Cypress Community Garden

Cypress Community Garden

Municipalities have become increasingly concerned about food security in the past few years. I’ve written before about Vancouver’s Food Policy Council and some of the work they’ve been doing, including encouraging a by-law to allow backyard chickens. Since then some notable developments have happened in the city.

A few weeks ago, Vancouver city council approved five community projects, agreeing to spend $100,000 on the small-scale projects. One aims to help people on social assistance or small fixed incomes can buy coupons at the beginning of each month for a small fee and redeem them later in the month for fresh fruits and vegetables at a mini-farmers market in the neighbourhood. Another funds the development of farmers markets; several Vancouver neighbourhoods worked with city council to streamline fees and fix restrictive zoning bylaws. Council has now approved the development of interim guidelines and zoning changes to develop new farmers markets and expand existing ones, including the very successful Kitsilano, West End, and Trout Lake markets. I visited the West End farmers market this weekend and found the vendors selling seasonal greens, peppers, berries, cheese, fresh lamb and eggs. The prices, as usual for Vancouver, started around the same as supermarket produce and went up from there, but there’s no denying the freshness of the food. I’m still not sure why farmers markets out here are so pricey, when a dollar or two at a market in Ottawa, London, or Toronto will get you a head of broccoli bigger than your own.

There are lots of other ways to get fresh produce in the city. Vancouver has some amazing community gardens, where residents pay a small fee for a garden plot and grow all sorts of fruits, vegetables and flowers. A friend of mine has a plot at the Cypress Community Garden, which cost her $30 for the summer. She goes to garden work parties with the many other gardeners in the area; Kitsilano is full of apartment dwellers who otherwise wouldn’t have the space to grow their own food.

You can also raise chickens and have access to your own fresh eggs daily, since the bylaw was passed to allow backyard chickens. You can check out all these developments on Vancouver’s Food Policy Council website.

• 18 cents/egg for a backyard chicken (assuming 270 eggs per year and an annual upkeep of $49.80)
• 45 cents/egg for SPCA-certified, cage-free and vegetarian fed eggs at Capers
• 20 cents/egg for medium eggs at Safeway

Victoria and several other municipalities in the Lower Mainland already allow urban chickens. Seattle and Portland also allow the birds, and Seattle even allows miniature goats. The Vancouver policy will be developed with the City’s Food Policy Council, whose other initiatives include encouraging more food-producing gardens, allowing urban beekeeping (apiculture), and the Grow a Row Share a Row program, which encourages households to grow an extra row of vegetables for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society and Neighbourhood Houses. Other contributors to policy development will be the SPCA, the Humane Society, other municipalities and local health authorities.  

The SPCA and the BC Poultry Association have already raised concerns, arguing that people might not know how to care for the chickens, or that they could spread diseases like avian flu. Of course, the SPCA certifies farms that take good care of their chickens, and the BC Poultry Association obviously advocates the ownership of chickens…just not by Jane Q. Public. Wouldn’t want to disturb the consumption cycle.

The backyard chickens policy, and other urban agriculture policies, have risen to the forefront of the media in the past two years, particularly as food shortages have affected countries like Italy and Mexico. Increased land devoted to growing corn for ethanol, political instability, international trade agreements, and climate change are some of the factors behind food scarcity. In the midst of this revelation, the Vancouver Food Policy Council adopted its Food Charter, which has five principles:

• Community Economic Development 
• Ecological Health 
• Social Justice
• Collaboration and participation
• Celebration

Its goal is to get consumers to purchase more locally produced food, regional farmers to direct more of their production to local markets, restaurateurs to feature more local, sustainable food on menus, food retailers to shift more of their inventory to local and sustainably produced food, increased levels of “edible gardening” in the City of Vancouver, and enhanced backyard and neighbourhood level composting and recovery of edible food. Provided that human and bird health concerns are addressed, the backyard chickens policy seems like a good way to ensure residents have access to fresh, affordable food.