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標題: [BC省新聞] B.C. should grow food, not [打印本頁]

作者: tiffiant 時間: 2014-10-20 07:01 標題: B.C. should grow food, not

B.C. should grow food, not McMansions, warns celebrity farmer

Joel Salatin says it will take a food crisis before we realize the need for change
California’s drought might just be the “zombie apocalypse” that gets B.C. thinking seriously about its food security, according to celebrity farmer Joel Salatin.
Salatin — a successful American farmer, former reporter and author of nine books on the food revolution — is able to produce far more food per acre than industrial-scale farms using techniques that make raising beef, chicken, eggs and even pigs palatable to the neighbours.
B.C. communities such as Langley and Surrey could activate thousands of acres of unproductive land in small parcels, he says, but it won’t happen until the fresh food crisis brewing in California really hits us in the pocketbook.
“No civilization on the brink of collapse has ever changed fast enough to avert collapse,” said Salatin.
People don’t make major changes to their lifestyle unless they are forced to, he added.
“They will have to be hit with a 2X4, hit with doubled food prices and the unavailability of food,” he said.
B.C. grows less than half of the food that we consume, relying on imports for most fresh fruits and vegetables, the bulk of which comes from California. That state’s three-year drought has already pushed food prices in B.C. stores higher in the past year, according to a new white paper commissioned by Vancity, released last week.
Putting fallow land around monster homes that are proliferating in the Agricultural Land Reserve back into production will be key to building local food security in B.C.
“We call those McMansions,” he said. “It is a problem because that is agriculturally abandoned land. We can’t begin to feed ourselves with a local-centric system if we lock up land in royal manor models.”
Even urban dwellers need to consider how far their food has to travel and whether it will come at all if there are shortages, he suggested. The integrated approach he takes to food production on the farm can be applied at any scale, Salatin said.
There are a lot of things that people, even in well-established communities, can do themselves to become more food secure, said Salatin, giving examples such as keeping honeybees on rooftops, installing food-producing solariums in our homes, capturing rainwater for food production, container gardening and reclaiming some of the billions of potentially productive acres sequestered under lawns in North America.
“Suddenly our actual domicile, rather than being a net environmental liability, becomes a net environmental asset,” he said.
Joel Salatin will speak on sustainable farming at a Langley workshop Nov. 8. Tickets are $25 each plus GST and can be purchased by calling 604-530-1323.

This scene from Food, Inc. features farmer and activist Joel Salatin. He calls for moving away from large-scale, industrial farming and ranching toward a smaller-scale model that is decidedly local.

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