Archive for November, 2007
Community, Growers and Farmgate Sales, Local
Carrots From Concrete
Where our food is grown is not an esoteric debate. It has real implications for all of us–rural dwellers, city folk and everyone in-between.
Most of us do not grow our own food. We do not keep urban gardens, nor do we have community gardens or community-supported agriculture (CSAs), where a number of families buy shares in a farmer’s yield.
Even though we don’t grow it ourselves, it is surprisingly easy to ignore the question of where our food comes from. It is easy, in the face of our global market—pineapples from Brazil, soybeans from China, salad from California, cherries from Chile. But what will happen when that global garden’s gate swings shut, by any of a number of man-made or natural disasters? War. The end of cheap oil. Earthquake. Pandemic. Floods or famine.
Data released in the May 2006 Canadian census shows that nearly 2,500,000 Albertans– 73 percent of the province’s population– live in the “Calgary-Edmonton Corridor”, the 400-kilometer band of land that connects the two cities, including the cities of Airdrie, Wetaskiwin, Red Deer and Leduc, and the small towns along the way. Eighty-one percent of Albertans are urban residents; 71,660 of the province’s population are farmers.
In the ten-year span from 1996 to 2006, the number of Albertan farms decreased by 9,576. We are surrounded by lost farmland.
Calgary’s arms have embraced much of the rich land around the city. Drive west, and observe Springbank’s remaining farms stitched side-by-side to suburban sprawls. Bearspaw’s high-bluff view of the big bend in the river—formerly a rural sight– is hemmed in by houses. Cochrane and Okotoks are minutes from Calgary city limits.
The racetrack and mall development in Balzac have buckled up the narrowing agricultural belt between Calgary and Airdrie. The annexation of Airdrie may not be far behind; the Calgary Airport Authority already operates the Airdrie Airport.
Farther north, farmland has been annexed by the town of Innisfail for residential development immediately north of the town’s existing border.
The corridor along the QE2 highway will eventually be a mass of residents, with accompanying high-speed rail and electrical transmission lines. The drive north may eventually happen without the chance to view a single piece of open arable land under cultivation.
It was painter Paul Cezanne who wrote, “The day is coming, when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.”
Gert and Betty Lund’s organic carrots are a mainstay in my home, as in many other Albertan homes. My dog loves those crunchy sweet carrots, and so do my sons and I. The Lunds, who farm just north of Innisfail’s town border, are pioneer organic growers in the province; their first farm in the Knee Hill Valley, 20 kilometers east of Innisfail, was certified in 1984, and they moved to their current 60-acre farm in 1992.
The Lunds moved for easier access to the highway that is the artery of Alberta, and onto a larger plot of land. Their land is part of ten quarter-sections of land (1600 acres, or 3953 hectares) north and west of town that has been recently annexed by the town of Innisfail for development.
Because of the annexation, Lund expects his taxes to increase without any increase in services. The Lunds have not decided on a course of action. “Stand in the way of progress? You’ll get run over. But if I was 20 years younger, I’d get a shark lawyer with big teeth,” he says. At age 55, Lund says he is too old to start again, and he doesn’t know of any certified-organic land available in the vicinity. “All the little towns in central Alberta are expanding,” he observes, adding that it takes three years to transition conventional land to organic production, plus another five years to realistically learn a patch’s proclivities and nudge it into optimal production.
Dale Mather, Innisfail’s chief administrative officer since 1986, says that farmers like Lund are free to sell or continue farming their land until development begins, which may be in five years or forty.
The town of Innisfail has a current population of 7,700, including town councillor Jason Heistad, his wife and their three young daughters. “We don’t want to be like the lower mainland of British Columbia,” Heistad says. “I am sure they didn’t think that all that farmland in the Fraser Valley would be eaten up by paving, it is some of the best farmland in the country.” Heistad expects growth– for Innisfail and along the entire corridor. The town is aware of the concerns of farmers and is addressing them, he says, but adds that growth is “a no-brainer.” And perhaps it is. Except for the small wrinkle of farmland converted from carrots to concrete.
Events, Global
Slow Food Nation
The inaugural Slow Food Nation festival will take place in San Francisco on Labor Day weekend, 2008. The date is changed in response to input from farmers who were eager to show their produce at its peak in late summer, as well as new opportunities to use some of San Francisco’s most emblematic public spaces. Slow Food Nation is happy to announce its partnership with both the City of San Francisco and Fort Mason Center. The use of these spaces has been made possible by the generous support of the City of San Francisco and the Fort Mason Foundation.
Continue reading this article …