Edible Landscaping

I posted on Vancouver's plans to plant more trees several days ago. To refresh your memory:

Plans call for the first batch, including some fruit and nut trees, to be split roughly equally between parks, streets and private property. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/forests-not-just-for-tree-huggers-in-vancouver/article4498724/
 

Weaving edible plants into the landscape is an old idea made new. Rosalind Creasey has been preaching and practicing edible landscaping for years.  I bought her book, Edible Landscaping, back in the Dark Ages.   1982 to be exact......

This is a pic of the plants to the right of my front gate.  I planted rhubarb in this location  this spring as it is in front of a Yellow Ribbon cedar I water quite a bit; transplanted alpine strawberries raised from a packet of seed twenty years ago in front of the rhubarb that have since flung themselves around the yard indiscriminately;  and filled in with some parsley seedlings . It looks very  pretty;  I've eaten  LOTS of parsley from two plants all season, and I'm anticipating picking rhubarb early next spring.

Maybe I'll even have rhubarb  to preserve.  MMMnnnnnnn!  I feel like a Gwen Stefani song at the thought:  yummy from head to toe!  Ding ding!

Rosalind has a website devoted to edible landscaping - with lovely, lovely pictures of mouthwatering gardens. You'll find it at:

http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/

Check it out - you'll be enchanted, I promise.  You'll be inspired to grow your veggies and fruit.   Food doesn't get more local than out of your garden or your balcony - and by growing your own food , you'll reduce your carbon footprint,    prevent climate change, and improve your mood.  


Ms Wente versus Local Food

Margaret Wente emphatically states in today's Globe and Mail that eating local is plain wrong and silly.

And that’s what’s wrong with locavorism. It’s the most wasteful, inefficient way to feed the human race you can possibly imagine. It’s also bad for the environment
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/take-the-romance-out-of-farming-and-ditch-locavorism/article4396371/

She also says:

Modern food systems have done wonders for our standard of living and have liberated humankind from the chains of rural serfdom. They have increased, not decreased, food security.

So are the folks promoting local food really such  complete idiots?  According to Margaret Wente, they are.  Perhaps she has erred - been too hasty - read one book and not done other research - or just plain wrong.
I plump for just plain wrong - Margaret Wente that, is. The modern food systems which she extols,  according to the UN, did not lead to food security for everyone.  Nor are they safer for the environment.

"The increase in prices underlying the 2007-2008 food crisis and the new food price spikes in 2011 have exposed the presence of serious threats to the sustainability of the global food system and its capacity to provide adequate and affordable access to food. Meeting the challenge of expanding food production to feed the world population over the coming decades requires a major transformation in agriculture. The so-called green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s helped boost agricultural productivity worldwide, but did not conduce to a sustainable management of natural resources, nor to food security for many of the world’s poor.  "http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wess/wess_current/2011wess_chapter3.pdf

Worse, our huge farms are not as productive as small holdings.  (Yes, I was astonished when I read this too!)

Vandana Shiva, an agriculture and food activist, points to reams of studies .....showing that the most poductive form of agriculture is not our modern, tractor - seviced, big field monocultures, but multilple crop manual labor intensive smallholdings. ( page 170, Good News for A Change: How Everyday People Are Healing the Planet, David Suzuki and Holly Dressel.)

Industrial agriculture  - the kind of food growing that Ms. Wente lauds - is heavily subsidized.     And torments animals.  (Just watch Food Inc. if you doubt me on the animal cruelty. )
 This sytem also degrades our soils - and contributes to climate change.

Professor Michael Bomford, a research scientist at Kentucky State University and a fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, is concerned about how our dependence on oil to feed ourselves is leading to soil depletion and degradation, as well as increasing [food]prices....
Carbon stored in soil allows the soil to hold nutrients and water, and losing soil contributes to climate change. Bomford is worried about other contributing factors to climate change borne from the use of chemical fertilizers.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/07/201173114451998370.html

And that serfdom Ms. Wente frets about?  Seemingly, people are anxious to take it up.  From her own column:

Today the countryside around our place is thronged with a brand-new generation of farmers – eager young idealists who have fled back to the land. Every weekend they show up at the little farmers’ market with their colourful bouquets of organic carrots and their tender non-commodified artisanal greens. 

Organic local food is a good thing! It tastes better than food shippled thousands of miles, is better for the environment, and puts money into the local economy.  Ms. Wente is wrong.

Food Security

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/volcano-builds-into-big-business-problem/article1537006/

The eruption of a volcano on Iceland is threatening to turn into a major headache for businesses across Europe and around the world as a spreading ash cloud closes more European airports.  Airlines are already counting the cost of grounded planes, and there are growing fears about the transportation of food supplies and other essential goods should the flight disruptions persist for several days — or longer.

Another argument in favour of local food!

Local Food Debate

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/local-food-is-it-good-or-bad/article1502534//

Right now, our industrial food system is not sustainable. It uses too much fossil fuel and is destroying the environment – we are eroding our soils, chemical fertilizers are destroying our waterways and oceans. The only way we can feed ourselves into the future is by cultivating local and sustainable food systems.

Versus

As I see it, the Green Revolution put an end to hunger and starvation in many parts of the world. I can live with some of the tradeoffs that were made. Look at the whole picture of large-scale monoculture. Forests in countries that are at the level of development of Chile and higher are seeing either an increase in the area of their landmass covered by forests or, when there is no room left to grow as in Japan, an improvement in their quality. Large-scale monocultures give us the opportunity to produce an ever-growing amount of food on a given amount of land.

You can join the converstion by asking the experts on Thursday at noon, ET.