Communities in Transition Information Resource: June 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Welcome to the JUNE 2010 postings from the Communities in Transition Information Resource

Summer's here...

Long days and warm nights. Good for growing food and enjoying the beauty of BC's rural landscapes.

Before you settle into the garden (or the garden chair), we hope you'll be inspired by some of the conversations about land use, conservation, and sustainability we've gathered in this posting of CITinfoResource.

The June 2010 Issue

Since our last editorial dispatch in mid-May we've posted a number of items that reflect some of what the Real Estate Foundation of BC does in non-metro BC communities. In her overview of the Organic Farming Institute of BC administrator Sarah Clark outlines how Foundation investments are translating into smarter, more sustainable agricultural practices in BC's Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys – and beyond. As this is being written, Tim Pringle is attending the Interface 2010 conference in Smithers. In our interview, Tim talks about what the conference is about and why it's important to non-metro communities.

Tim is also the co-author of George Penfold's latest post on creating more effective rural economic development in BC's regions. George also responds to Maureen LeBourdais' post on the BC Rural Summit, and comments on his joint post with Tim in this audio post.

A lot of what happens on the community side of the Foundation's investments have to do with sustainability. BC has a number of experts on sustainability – and a number of people who are still puzzling over what that means "on the ground." We recently interviewed Mark Holland and received a great – critical – response from Vancouver Island resident Charnal Macfie. In his most recent appearance at CITinfoResource Mark continues the dialogue. Gene Miller is another of the experts on sustainability we've had the pleasure to work with here at CITinfoResource. Gene's particular expertise is related to organizing one of the premiere sustainability conversations in Canada: the Gaining Ground Summit series, which the Real Estate Foundation of BC has helped to sponsor on a number of occasions. Our video interview with Gene looks at the 2009 Resilient Cities event, and forward to the upcoming October 2010 event in Vancouver. Finally, I weigh in with some thoughts on what Tim Pringle has described as the "rural/urban divide."

Coming soon...

CITinfoResource will host a number of posts over the summer, following up on themes we've presented during the year. We've got an interview with Kathy Bishop of Leadership BC's Central Vancouver Island chapter, talking about the June "Dialogue in Nanaimo" about water sustainability. We'll be posting about the environmental planning initiative coordinated by the South Okanagan-Similkameen Conservation Program. We're also going to be talking to Tim Pringle about the outcomes of the Smithers Interface 2010 conference. As you recline lakeside or gardenside during these summer months, take a moment to see what else is being posted about activities related to investments by the Real Estate Foundation of BC in non-metro BC communities!

Investment in community sustainability

The Real Estate Foundation of BC funds a wide range of land use related projects in non-metro BC communities. In 22+ years the Foundation has been involved in over 1500 projects across BC, with more than half of these outside the Lower Mainland and Victoria. CITinfoResource is one way that the Foundation is extending the reach of these projects, recirculating it through CITinfoResource via our blog, Facebook, and Twitter posts. You can also connect with the Foundation at its website and its new Facebook page.

Our goal at CITinfoResource is to "stimulate and support the conversation about land use, conversation, and sustainability amongst land-use practitioners in non-metro BC communities." Check us out. Use and circulate our resources and posts. Let us know if we're having an impact in your region or organization.

hanspetermeyer

Editor,

CITinfoResource

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©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2010. We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website for non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Rural/Urban Divide, Part 1

by hanspetermeyer

I write extensively about living in a small city in a rural context, particularly from a "sustainability" perspective. Every once in a while I'm reminded that what I see as a continuum – from deep rural to deep urban – is experienced by others as a great divide: the city on one side, the country on the other. An example is the exchange that took place in the "comments" section after a post by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland here at CITinfoResource.com

Does it have to be this way? And is the perception of a rural/urban divide standing in the way of the kinds of transformations we need to see, in both urban and rural landscapes and communities?

Two romances...
There is a romance to rurality. Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above. Give me a ride-on mower and chainsaw to manage it – and a four-wheel drive pickup to drive to town in. Above all, do not fence me in with the language of the town or the city or with pretty words about "protecting the environment" at the expense of my livelihood (and with it, your urban standard of living, by the way).

On the urban side, the romance is about the pastoral idyll or untouched wilderness. All that open land and starry skies stuff is there to be enjoyed for its own sake – as an aesthetic respite from urban life, and as the source of ecological services (water, air) that make sustain our human settlements. I'll hug the trees – and protect the future of your kids and mine, rural and urban.

Romance and reality
These are generalizations. But the reality of living in rural BC does mean being close to the source of the province's historical wealth; it means living with logging, mining, the mess and dirt and smell of farming. But this dirt isn't a smudge on the rural romance; it's "honest dirt," the mess and muck of producing livelihoods for families and a high standard of living for the entire province, urban and rural.

As much as many of us are becoming aware of how destructive our rural resource extraction practices can be, our communities – including our urban communities – are still hugely dependent on them. As city dwellers, we still want our high standard of living; many of us also want to "protect" the beauty of the hinterland; and all of us have an interest in sustaining the natural systems that provide clean air, water, and mitigate the impact of climate change.

A shared – but complicated – romance?
In recent years I've seen some closing of the distance between the rural/urban divide. It's not that the romances have changed; it may be that a new romance is emerging, one built on food.

Urban dwellers have complained about the completely natural odour of their agricultural neighbours at times. But I've noticed a sea-change in how people look at even this issue, at least in my region. Nowadays there is a certain cachet in being reminded of food production in the neighbourhood. I think it has to do with the new "foodism" – a combination of concerns about "food security," "food sustainability," health, and gourmandism.

George Penfold has much to say about our recent interest in food. He's been a farmer, and he's widely esteemed as an academic and professional involved in rural and agricultural land use issues across the country. He's written for CITinfoResource on these topics, in May of this year and in September 2009. What he says isn't always that easy to stomach for someone, like me, who grew up in a rural context, worked on farms, but is now loving and living a much more urban foodie life.

George's comments are echoed by people like Gary Rolston, an agricultural consultant on Vancouver Island. I interviewed Gary in 2009 about "food sustainability and the Comox Valley." Our region is one of two major agricultural centres on the Island. But Gary suggested that our recent ag renaissance is a bit shakey. For one thing, locals who say we support increased local food production are, by and large, entirely unaware of what this will mean for demand on our already taxed water resources. We also have an over-developed imagination when it comes to how much food can be realistically produced. And, as George's comments on "food self-reliance" make clear, we will always be trading for many staples – unless we dramatically change our eating habits (dried fish and salal berries anyone?).

George identifies several forces at play here: continued high dependence on food production that is subsidized by (short term cheap) fossil fuels (and mechanization and transport), (short term) cheap access to land and water, a romantic and boutique approach to food purchasing, a standard of living that supports the latter and is built on the former. The forces are at play; they may soon - as with Gary's water issue - be in conflict.

An urban/rural rapprochement based on food is, then, not without it's problems. It's a good thing to support our farmers' markets and local food producers; but this really doesn't get to the heart of what ails our agricultural economy. And as George and Gary's insights suggest, a lot of our new-found urban foodism is a cleansed urban romanticist version of what food production is really about.

Having said all of that, I still believe that our faddist foodism is a potential bridge between urban and rural ways of looking at the land and our communities. Contact with food producers is opening our eyes somewhat to the messiness of production and rural life. There is an exoticism to this of course, but even as exoticism, it means we may be starting to appreciate the experience of rural food producers – and maybe, through them, their experiences as loggers, miners, etc. In short, food becomes a doorway to an interested rural/urban conversation, something that wasn't there a generation ago.

Getting visible
The rural/urban divide is a problem of conflicting romantic stories about what "rural" means. It's also a problem of invisibility. Our busy and self-contained urban lives don't have much of a view of the rural areas on which we depend for food, fresh water, our ecological systems of support, not to mention the resource industries that support us financially. Typically, our trips into rural areas are about recreational or spiritual retreat: we want and see only the pastoral idyll that gives nourishment; we ignore or reject the messiness.

People from outside the city are often also afflicted with a blindness – not to urban ugliness, but to the many good things that cities and urban neighbourhoods have to teach us about living together and about sustainability. Our shared romance with food (on both the consumption and production sides) is creating an opportunity to actually see a richer, more complicated relationship between urban and rural realities. If we're serious about the future of our communities – urban and rural – we need to be looking for this richness in each other's realities and in each other's romances.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Organic Farming Institute of BC

The Organic Farming Institute of BC: an investment in land and community

by Sarah Clark

Organic farming practices based on biodiversity, sustainability, and conservation-oriented land use practices have a long history in the Similkameen Valley, stretching back to the 1960s. Twenty years later, in 1986, the Similkameen-Okanagan Organic Producers Association (SOOPA) began certifying farms to organic standards. Since then, South Okanagan-Similkameen growers have been leaders, in BC and beyond, in the advancement of organic principles and in recognition of the values of land conservancy. Currently, the Okanagan-Similkameen region is home to 20% of the certified organic enterprises in BC, with 40% of the farms in the region certified organic. The region also boasts the “Organic Farming Capital of Canada” in the community of Cawston.

In 2003 the extensive knowledge and experience of organic farmers in the region was identified as an opportunity to advance organic farming beyond the practices of individual farmers and the region. The vision was to develop an institute through which the region's knowledge could be shared.

What is the Organic Farming Institute of BC?
The Organic Farming Institute of BC (OFIBC) was launched in 2005. A founding board of regional representatives, including organic farmers worked with the Regional District of Similkameen-Okanagan's economic development function to develop a business plan and solidify a mission to support the vision for the institute. The mission: to share the collective organic farming knowledge through on line courses and field training to expand and improve the use of organic food production methods.

Organic farming is based on a number of principles that revolve around producing food in a manner that minimizes the impact of agriculture on the environment. Organic methods include:

reducing pollution and soil degradation;
recycling and using renewable resources where possible;
and using methods that promote and maintain the health of soil, plants, animals whilst optimizing productivity.

Maintaining biological diversity is also a key tenet of organic farming.

Organic farming practices take a long-term approach to using the land base. It recognizes and balances two factors:

the value of the land as a finite resource,
the need for food production and the impact of farming on the environment.

Soil health
Soil health is one of the fundamental factors in a healthy and sustainable ecosystem; it is also a foundation of organic farming, and hence a primary focus for the Organic Farming Institute of BC. Through support from the Real Estate Foundation of BC (financial and consultative), the OFIBC developed the first three courses concentrating on organic soil management. A $35,500 grant from the Real Estate Foundation of BC in 2006 helped OFIBC develop is current soil health curriculum.

Good management practices ensure the soil can provide a full range of functions, such as nutrient cycling, and have the ability to maintain this capacity into the future (i.e. sustainability). When considered from a land use perspective, soil health is a necessity to enable farming operations to function effectively long term, to continue to be productive and profitable for farmers and minimize negative off farm impacts.

The interrelationships between farming operations, well-being of local communities, and the ecology of a region are complex. There are often multiple relationships and steps between cause and effect. Focusing on the health of the soil is a point of leverage, which can have a positive influence on these interrelationships and their effects. Reduced off-farm costs, lessening of negative impact through runoff and erosion control, and improved viability of farming operations and rural communities are some of the short and long term benefits as a result of improving soil health.

Training at OFIBC

Farmers are a pragmatic lot. During the development of the OFIBC soil courses we recognized that it was very important for the Institute to develop courses that were practical in nature. Online courses had to have an interactive, practical element to hold our target audience. This became the focus for OFIBC work made possible through Real Estate Foundation of BC funding. Using video, narrated presentations, interactive quizzes and games, in addition to readings and assignments, the students actively participate in the learning process, making it more useful and effective in the practical lives of farmers. To further support online learning, the Organic Farming Institute developed a field-training course that reinforces online knowledge through learning-by-doing. The field-training, while accessible to new or prospective farmers, is also aimed at those already actively farming with knowledge in the subject matter.

Generous support from the Real Estate Foundation of BC has enabled the OFIBC to develop its first three courses and open its doors to students in the summer of 2009. Since that time, students from across BC and one from Chile have studied with the OFIBC. In May 2010 OFIBC Certificates for ORG 101 Introduction to Organic Soil Management and Nutrient Cycles were personally awarded to two local Okanagan students on completion of their first courses at OFIBC. To date the OFIBC has awarded 10 certificates of completion to students.

Interested in studying at OFIBC?
We welcome students from around the world. Currently OFIBC offers three core courses:

ORG 101 – Introduction to Organic Soil Management and Nutrient cycles
ORG 102 – Organic Soil Management Practices and Transitioning to organics
ORG 101F – Organic Soil Management Field Training (weekend course)

Courses are open for registration on a monthly basis. For more information, please contact the Organic Farming Institute of BC at www.ofibc.org or call 250 938-7634. We are based in Keremos in the South Okanagan.

The support of the Real Estate Foundation of BC has been very important to the development of OFIBC and our goals of advancing the practices of organic farming. We believe this approach to agriculture is a sustainable form of land use. By promoting biodiversity on the farm and reducing negative off-farm effects it contributes to the health of rural communities and supports conservation activities.

About the author...
Sarah Clark (BSc, Botany and Microbiology) is the administrator for the Organic Farming Institute of BC (and the Certified Organic Associations of BC.). Her involvement in the organic agriculture sector is relatively recent but she has been involved in agriculture and environmental issues for many years, with periods of work in the wine industry in Australia and Canada and in quality management. The need for quality practical training options aimed at expanding organic food production is what drew Sarah to the OFIBC.

©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2010. We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Tim Pringle talks about the Interface 2010 conference in Smithers, BC

Tim Pringle is Director of Special Programs at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. He talks to CITinfoResource editor hanspetermeyer about the upcoming June 16-18, 2010 Planning for the Crown-Settlement Interface Lands conference in Smithers, BC.

Tim's focus in this conversation is on hedonic pricing of lands and real estate in rural communities. He emphasizes the importance of communities understanding their values and values-based planning as part of the strategy to deal with Crown-Settlement interface issues.

CITinfoResource is an initiative of the Real Estate Foundation of BC with a purpose of supporting and stimulating the conversation about land use, development, and conservation in non-metro BC communities. For more information visit our blog at CITinfoResource.com.

Monday, June 7, 2010

George Penfold talks to CITinfoResource about Rural Development in BC

George Penfold is Regional Innovation Chair in Community Economic Development at Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC. CITinfoResource's hanspetermeyer talks to George about his recent post (written with Tim Pringle of the Real Estate Foundation of BC) for CITinfoResource.

This is part of an ongoing conversation about the future of rural communities in BC at CITinfoResource. George's research and work takes him across the province, and he is a frequent contributor to our work on non-metro BC communities here at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Most recently, George was in Port Hardy for the bi-annual meeting of the BC Rural Network. CITinfoResource interviewed Maureen LeBourdais of the Fraser Basin Council about the Summit in May.

The RIC at Selkirk College is one of several in the province that have received significan endowments from the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Others include the Chair in Cattle Industry Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University (see our interviews with Dr. John Church and Associate VP Nancy Van Wagoner) and the Regional Innovation Chair in Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development at Vancouver Island University (see the article by Dr. Nicole Vaugeois here). Dr. Vaugeois also posts to her Rural Tourism Development Blog, and more information about her project is available at the Tourism Research Innovation Project website.