As traditional agriculture producers struggle with unfavourable environmental and market conditions, city dwellers are finding innovative ways to use their own green thumbs.
“The urban food revolution is long overdue and it’s underway,” Peter Ladner, author of The Urban Food Revolution, Changing the Way We Feed Cities, said to an audience at Kelowna’s Fresh Look Foundation’s, Sustainable Communities conference.
“Pressures on traditional agriculture are getting into the minds of urban people…and it’s (triggering) a survival instinct.”
Most may not be able to wrap their heads around the idea of global warming, he explained, but they can wrap their heads around what they’ll eat that night. And it seems more people are choosing to eat out of their own backyard, or as close to it as they can get, if possible.
In turn, that grassroots movement is influencing others.
“People are more curious about where their food is coming from and it’s catching on politically,” he said, noting that city halls in Vancouver and San Francisco have community gardens on site, aimed at setting the tone for the community they’re in.
Ladner, a former Vancouver city councillor and member of the Vancouver Food Policy Council, initiated that city’s program to add 2,010 food-producing community garden plots by 2010.
It’s been a successful endeavour and paved the way for his book, which argues bringing food production into the city is a means of going beyond filling bellies of foodies and making a political show.
It serves the larger social purpose of making people healthier, alleviating poverty, creating jobs and making cities safer and more beautiful.
“Better eating equals lower health care costs,” he said. “And community farming puts more eyes and ears on the street, making for safer streets.”
That claim is backed up by the simple fact that even in the worst parts of Vancouver, police calls, drug use and violence has all gone down when healthy sources of food have been provided.
“It’s a crime reduction strategy,” Ladner said.
To learn more about Ladner, go to urbanfoodrevolution.wordpress.com.