Food 2030

The UK government recently unveiled Food 2030 – a food strategy designed to ensure that Britons have access to high quality, sustainably farmed/grown, food that benefits both the farmer/grower and the consumer. At the same time Food 2030 should ensure that people have good jobs, a reduction in greenhouse emissions and food waste.

Not bad for something that only went out for public consultation in August 2009! That’s right – the British government invited citizens and other stakeholders to comments from August till October 2009. It seems Defra took the results of the consultation away, compiled the strategy and released it last week to the masses. The 24 page strategy summary (PDF) goes over what the UK wants by 2030 (informed consumers making good choices, less impact on the environment, a secure food chain, etc), along with how the government proposes they get there. The BBC covered the announcement here.

Tomatoes by Ben

Overall, there isn’t much to gripe about. I’m sure that some folks won’t like the mention of research and science helping to produce crops that require less water, fertilizer and chemicals but the reality is that high yield crops are a must if we are to food a growing population. Earth will hit 7 billion before we know it and we all have a responsibility to make sure those folks get the nutrition they need.

It would be great to see the Canadian government be so forward thinking. Just one year after massive drought caused food prices to skyrocket (more so than they did here) and caused riots, the UK has taken the initiative to put together a plan that will encourage citizens to take more responsibility for themselves. It’s especially encouraging that 3 major grocery stores only sell free-range eggs now – a move by Loblaws/Real Canadian Superstore or Metro like that would further sustainable food cycle efforts immensely!

Web Communities

Farmers and consumers alike are increasingly turning towards the Internet in order to identify where the nearest source of sustainably grown food can be found. Change.org identified 5 popular websites where people are connecting and I particularly like Local Harvest because it includes Canadian sources. If you’re a Canadian farmer producing organic, sustainable or low impact produce please add yourself to Local Harvest to make it easier for the rest of us to find you! Better yet, if you know of a good Canadian directory please leave me the link in a comment.

Vertical Gardens

There are many examples of people growing vertical/urban gardens. Again, Change.org has linked to several different ways you can setup your own urban/vertical garden, from thrifty to eco-chic. One of the greatest benefits I see from the vertical garden boom happening is a greater amount of plants taking carbon dioxide out of the air, a much cheaper way to grab fresh produce when you need it and also something nice to look at in your home. This is also a good way to use typically unused space in a home or apartment.

I hope that provides you with some food for thought – both literally and figuratively! While it’s becoming easier everyday to get your hands on food that was produced in a sustainable manner, it will still be some time before all the pieces of the puzzle come together. We can all chip in and help out though.

I will also mention that I’m going to be speaking to the folks over at Local Food Plus soon about their organization – how it works, how we can get it to expand beyond its current Toronto-centric focus, where they get their funding, etc. I hope it proves to be a mutually beneficial conversation!

Let’s start with a great example from Vancouver: The roof of the Vancouver Convention Centre has been turned into a green roof. What does that mean?

Well take a look at this article from Fast Company and then take a look at the Vancouver Convention Centre’s website – it’s quite the marvel to behold.  Not only are they decreasing their cooling costs by doing so, but look at some of these statistics from the Fast Company article:

The Vancouver building also has black water treatment systems and desalination machinery to water the plants, a heat pump that uses seawater, and cooling via radiant floor. The bottom line is a water-use reduction of 60% to 70% over similarly sized convention centers.

I know darn well the Thames River is filled with fresh water, and not saltwater, but surely taking some of these ideas (plus others in the same vein) and incorporating them into city-owned buildings here in London would benefit us and our environment in the long-term! In fact if we end up reducing the bill, maybe we can get a cut on our taxes?

The six-acre “living roof” atop the convention centre also recovers rainwater for irrigation thanks to the over 400,000 plants it houses, and the West Building expansion was built to LEED standards. And living/green roofs have been around in Europe for over 30 years – why are we often so slow to adapt things like this in North America?

Next up – solar power trash compactors. Boston began installing these almost 3 years ago and the press I read on the issue was largely positive.  Basically it’s a trash bin with a solar panel on top and a sensor activates the compacting functionality whenever necessary. They hold over 567 litres of trash and clearly need to be emptied less often. I’m certain the city of London (and all others) could still sell advertising on the sides as they do now.

Just a few of the BigBelly trash compactors would probably handle all of the needs the city of London’s public trash bins handle now, but I’m looking at the reduced manpower needed to empty them out. Another potential big money saver in the long run especially in places like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Plus the added capacity would certainly help eliminate the spillover that I so often see downtown in London and in Toronto – and that’d just plain disgusting.

It seems there are design issues that need to be addressed, according to some of the behaviours that Boston residents took to as opposed to opening the compactor’s door and depositing their no-longer-wanted/needed items, but I’m sure the manufacturer would be willing to hear some ideas in return for business.

Third – Find someone who can deliver smart grid technology. What’s smart grid technology? Click here to read up a bit on it. Basically what I would really like to see happen is smart meters on every house in London that can eliminate the need for manual reading (either by London Hydro or the homeowner). AT&T and SmartSynch are already delivering the functionality to a utility in Texas – why can’t we do it here?

The smart meters in that EcoGeek story enable a utility to remotely connect and disconnect the power when people move out/in of houses, immediately alert the utility of power outages and therefore allow London Hydro to deliver their services in a smarter way. Rogers, Bell and Telus all have robust enough networks to facilitate this or we could even build our own WiMAX network here – so why not?

Fourth – Free bus fares! I won’t go too much into this because Tyee Magazine has already done a 5-part series on the benefits and how to pay for it. It’s terrific – check it out.

Fifth – Open our data. Vancouver did it recently and I’m confident they can expect bountiful tools and revelations to come out of it. There’s something very freeing, both to the city and to its citizens, when data about the city is open to all.

And lastly I want to end off with some related articles. Fast Company announced their top 13 cities of 2009 – only 1 Canadian city made it on. Guess who? That’s right, it’s Vancouver. Is it any wonder why?

I really like this video about New Urbanism and urban planning. Please watch it.

And finally there’s on article by ComputerWorld on using technology to build “City 2.0” which basically takes in all of the initiatives I mentioned earlier into account and then some and how this will shape our cities going forward and why how technology can make our lives better.

Please comment – I’d love to hear your thoughts even if they contradict mine!

First off it’s worthy to note that Fast Company, a magazine & website all about business innovation, recently put up an article entitled the Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade. The very first job listed? Farmer. Why? Because the move to a sustainable food cycle invites urban/vertical farming to be a part of the solution. Translation – we’re not going to replace the farmers we currently have, we’re going to offset the lack of supply during non-growing months. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Indeed, it may be high time for a former client of mine to realize his dream of it “being a good time to be a farmer” fairly soon. And the message that Mark Bittman, cookbook author, journalist and TV personality, has been espousing recently just lends more credence to that.

Bittman, in his own TED Talk filmed back in December 2007 but not made available on TED’s website until May 2008, talks about the rise of meat in our diet in the last 100 years or so. If all of his stats are anywhere close to correct, it’s a little staggering! Bittman, like myself, thinks that less meat is a part of the solution. Not THE solution, but simply a part of it. More plants, less meat. It’s a fairly simple message that Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has been promoting for several years as well. And not only does Bittman touch on the malnutrition that eating too much meat causes us but also the vastly negative effects that producing livestock has had on our environment. I believe it was said that 33% of the Earth’s surface is being used either directly or indirectly for livestock production.

That’s a bit much, isn’t it? Surely 33% of our land isn’t being used for the production of edible plants!

Funny that, in the end, technology got us into this mess and that it ultimately will lead us out of it. The real difference is in how the technology is used and the motivations for using it.

When you factor in that so many areas of Africa are still under-nourished, yet we can’t seem to satisfy our hunger for food in North America, the need for new ideas, new development and a more local focus is now more necessary than ever. Projections have our world population hitting 8 billion by 2025 – approximately 2 billion more than we have now. Alex Steffen, founder of WorldChanging.com, talks about even more topics regarding sustainability in his TED Talk where he also talks about WorldChanging.com and the models for sustainability they are looking for and featuring on the site.

In the end, cities are going to have to become more diverse, more progressive and those who fear change or fight change are likely to simply be left behind. Cities need to begin attracting entrepreneurs who are interested in innovations in the farming and livestock industries. The city that can foster this type of innovation will a wide array of new jobs and, therefore, help protect itself from economic downturns. We’re in a vicious cycle that we need to plow through and change in order to avoid the mistake’s of our ancestors.

That being said, I’m going to do my best to produce a new entry on urban design ready to go for a week from now. I have been fairly busy lately but I have a renewed energy in me thanks to various feedback I’ve received! Look for more very soon!

The result is a vastly inefficient food cycle. Things are even poorly managed locally during the past few years. E. coli outbreaks, listeria, salmonella, etc. The solution? It may be vertical farming.

Walrus magazine has a fantastic article on the possibilities here, and TIME Magazine also has an article on the issue here.

You may think these people are crazy, but the craziest ideas throughout history usually prove to be the best. Think about it! Farmers certainly wouldn’t get put out of business: they would just need to change the way they do things. Real estate is becoming less and less expensive lately, so finding a decent-sized building to lease or buy for probably the same amount of money it costs to buy a decent piece of farmland probably wouldn’t be that difficult. The article in TIME talks about a professor drawing up plans for a 30-story skyscraper that would be a massive hydroponic farm. Unfortunately it sounds like he’s thinking of building a brand new building, which just doesn’t make sense in a city like NYC. In London though, or Toronto, surely 10 or 20 stories could be leased for far less, especially if a government subsidy is provided.

And why not? The other benefits are many. Less pollutants, used water not absorbed by the plants could be recycled and used again to water them, far greater control over the environment and therefore being able to grow year round (yielding 2 or 3 times as many crops), no chemical fertilizers would be necessary to keep pests away and, of course, no tractors spewing out fumes! Energy costs could be supplemented by placing solar panels on top of the building and ensuring everything used inside is as energy-efficient as possible.

A company in Texas, Valcent, is already testing out this technique and it would seem they’re having some success. And if for some reason the idea of this type of farming bothers you, well then maybe you should tour around a farm next summer.

The article in Walrus also brings up another solution to importing so much of our food: a program that was setup to produce a network of growers and buyers to ensure that local produce is being used as much as possible. The result is Local Food Plus, based in Toronto. A similar system exists in Vancouver, called FarmFolk/CityFolk. Local Food Plus was able to attract New College at University of Toronto to commit to including in their new food services contract that 10% of the food budget must come from local sources, with a 5% increase per year.

Think of the implications! Local farmers knowing damn well that they’re food is going somewhere it will be valued and eaten, and nearby! Local Food Plus also certifies that any producers/farmers meet certain standards, which are published on their website.

So what’s the solution? Well it’s at least two-pronged. Doing our best to used locally-grown foods as often as possible, but also ensuring we explore new growing opportunities so that we can be sure we’ll always have the supply we need. I mean, why not grow pineapples in London in the middle of winter if we can?!

Maude is the chair of the Council of Canadians which, among other things, has been looking for leadership on the issue of water and the sustainability of some of our practices for some time now. Finally someone as realized that Maude has some very important, intelligent and insightful things to say on the issue and has recognized her for it in one of the best ways possible.

So congratulations Maude, make us proud!

Thumbnail photo on homepage taken by KaterKate.