Stone Soup Festival

The 18th annual Stone Soup Festival just held this past May 11 at Britannia was by all accounts another wonderful success. For those of us involved in the food security movement, Stone Soup was a great opportunity to connect with like minded folks and groups engaged in a variety of food project. For those new to food security, the festival provides an opportunity to learn about so many great projects in Vancouver. The focus on urban agriculture this year celebrates of the enormous growth of urban ag in Vancouver, from urban farms to community and backyard gardening projects. In fact, urban agriculture in Vancouver is exploding. Only a few years back City Farm Boy Ward Tuelon was the only game in town and the forerunner to probably more than a dozen urban farmers in Vancouver today. Urban Digs, SoleFoods, Victory Gardens, Fresh Roots, Inner City Farms,and Kitsilano Farms are just a few new groups that have emerged in the past few years.

The Stone Soup Festival provides a snapshot of some of the most innovative community food programming in the City. It is also an opportunity to celebrate the alternative food movement. For more photos of Stone Soup click here.

Spring Adventures at Britannia School

Our day began with the lovely youth at 8J9J. This is their first time building a garden, and have been working hard to get the project going! Students build 3 raised beds in March, and filled them up with fresh soil from the city. In March we also worked together to sow seeds in their indoor garden, including tomatoes, lettuces, kale and cilantro. Over the past few weeks we have planted peas, calendula, nasturtium, radish, kale, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, chives, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Visit this story an photos at the EYA Blog

Food Banks – what the %#*K Harper

Good video that asks the question why in a wealthy country are the numbers of food bank users rising.

GWFC Gets a New Logo

We are thrilled to finally have a new logo that more closely reflects the Grandview Woodland Food Connection. As a Neighbourhood Food Network, we are geographically affiliated with a particular neighborhood – Grandview Woodland. This is a defining quality of the NFNs. I wanted to create a logo that reflected this sense of neighbourhood and community. The homes and buildings represent the urban context within which we work. The homes connected represent community with of course food as the container of community.

A big thanks to Sam Bradd (www.sambradd.com‎) for his design talents in creating our new logo.

South Central Guerrilla Gardening

I love this video. The message is so simple and straightforward – “if a kid grow kale he will eat kale”. In this video, Ron Finley calls himself a guerrilla gardener artist. His lawns are his pallet and he is working to turn the what is currently a food desert community into a community growing its own food

Vancouver Coastal Health – Urban Agriculture Opportunities

Vancouver Coastal Health is exploring the possibility of allowing community agencies to use its lands for food security or urban agriculture projects. To this end, we are seeking Expressions of Interest from non-profit organizations who would be interested in taking advantage of this opportunity.

Please note:

• This is just an exploratory process – VCH has not identified any specific sites as of yet.
• Other than the land and the potential use of water, bathroom facilities, meeting rooms (this would all be negotiated), VCH has no funding for the development or operation of the urban agriculture project.

The basics:

• The community agency needs to be a registered non-profit society or a social enterprise
• The site space could be anything from less than a ¼ acre to 1 acre and be at a hospital, a community health centre, residential care facility, etc.
• If we had an appropriate site and your project was to move forward, you would need:
o General liability insurance
o To have adequate funds to cover the development and operating costs of the project

The EOI should only be 1 to 2 pages and include the following information:

1. Contact information
2. Briefly describe your organization – what is your mission, how big are you, when were you established?
3. Briefly describe what you have in mind for your project – approximate size, purpose, etc.
4. Describe how VCH would benefit from the project.
5. What resources (funding, staff, volunteers, etc.) would you have to develop and operate your project?
6. What are some of your expectations around what would be the role and contribution of VCH to your project?
7. its Sustainability strategy, VCH is aiming to reduce its use of water. What would be some ideas you would have to manage your use of water for the project?

Please submit your EOI to: lianne.carley@vch.ca and to glen.garrick@fraserhealth.ca on or before April 15, 2013.

BC FOOD SYSTEMS NETWORK GATHERING

The 15th Gathering of the B.C. Food Systems Network is taking place from July 5th through the 7th, 2013 at Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, and we invite you to contribute to exploring this year’s theme “Food from the Water, Food from the Land”.

The purpose of the Gathering is to bring the members of the Network together to share their ideas, experiences and initiatives in building community food security, and to build new relationships within the Network while strengthening existing ones. The Gathering is about connecting people and drawing on the wisdom and expertise that exists within the Network by blending scheduled workshops, presentations and activities with unstructured time and space to encourage informal sharing, socializing or quiet contemplation.

We are currently seeking proposals for workshops, roundtables and discussion topics or other activities related to the theme, including Indigenous food harvesting rights and access; health and food medicines; the cultural significance of food; fish farms and aquaponics; overfishing and globalization; bioregionalism and permaculture; and local food resilience, including urban agriculture.

The Gathering Committee encourages all of you to share your knowledge and ideas for making the gathering a meaningful and enriching experience. Please submit a one or two paragraph description of your proposed workshop, presentation, or activity (as well as a short bio) to Diane Elliott-Buckley, Gathering Coordinator (gathering@bcfsn.org) by May 30, 2013. Questions we could be exploring together include:

• What can we do as a community and as individuals to protect our land and oceans?
• How can we include food from the water in our local food security dialogue?
• How can the BCFSN and the VICCIFN best advocate for healthy aquatic food systems ?
• Where is the best place to direct our common food voice within climate change discourse?
• How can we celebrate and document our successes?
• How can we support fishermen and small-scale farmers?

We hope you will be able to join us at Camp Pringle, located on Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, between Victoria and Nanaimo. The Network respectfully acknowledges that Shawnigan Lake is situated on Indigenous Land belonging to the Coast Salish people, including the Cowichan Tribes and the Malahat First Nation.

The weekend is also a family-friendly celebration of community with activities such as story-telling, nature walks, visits to Citta Slow Cowichan Bay and O.U.R. Ecovillage, skills demonstrations, swimming, yoga and a shared love of food. Participants will be nourished in body, mind and spirit and will return to their communities and their work replenished and re-energized for the year ahead.

Registration for the Gathering will begin in late April. The rates will be $295 for early bird registration (till June 1) and $325 thereafter. This rate includes conference registration, accommodation and all meals. We will also be offering children and youth rates of $65 and $125 respectively and will provide a full day program for the kids at no extra charge. Kids under 5 will be welcomed free of charge. Shuttle services will be provided from Swartz Bay and Departure Bay.

If anyone would like to participate in planning for the Gathering or to volunteer during the event, please let us know. Most importantly, please help expand the Network by sharing this information with individuals or groups that are involved in promoting food security in BC. The committee is looking forward to hearing from you! In gratitude, Diane Elliott-BuckleyBCFSN Gathering Coordinator Visit our Facebook Events Page