the infrastructure and organizations to recover food that might be unnecessarily wasted from wholesalers, retailers, restaurants, and others and channel this food both to the poor and to composting and nutrient recovery programs;
- Organize for food – Develop strong partnerships, stewardship groups, collaboration, and overall social capital to support a sustainable urban and regional food system;
- Develop sustainable infrastructure amongst food systems – Develop innovative energy, water, wastewater, and solid waste management infrastructure and systems integrated with urban food systems.
When considered in the context of a food system, these 10 principles have many applications, with elements spread across an entire region. However, a concept is emerging in urban planning around creating special places in cities that are dedicated to sustainable food – food hubs and precincts.
Food hubs and precincts are a tangible way to address multiple food system elements and improve food system sustainability in a community. Increasingly, local governments and members of the development community are seeing great potential in food hubs and precincts. This is driving planners and designers to create new methods and techniques to implement food-inclusive or food-focused visions of vibrant cities – in a context where food has become an uninvited guest in city building practice.
What are food hubs and precincts?
Food hubs and precincts are centrally-located facilities that bring together the full spectrum of land uses and programs to support sustainable urban and regional food systems. These have largely been part of the urban fabric in cities and larger metropolitan areas. However, this concept may be appropriately scaled for the neighbourhood and/or town size. For instance, in any food hub or precinct, storage and processing space would need to be built to meet the needs and demands of the local agriculture, resident, and food industry needs. The fundamental characteristics of a food precinct include:
- Commercial storage and processing facilities for local farm products;
- A centralized distribution hub where multiple farmers may combine and distribute their goods. Among other benefits, this enables wholesale purchasers to obtain the quality and quantity of local foods necessary for restaurant operations and institutional procurement;
- A permanent farmers' market where retail and direct marketing of locally farmed products may be sold;
- Office space for non-profit organizations and small businesses associated with the local food and agriculture program of the precinct;
- Visible community kitchens, labs, and community education areas for facilitating seminars on how to grow, process, prepare, and maximize fresh, healthy local food experiences;
- Café and/or restaurants that have locally sourced menus and provide a social environment for people to gather and enjoy delicious foods, generating community vibrance;
- Community event areas that provide space for celebrations and special event around food and agriculture;
- Authentic architectural and landscape character where buildings, public realm, and landscape visibly demonstrate elements of each community associated with the precinct uses;
- Residential features in areas where a neighborhood food precinct has been built into new development;
- Food recovery and waste collection.
Benefits of food hubs/precincts
Food precincts are a central element of complete, resilient, and vibrant communities. Through establishing the necessary infrastructure and programs the food precinct/hub enables communities to connect not only to purchasing and experiencing local food, but also to learning how to grow, preserve, and prepare foods. Benefits of the food precinct and hub include:
- Re-centre food in our lives through increasing active participation in the food system;
- Contribute to a more resilient food economy through strengthening city-to-farm and farm-to-city linkages;
- Serve as a resource centre for a wide range of community activities that develop and reinforce the role that local food plays in every aspect of our city life and culture;
- Increasing capacity in essential food and agriculture infrastructure, such as processing and sales capacity to the small to medium farm economy;
- Centralized distribution point(s) that enable purchasing by wholesalers, grocery stores, and restaurants from multiple farms and producers;
- Community, professional, and academic learning opportunities around food and sustainability; and
- A conscious planning and design approach to sustainable food cities.
Launching the New City Market, A Food Hub for Vancouver
In some cities, like Montreal and Halifax for example, food hubs and precincts are an important characteristic of the city fabric. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver, food hubs and precincts are just emerging as part of the urban scene. The Stop in Toronto is a new facility that provides a permanent home for farmers' markets and offers a full suite of education opportunities around growing and preparing foods for people of all ages and backgrounds. While city markets have historically been part of Vancouver and present day examples such as Granville Island offer much in the way of learning what works, a new vision for a food hub is emerging and generating a lot of excitement. Building on successful Canadian models like the Stop in Toronto, community champions are gearing-up for an all-in effort to vision, plan, and establish the New City Market, a food hub for Vancouver.
About the authors:
Janine de la Salle is Director of Food Systems Planning with HB Lanarc Consultants Ltd. in Vancouver/Nanaimo. Janine recently developed a plan for an urban-farm park and a guide that will connect local farmers to schools. 
Mark Holland is a Principal with HBLanarc. He is a LEED™-accredited planner who holds professional degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Community and Regional Planning. He recently authored and delivered the "Resilient Cities Manifesto" at the October 2009 Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities summit.
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An additional principle that I think is absolutely necessary to raise if we are really serious about local food is eating lower energy, and thus reducing our current dependence on grain. The impact on land and water demand would be huge if we cut meat/eggs/dairy by say 50%. Of course we would have to deal with economic transition in those parts of the agricultural system, although we could probably retain most of what we have in BC as we are net importers of those items.
ReplyDeleteHas the issue of access to agricultural nutrients (phosphate/potash/nitrogen) and micro nutrients come up in the discussion to date?
George Penfold
In response to George and the article, I would echo the concern about nutrients getting recycled properly and not become "lost" to our our soil-plant-humanbody cycle. Which brngs me to sewage of course! (See dry toilets, solar aquaculture and constructed reedbeds for example. Look for the Van. Island tour of such systems in January on the Smart Planning for Communities website) Some simple ideas should be followed up on, such as city folks returning compost materials to their farmers' markets so there can be some return of nutrients to the soil, and via what are now empty trucks returning to farms.
ReplyDeleteUrban agriculture is much more than community gardens. The systems approach is necessary in the design of an urban food production and distribution network and the characteristics helpful entry points into the design process. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent scan of issues and potential actions for local government and citizen groups.
ReplyDeleteLocal governments can do a great deal more in thier planning for use and conservation of land (Principle #3)to include and advance strategies for food production, marketing, small business developemnt, etc. (security). Better policy concepts and statements for inclusion in official plans is needed.
T. Pringle
Oh where do I start?...Nice to see all the little urban yuppie latte swilling do gooders starting to stick their noses into the rural arena. Just remember we all have guns and say hee haw alot. But seriously, while strongly apparent that the authors of such document consider it worthy and I do suspect that if they concentrate solely on the distribution and community side of things regarding simply the urban part, their suggestions can come true. However when I read the IDIOT, that's right IDIOT who speaks of lowering our dependency on grain, I doth protest. When did British Columbians become net importers of Meat/Eggs/Dairy? Not in any century I've occupied, and oh yeah """"Of course we would have to deal with economic transition in those parts of the agricultural system"""" was this persons quote....hmmm what does this person do for a living? Maybe we should find out and see if we can transition their job....what do you think? I am wondering whether they have ever heard of a bank, and mortgages and generations of experience. What the hell do you urban morons think,... that the knowledge farmers have was just gained overnight because they decided to start farming? Oh sorry I forgot, there is actually a couple up here in our parts who came from Victoria...well really they lied and said that because they didnt want the rest of the farm community to think they were actually from Vancouver...like it's such a bad thing anyway...we all come from somewhere...anyhow they came up here two years ago and figured if a bunch of "hicks" and "country bumpkins" could farm...surely they could do it. Besides the fact a number of farmers have helped them try not to kill off too many cattle accidentally from all of the various things that can happen, they have also discovered they are allergic to almost everything alive on the farm they own, and are failing miserably as they go out of business from sticking to their understanding of farming{from a book}. I give them a couple more years until the bright lights and big city pull them back. The point is people, the wealth of knowledge and generative spirit of the agriculture community in the rural areas is one that is always in transition but it is in the use of decades of experience and family strength that keep it continuous. For someone to literally write publicly the diatribe about "we" being the operative "have to change" word is sickening and only goes further to the absolutely black and white divide that exists between rural and urban living people. Oh and I wonder how long til the neighbours in Shaughnessey complain about the pig manure you will want to spread down at the Shannon estate, in the newly co-op'ed "urban farm"?
ReplyDeleteWading through unnecessarily vitrolic nature of the above posting, I think the issue of the urban/rural culture is interesting. While some may feel farmers are "bumpkins" I don't think that most educated "latte swilling urban foodies" actually do think that. Any scoping of any current writing or conversations will indicate that actually they think the opposite. Where farmers and chefs used to be seen as marginal, they are now the new celebrities.
ReplyDeleteI grew up on a farm, we grew almost all we ate, and I spent my youth working on hog/dairy/chicken and hay farms. My extended family are ranchers and I have no idealism about the lifestyle choice and economic sacrifices involved in being a farmer. I am now an urbanite but having lived in both worlds, I find the antagonism bizarre. Farmers rely on urbanites as their market. Urbanites rely on farmers for their food. Farmers rely on cities for almost all the goods and services their families and businesses need. Urbanites enjoy the open spaces of farmland.
I am intrigued at the fear and contempt that the above writer's comments embody as one who is a rural resident looking at the rather progressive agenda of food that this Blog, its articles and related work speak to. If he means to presume that no urbanite has the right to engage farming and food in thinking, discussion and strategy then he has not thought that through very far. If he wants urbanites to worship the manure on his rubberboats just because he has a barnyard and along driveway... then that makes no sense either. Farming makes no one a saint, anymore than living in a town makes anyone a devil - and it also means little in terms of knowledge of the food industry.
I think the fear, ignorance and walls between the rural and urban are frankly a good deal of the problem. It is urban growth that damages rural integrity - and as such, rural residents need to engage community / urban planning proceses. Likewise, for urban residents to respect rural / farming / food industry issues, they need to learn about them, experience them and come to have that respect.
Commentary in the previous post actually works against farmers (as from work in the Valley over the past year I think I kmy now who posted this) by embodying the worst of the outdated ingorant stereotypes.
Farmers don't have to like urban yuppies, but a clear understanding that most yuppies have a growing respect for farmers and are willing to pay 2x supermarket prices for good, healthy goods from the farm, should be seen by any smart farmer as a big opportunity. To not see this is just bad business (not an urban/rural difference).