What is the realistic significance of the Oceanwise and Seachoice campaigns? This is a critique – make no mistake. But know, in advance, that I was volunteering for the David Suzuki Foundation [DSF] for these specific initiatives a week before I wrote this.
So, this is how it works. Please allow me to break it down.

Seachoice is the retail arm of the two campaigns, dealing with high volumes. This program touches your life through what you’d get at a grocery store, en mass. Oceanwise, which has more to do with restaurants and consumer-level interaction, is the lower-volume yet more glamorous of the two. It touches your life through your interactions with restaurants. Both are sustainable aquaculture endeavours leveraged by the Marine Stewardship Council [MSC], the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the The Vancouver Aquarium, and my friends at the DSF. Lots of players are in the game, obviously, but these are the biggest and most relevant to your understanding of this (if you’re not already in the know about sustainable seafood as it relates to you).

Now, Seachoice is its own thing. It’s behind the scenes – so to speak. We won’t get into it. Think of Seachoice as a program that’s held together by back room dealings that are done for your own good. Oceanwise is an interesting subject to dissect. The Oceanwise campaign, as it stands right now, has limited impact potential and questionable gains outside of awareness-based results.

You may know Oceanwise as a little logo that you see sometimes on menus. Most up-scale restaurants will feature the Oceanwise logo – they’ll pay $150 for it. That’s a big part of the campaign’s ability to sustain itself. When you see it on a menu, it means the seafood item highlighted by it came from a sustainable source. Now, this is good – and bad. Overall, I think it’s good.

Cynic critics of sustainable seafood endeavours, specifically at the restaurant level with Oceanwise, point out that these campaigns can be a way for consumers to simply feel better about their already-unsustainable levels of consumption. They then critique further, pointing out that the general public’s wonton appetite for seafood is not discouraged but encouraged by these campaigns – when strictly-governed conservation is what’s really necessary.

There are arguments that Oceanwise, specifically of these two campaigns of the same vein, negates its potential positives through what it must do to make small gains. Over the years, and especially these days, non-government organizations are the target of more and more critique. How easy is it to throw stones at an environmental organization that has to circulate printed material to promote its efforts (regardless of the type of paper), or, say, a sustainable seafood campaign that seems at first glance to be promoting seafood consumption?

There is another argument that points at the restaurants that are Oceanwise-compliant. Most of them are middle-to-upper class establishments that can afford to pay the premium not only to feature the Oceanwise logo on their menus but to pay for the product – coming normally at a premium. These restaurants are easy to discredit because they only represent a small portion of consumption – the upper-middle class and higher. In these communities though, there is a trust that the overall good cancels out the necessary evils along the way. That said – there is also an sense of urgency.

There is merit to these arguments, but I shouldn’t dwell on them because I don’t see them as very credible critiques.

Now, a sustainable source could mean a number of things. To round it down, I’d summarize a sustainable source as a seafood provider that doesn’t accept catch that is acquired in un-ecologically sound ways – such as: methods with minimal levels of “bycatch” (unintended-ly caught sea creatures that don’t survive the catching process and are and thrown overboard because of their market value), methods that are coordinated with spawning seasons as a prime concern, methods targeting stocks that are of a healthy size, methods that avoid bottom trawling or other primitive means that are destructive to marine habitats, and certain types of closed-system aquaculture farming examples. These are all things that you can Google yourself, if you find that you’re interested by this. This is important!

What we need is to just stop eating as much seafood as we do – meat too. When eating out, we do, really – regardless of what our cravings are, or how much we’ve had to drink (it may have happened to me once or twice) – we need to exercise more discipline when it comes to the seafood that we eat. The critics will always say what they want about all the budding sustainable initiatives today. Let them! Who else is going to look out for your best interests? Will your children be able to enjoy seafood? Who else is looking to preserve the marine ecosystems of the world?

You? At the end of the day – you can start with your choices. Your choice matters. Go ahead and ask about that pistachio crusted halibut fillet that you’re about to devour. What’s good for our ecosystems is good for us and our friends and families. What’s the harm in knowing more about what you’re putting into your body?

~ Hunter J. Moyes

I thought that I knew quite a bit, before doing a little talk at a UBC sustainability conference, run by students and involving people from the environmental community. At the time I was half-involved in Vancouver’s environmental community and full-time-involved in its restaurant scene (running Burgoo as a “Head Chef” up on West 10th) – so they wanted me to speak ecologically from the food angle with PowerPoint et al. I have some experience presenting, but not to an audience of University students. It was intimidating – straight up. At the time, I’d been reading a lot about the word seafood as it relates to the words sustainable aquaculture. After a few days of research, I realized that I didn’t really know much about seafood at all (except how to make it delicious).

A few days of research really was just one phone call, to a guy who’d rather not be mentioned by name. I started him down the road towards sustainability when I was a Chef and he was a mover of seafood. He was in charge of his company’s seafood sales accounts for the West coast of North America, and he worked for the first, second or third largest (can’t tell – sorry) seafood company in the world. He’s now the company’s lead sustainability man. He brought me an envelope the next day with more information than I could handle about the global seafood trade, and we talked of the subject of sustainable aquaculture, since he’s always claimed that his company plays by the book. It was the future of his business, too, after all.

The envelope was full of monthly reports worth thousands of dollars – among other things, that I’d love to list. The numbers included in these reports were mind-blowing. They included views on imports and exports by port, by country, by year, and by seafood type. Punctuating all of it were little bullet points detailing how all stocks were in decline.

Numbers barely meant anything to me – they were too big. In one report on annual salmon harvests, the recorded yield was reported as being in the ballpark of 103,392,486 pounds. A report on crab estimated that crab’s recorded yearly yield was 32,469,093 pounds. Shrimp? How much shrimp (of all sizes and distinctions) – comparably? A year-scope snapshot as of December of 2009 featured a number just over 1.2 billion pounds. Wrap your mind around that one for a second!

At the time, it was about a year before the Gulf of Mexico BP oil catastrophe, and there were many pages on the Gulf’s declining shrimp reserves. Also at the time, David Suzuki was speaking out against a potential Marine Stewardship Council green-light approval of BC Sockeye salmon after a startlingly-low spring spawn. The information was just too much. It actually got in the way of my presentation, and so I cut most of it out and barely included anything about seafood at all! I ended up mostly talking about the environmental benefits of vegetarianism (which I’d just started to become serious about at the time). It turned out that, despite “Chefdom” – I didn’t know much about ocean life at all (except how to make it delicious – really delicious).

There is much more to appreciating seafood than just taste though.

It goes without saying that I love seafood as a Chef and a food-o-phile (thought I force myself to refrain from eating it as much as I’d like to, and it’s the only protein I eat that isn’t vegetable-based). Many do – too many. It’s true to say that the world has a massive appetite for seafood. It’s just as true to say that this generation of consumption could wipe out all seafood stocks, , once and for all. I won’t candy coat that – won’t get into it either (today). That’s not what I’m writing about in this particular article series.

The subject of this series is the sustainable seafood movement. What are its current manifestations? What does it mean at a corporate level? What are the movement’s strengths, and what are its weaknesses? What of shark fin soup? What are Chefs doing? What can you do? And who are “the who’s who” of the sustainable aquaculture scene in Vancouver?

~ Hunter Moyes

As a child of the sixties, I can’t help but have this strange compulsion to want to “get back to the land” – that is, to run away from everything that annoys me about city life and embrace that elusive Shangri-la lying somewhere out beyond the suburbs. I know I am not alone in this feeling and it is wise not to dismiss such inclinations too cynically. However, most of my city-born friends who have made for the hills have not lasted very long out there, or, if they did, they ended up spending most of their time commuting back to the megatropolis for work and for play, while their dreams of the self-sufficient rural life degenerated into suburban acreage sprawl or anemic “hobby farms”.

The point is, we don’t have to move out to the sticks in order to grow our own food, connect with the earth and live a more self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle. Indeed, some of the most creative, inspiring and transformative local food projects are happening in towns and cities throughout North America. Maybe even just down the block from where you live. A cornerstone of permaculture thinking is that “we begin where we are” – be it a rental house, an apartment, a condo or a sprawling home in the suburbs – there is no better place and time to start. As the bi-line on my friend’s email observes, “You don’t have to get back to the land – you’re already there!”

Permaculture can be practiced on many scales – from the smallest of urban yards or balconies, to community and public spaces, to farms and larger land holdings. Starting small has many advantages: we can develop considerable skill and expertise farming a small urban yard, without the huge commitment of time, money and energy it would take to be growing on 30 acres. Smaller spaces can also be incredibly productive per unit of area. The Jervais family of four in Pasadena California have consistently grown around 6000 lbs of food on their urban lot, one tenth of an acre in size, easily enough to meet their own produce needs for the year and to sell the surplus for income. Small urban spaces around the world are increasingly feeding the hoards of hungry city mouths and are reducing greenhouse gasses, water consumption, land erosion and loss of bio-diversity in the process.

There is no one “right way” to grow food and there are as many different approaches as there are gardeners. Each site is unique and the needs of each grower are as well. Here are a few general principles and strategies from the permaculture perspective that will be useful in determining an approach that will work well for you.

Observation. No matter where you live and how ambitious or modest your food growing goals may be, the first essential step is careful observation. Get to know your place in intimate detail: what are the sun and shade patterns, how does water move in the landscape, where are the warm and cool micro-climates, what are soil conditions like in different parts of the yard? Understanding these key energies on your site will enable you to make good design decisions that will increase your productivity and decrease the amount of work you eventually need to maintain the site.

Think outside the box. Many of us have been raised with the notion that growing food in our yards is limited to a rectangular plot of long straight rows of vegetables somewhere between the back fence and garage. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Edible species can be integrated throughout the landscape in a multitude of creative ways. Spiral herb gardens near a patio; elegantly shaped beds of perennial and annual vegetables mixed with edible flowers; and grapes or kiwis trellised over a deck or walkway are just a few examples.

Food can be functional. Edible species can also be used to achieve certain functional goals in the landscape. Berry producing shrubs like blueberry, goumi berry, sea buckthorn, currants and haskap can be combined together to make a very effective hedge. Fruit trees can be trained as an espalier to disguise an ugly wall or to create a “living fence” where a boundary is needed. Edible ground covers (i.e. red clover, mints, thymes, chamomile, wild strawberry, etc.) can provide an interesting and useful alternative to traditional lawns.

Go vertical. Particularly in urban environments where space is limited, growing “up” rather than out can create a full, lush landscape that is also highly productive. Using vining species such as pole beans, peas, squash, or cucumber is an easy way to take advantage of this principle. Edible species can be chosen to fill all vertical niches in the landscape from roots, to ground covers, to herbaceous perennials, to shrubs, to short and tall trees. Using containers, wall mounted units, vertical growing tubes, and self- watering pots made from old buckets are other great strategies for increasing yields, especially for apartment dwellers.

Use microclimates. The beauty of any small yard is that there are many unique micro-climates that offer distinct growing conditions. The south facing wall of the house, for example, may be the perfect place to locate a cold frame for an early spring crop of greens. A currant or gooseberry will love the partially shady, moist environment on the southeast corner of the house or garage near the downspout. Discover where your micro-climates are and use them to your advantage! Small greenhouses and cold-frames can greatly extend the growing season, allowing for year round harvest of most vegetables. Take it one step further and integrate fish production into your greenhouse in an “aqua-ponic” system in which the plants and fish support each other.

Cycle resources. Just as there is no such thing as waste in nature, our mini urban farms should cycle all organic matter, water and energy repeatedly through the garden system, building and improving soil and overall productivity over time. Composting systems are the obvious way of doing this, but we can also incorporate tremendous amounts of organic “waste” from the home, yard and the wider neighborhood by “sheet-mulching” our growing beds, and using “no-till vegetable growing” systems.

Think perennials. The foods we grow in our yards or balconies need not be limited to annual vegetables. Fruits, nuts, berries, perennial herbs and perennial vegetables give us a great yield for less work than maintaining vegetable gardens. Perennial greens such as sorrel, bloody dock, lovage and sweet cicely come up earlier in the spring than annual greens and have deeper root systems which withstand drought better than annuals do.

Rhubarb, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes and sea kale are a few other no fail perennial vegetables that will produce in our yards year after year. If this idea appeals to you, you can create groupings or “guilds” of perennial plants from ground covers to tall trees that work to support each other in what we call “edible forest gardens.”

Get in touch with your animal nature! You can be more than an urban farmer – you can be an urban rancher too! Every home food system should include some animal life both for the food that our furry and feathered friends can provide us and for the critical role that they play in cycling nutrients and maintaining and promoting bio-diversity and balance in the system. Three or four chicken can produce all the eggs a small family needs and will consume tremendous amounts of kitchen waste and garden pests such as slugs, sow bugs and aphids, turning them into fantastic fertilizer. One bee hive can produce up to 100 pounds of honey per year. Rabbits, ducks, and mini goats and cows (yes, you heard that right!) can also be part of a micro urban farm.

The benefits of growing food right outside your door go beyond the obvious ones of health, economic savings and lower environmental impact; there is something about urban food gardening that can’t help but build community. Plant some raspberries along your lane and watch the kids show up. Rip up your front lawn and plant veggies, herbs and fruit trees and you will have conversations with your neighbours that you never dreamed of – guaranteed! When we begin to heal our fragmented food system, we are simultaneously healing the social systems that have likewise been torn asunder. We are resting away some measure of control from the global corporate empires that profit obscenely from our dependence. We are taking responsibility for ourselves and our communities and the essentials we need to live.

And that my friends, is a revolutionary act.

~ Ron Berezan

In 2007, the Vancouver-based Green Table Network began Canada’s first program to assist businesses in every segment of the restaurant and foodservice industry with reducing their environmental footprint. Since then, more than 100 operations have joined the Green Table Network to develop and implement tailored sustainability plans. As a result of that experience, GTN has redeveloped its core programs and services to make them more accessible and easier to manage.

At the heart of the Green Table Network solution is the online GTN 2.0 Guidebook. Covering 35 different categories — such as Buildings and Materials, Energy Efficiency, Waste Reduction — it’s an e-learning guide that also provides a checklist of recommended steps, a product and service supplier resource kit, and an online community for GTN members to share experiences.

Three levels of achievement are available by online subscription. However, to become an Approved Member, onsite verification performed by an authorized field agent is required. Approval also qualifies members for GTN’s customer recognition and marketing programs.

Green Table Network membership is open to restaurants, foodservice operators, and businesses that support them — equipment manufacturers, governments, public utilities, trade & professional culinary associations. Cost is determined by the scale of an organization’s operation and the desired level of achievement. Customized membership plans are available for multi-unit and concept groups, as well as for campus, corporate and other institutional operations.

Green Table Network
578 – 999 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC  V6C 3E1
Andre LaRiviere, Executive Director
Tel: 604.329.0864
info@greentable.net
greentable.net

~ RG

^ NDP Fisheries and Oceans Critic, Fin Donnelly, launches shark fin import ban petition at C Restaurant. (L to r, Claudia Li, Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark, Fin Donnelly, Rob Stewart, Cécile Yuen, Robert Clark)

Sharks are sublime creatures. For 400 million years they have survived on Earth, evolving to become the oceans’ supreme hunters and shaping the evolution of other marine species. However, surging demand for their fins for use in shark fin soup and traditional medicine is decimating global shark populations.

With up to 73 million sharks slaughtered annually, we may see the total collapse of worldwide shark species within the decade. This will significantly disrupt ocean ecosystems that a large number of people depend on for much of their protein. Already in the last 15 years shark numbers in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean have plummeted by 90%, and by 75% in the northwestern Atlantic.

Despite the potentially grave ecological consequences, it will be challenging to end shark finning. Not only is it a multi-billion dollar industry in which organized crime is involved, people’s view of sharks is very different from that of elephants, rhinoceros, and even tigers. Media sensationalism has created a deep-seated anxiety in humans that is wildly out of proportion to the actual threat posed by sharks.

^ Wedding Campaigner, Cécile Yuen, as Harry the Shark Truth mascot.

While shark protection doesn’t have the same public appeal as panda conservation, measures are starting to be taken. Shark finning at sea has already been banned in jurisdictions such as the Bahamas, Chile, Ecuador, Guam, Hawai’i, Honduras, and the US West Coast. However, without a broad international ban on the practice, backed by an effective enforcement mechanism, the shark’s future looks grim.

What can you do to help stop shark finning?

• Don’t eat shark fin soup; adopt a substitute.
• Sign the National Shark Fin Import Ban petition.
• Call or write your Member of Parliament to tell them to support Bill C-380, Fin Donnelly’s Ban on Shark Fin Importation Act.
• Host a screening of Sharkwater.

For more information on shark finning, visit:

• Shark Truth
• Sharkwater

~ RG

^ Ecological Services Initiative launches at Granville Island.

A significant flaw in our economic system is how natural capital is not assigned any direct monetary value. This means, for example, that while a wetland produces clean water and controls flooding, the only economic value is seen in converting it to agricultural or industrial use. However, the total value of benefits provided by ecosystems is actually considerable. In Natural Capital in BC’s Lower Mainland, a study produced by the David Suzuki Foundation for the Pacific Parklands Foundation, the total value of all benefits provided by the area’s natural capital was estimated at $5.4 billion annually or $2,462 per person.

When natural processes are taken into account in the formal economy, decisions and outcomes can be quite different. A landmark agreement in New York City in 1997 saw 165 stream miles in the Catskill/Delaware watershed protected to improve the quality of the city’s drinking water. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was about to mandate the City build a water treatment plant at a cost of up to $8 billion, with $250 million in annual operating expenses. However, by investing $1.5 billion in watershed protection, including paying farmers to remove sensitive lands from production, they were able to keep drinking water at a sufficient quality to avoid the need for a filtration facility.

In contrast, the smaller neighbouring Croton watershed was given up for development. Consequently, the EPA and the New York State Department of Health decreed that the City must filter this water by May 2012. Originally estimated at $800 million, the cost of the Croton Water Treatment Plant has ballooned to $3.4 billion since construction began in 2004.

Thanks to a new research consortium of farmers, ranchers, academics and conservationists, incorporating the value of natural capital in land use decisions is now being tested in BC. The Ecological Services Initiative will provide producers with financial incentives to adopt management practices that maintain or enhance the production of natural services, such as clean air and water, while growing our food. Participants will be compensated according to the land area they set aside and the loss of agricultural productivity. This will be to a maximum of $2,000 for measures such as erecting livestock fencing around sensitive areas, increasing the buffer zone between waterways and crops, planting trees to shade salmon spawning streams, or replanting native plant species to sustain indigenous wildlife.

ESI is endorsed by the BC Agriculture Council and the BC Cattlemen’s Association. It is funded by the Agriculture Environment and Wildlife Fund, BC Ministry of Agriculture, Columbia Basin Trust, Ducks Unlimited Canada, East Kootenay Conservation Fund, Sustainable Prosperity, and the University of Alberta’s Institute for Land Use Innovation. Thirteen demonstration farms and ranches, spanning a variety of different commodities and regions, are being monitored for biological and economic results. The viability of the concept will then be evaluated to see if a broader program with longer term application can be developed as a part of provincial agricultural policy.

~ RG

Recently I was given a review copy of Simon Fairlie’s new book entitled Meat: A Benign Extravagance, published by Chelsea Green (2010), right around the same time I wrote what some might consider a rather controversial blog on the subject of meat here on Urban Diner. The issue of eating meat is a touchy one, especially here in Vancouver – a trend-setting city that has more than it’s share of anti-meat advocates, who inspired by films such as Forks Over Knives, have come to equate meat-eating with everything that’s bad in the world: from agricultural run-off and global warming, to cardiovascular disease and cancer.

And it is a media campaign they seem to be winning, as everywhere one looks the idea of eating meat and especially red meat is thoroughly denounced. The problem with these claims however is that when they are examined more closely, they begin to fall apart. For example: the much promulgated but nonetheless erroneous notion that saturated fat consumption is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Refuting each one of these arguments however, often with people that have a pre-existing bias or claim the moral high ground, can be a rather tiring enterprise. How refreshing it was then to receive Mr. Fairlie’s well-researched exegesis on the subject of meat.

As a farmer passionately invested in the concept and practice of permaculture, Simon Fairlie brings a kind of holism to the subject of his inquiry that can only be borne from experience. Fortified by hundreds of references he meticulously examines the issue of meat, not from a health or ethical perspective, but by looking at the issue of environmental impact and sustainability. And in the process Fairlie invariably encounters more than a few sacred cows. For example, most people familiar with the anti-meat argument have heard that it takes at least ten times more energy to produce meat than cereals. The conventional logic is that if we switched out animal protein for vegetable protein we could feed ten times more people. Simon Fairlie shows us however that the assumptions of this 10:1 ratio are highly simplistic. For one thing, most livestock are fed otherwise inedible food crops and forage on inedible wild grasses and plants. The 10:1 ratio also doesn’t take into account factors such as the difference in nutrient bioavailability between meat and cereals, nor the economic value of non-food animal products such as manure, leather, soap, pharmaceuticals, glue and fertilizer. Contrary to what we have been told in the media, Fairlie show us that the 10:1 ratio usually cited for the conversion of edible cereals to meat is actually more like 1.4:1 (p.32) – which is a big difference. This is only one example of the many facts that Fairlie uses to undermine the assumption that livestock and meat production necessarily promotes waste and inefficiency. In Meat, Fairlie weaves a compelling argument that livestock farming actually adds value to the land, and is an integral component of sustainable agriculture. Fairlie shows us that meat production in essence is a secondary function of holistic farming: a gift of land, and is at the very worst, a “benign extravagance”.

While Fairlie tackles the most inflated arguments against meat production, his strongest critique is reserved for industrial agriculture, which leverages the use of petroleum to produce a kind of meat that is by any measure non-sustainable. Thus when Fairlie talks about meat as a “benign extravagance” this is not the kind of meat he refers to. Perhaps because he is a former vegan, in his arguments we find a nuanced and sophisticated position: someone who has truly looked at both sides of the issue. As a herbalist clinician I too appreciate the importance of a balanced perspective, seeing the value of plenty of vegetation in the diet, but also the utility of meat and animal products: in the health of children, women, during pregnancy, in the aging, and in specific health conditions such as anemia, osteoporosis, immunodeficiency and diabetes. As I discuss in my book, Food As Medicine, meat and animal products have always been a part of the human diet, and in many ways is the one food that defines us as a species. What else allowed for the evolution of our large brains, much larger than our primate cousins, if not for the high-density nutrition of animal products? Like Fairlie, I appreciate where vegans are going with some of their arguments, but I also understand that there is no eating without some sacrifice. We are born from food and we return to food. In the end, all we have in the vegan argument is the idea that eating meat is inherently wrong, which is less of a scientific or rational conclusion than something more akin to religion. For too long eating meat has been synonymous with not caring about the environment, of not being a good citizen of the earth. For those who are made to feel guilty for eating meat, Simon Fairlie’s book is a welcome and insightful resource in a debate that often suffers from too much prejudice, confusion, and outright error.

~ Todd Caldecott

ToddCaldecott.com

On Wednesday, November 2nd at 9 am there will be a rally for Food Freedom outside the New Westminster Supreme Court (651 Carnarvon Street) in support of dairy farmer Michael Schmidt who has been on a hunger strike for the past 33 days fighting contempt of court charges imposed upon him for distributing raw milk to members of his farm’s cow sharing program. He has already lost over 40 lbs in his protest, demanding to meet with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to discuss the issues, who to this point has refused to speak with him.

Here is the current state of affairs:

• In January 2010, after many years of legal wrangling, Michael Schmidt finally got his day in court where he represented himself (having lost the ability to pay the mounting legal fees over the years). After a dramatic proceeding, he was acquitted on all charges by Justice Kowarsky.

• On September 28, 2011 Justice Tetley reversed the decision against the Province of Ontario and found Michael Schmidt guilty on 15 of the 19 charges.

• Michael Schmidt also faces another contempt of court charge here in BC for his role in aiding the former Home on the Range dairy farm cooperative in Chilliwack continue their cow-share operation, which carries a fine of up to $55,000. A court date is expected to be set and confirmed for early December 2011.

Why this is Important

The ability to choose what food we consume is a fundamental right.

Michael Schmidt has fought for decades to make safe raw milk available to informed consumers. He has offered many times to work co-operatively with government agencies to develop a raw milk certification program similar to those that exist in many European countries as well as many U.S. states.

But the Ontario government and its agencies, including the milk marketing board known as Dairy Farmers of Ontario, have rebuffed all attempts at co-operation. Instead, they have declared all-out war.

The government has unlimited resources—provided by you, the taxpayer — to continue prosecuting Michael through the courts. We don’t know yet how many levels of court they will drag him through before the case is finally resolved.

Hundreds of millions around the world have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years, yet today, it is illegal to sell it in Canada. However, raw milk is legal to sell in every other G8 country as they have a second set of dairy production standards of sufficiently high caliber to ensure the raw milk comes from healthy animals and is safe to consume.

Pasteurization was instituted in the 1900’s to combat various diseases caused by the unsanitary production of milk. How can the milk be safe to drink if the cows are sick, covered in manure, and fed anything but their natural diet of grass? Pasteurization is indeed necessary for unhealthy animals. But milk from healthy animals can be consumed in its natural state as it has been done for millenia.

Raw milk is legal in many places around the world. Canadians should have the same right to choose their food.

~ PK

(Full disclosure: the author is a member of the Chilliwack cooperative and a supporter of Food Freedom)

(Images by: Mette-Marie Hansen)

Our climate is changing. This might not be shocking news to you over your morning coffee, but as a coffee buyer, I get to meet farmers and producers who are facing the difficulties of a changing climate year round.

It is the small business’ job to rant about the big guys, but this week, I am praising Starbucks and an initiative they’re a part of – a business coalition that has been trying to push Congress and the Obama administration to act on climate change. The coalition, including companies like Starbucks and Gap, are launching a new campaign for awareness about climate changes next month, ahead of the release of a UN report addressing these issues.

This Friday, one of Starbucks directors of sustainability, Jim Hanna, is traveling to Washington to brief members of Congress on climate change threatening the world’s coffee supply. Coffee thrives only around the equatorial line, in a very specific range of temperatures. One of the most important changes in the climate is that it is getting warmer – warmer temperatures bringing heavier rainfalls, unpredictable seasons overall and extremes like hurricanes, mudslides and erosion. Just the increased average temperature and humidity is bringing problems like coffee rust, a fungus attacking the leaves of the coffee tree. As a plant getting it’s nutrition mainly through the leaves, this causes severe crop loss in many places – and for the small coffee farmer a loss in crop means severe poverty.

In addition, pests attacking coffee flowers or cherry is increasingly common, and too high temperatures and insufficient differences between seasons also commonly causes starflowers – sterile coffee flowers where pollination can not take place.

As carbon emissions are commonly linked to climate changes, we need to look at the long term perspective of lost crops – we already have coffee processing mills like Helsar in Costa Rica, who are zero emission certified. A good wake up call for all coffee drinkers to live a more eco-friendly life.

~ Mette-Marie Hansen

“Is Your Coffee Fair Trade and Sustainable and Organic?”

I just got this question from a concerned consumer, and she was raising valid questions about well known certifications and buzz-words. The question is simple, and doesn’t require more than a yes-or-no, but as much as I love coffee, I love the opportunity to discuss and explore the perspectives. These days, coffee certified as Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance and many others, is everywhere. It has become mainstream, making its way from mass merchandisers to college dining halls, high-end restaurants and almost every place in between. British Columbians account for 13% of the Canadian population, but is buying a majority of the organic food products sold in the country.

Coffee thrives in a narrow belt around the equatorial line, meaning for the most part growing in less economically developed countries. Most coffee farmers in the specialty coffee niche are small holder farmers. Going through the process of becoming certified – Organic, Rainforest Alliance, Utz and many others – is expensive and out of reach for many of these farmers, not only because of the intensified labor required, but also because they actually have to buy the certificate.

For small holder farmers trying to achieve a substantial premium by producing high quality coffees, Fair Trade is out of the question because only cooperatives can be certified. Even if the premium recently went from $0.10 to $0.20 cents per pound above the commodity market prices, it is a very small premium compared to the premiums paid for specialty coffee, which can be well above $1 per pound. The commodity market for coffee has more than doubled since June 2010, but coffee is still the most affordable luxury, taken how labour intensive producing it is.

On the farm where the coffee is growing, organic practices are making a big difference for the people working with the product. It is better for the soil, for the people picking it and for the waste from coffee processing. Even though the certification has been criticized for not taking quality into the equation, some organic certified coffee farmers are performing state-of-the-art farming techniques, resulting in some of the best coffees in the market. The expenses are still there, though, and often farms produce with no chemical inputs, simply because they can’t afford any sort of treatment for soil or plants.

As much as it is clearly a wise choice to choose organic, there’s another piece missing in the equation – the relationship and distance between producer and consumer. And not necessarily distance measured in kilometers – also proximity in the chain of custody and the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge about the product for those who wishes to seek these answers. Investigate what sustainable means, and how producers have attempted to do what they do in a best possible way. I would argue, that even if all kinds of certifications are good for some things, you really need to look into the overall picture – how, where and when was it produced? When you count stickers or distance in kilometers, you tweak the focus and end up loosing sight of what truly is the most exciting part of your consumer power and the art of eating and drinking.

~ Mette-Marie Hansen

Fungi, particularly mushrooms, offer some powerful, practical solutions to many of the forces of environmental degradation facing the biosphere. The central premise is that habitats have immune systems, just like people, and our close evolutionary relationship to fungi can be the basis for novel pairings that lead to greater sustainability and better health. Paul Stamets will discuss the evolution of mushrooms in ecosystems and how fungi can help heal the environment and its inhabitants. Paul’s work with mycelium shows how these largely untapped organisms can replace chemical insecticides; break down toxic wastes, including petroleum-based products such as diesel, dioxins, and numerous other toxins into non-toxic forms. Farmers, gardeners, green architects and ecological designers all can use these emerging mycotechnologies.

Saturday evening, June 11th, 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Sunday, June 12th, 2011, 8:30am – 4:30pm
Instructor: Paul Stamets
Cost: $175 + HST (includes lunch)
Registration: www.foxglovefarmbc.ca
Contact: 1-250-931-5336 or programs@foxglovefarmbc.ca

Watch Paul’s TED talk here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

Paul Stamets has written six mushroom-related books, most recently Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. Paul is an advisor to the Program of Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical School, Tucson; on the Editorial Board of The International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms. He has supplied mushrooms for a breast cancer clinical study and worked with BioShield BioDefense Program since 2005 to develop new defenses against bioterrorism.

In 2008, Paul received the National Geographic Adventure’s Magazine’s Green-O-vator and the Argosy Foundation’s E-chievement Awards. In November of 2008, Utne Reader recognized Paul as one of the 50 Visionaries of the Year. In February of 2010, Paul received the President’s Award from the Society of Ecological Restoration.

I caught this recent retweet from Vancouver City mayor, Gregor Robertson, of councillor Andrea Reimer’s post about a tool co-op starting up in East Van. Sounds like a great idea!

The Vancouver Tool Library (VTL) is a cooperative tool lending library currently being established in East Vancouver. The VTL will be equipped with a wide variety of tools for home repair and renovation, gardening work, and bicycle maintenance, and will loan these tools to its members free of charge. The VTL tool library will become a community resource that fosters resilience, sustainability, and community pride, as well as directly benefits Vancouver residents by reducing the costs of maintaining, improving, and greening the places in which they live, work, and play.

More info: vancouvertoollibrary.com

~ PK

At the epicenter of the raw milk controversy, Alice Jongerden, a mother of five, commits herself to defend our country’s food security and individual food rights.

Alice, the founder of Chilliwack-based Home On The Range cow-sharing co-op, is mounting a constitutional challenge of a 2010 court order that bars her from producing or distributing unpasteurized milk, which B.C. law deems a public health hazard.

Event Details

Lecture/Movie : 3PM to 5 PM (Doors open at 2PM, includes discussion), live music by David Blair and a talk with former raw dairy farmer, Alice Jongerden

Date: Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011

Lecture Fee: $20.00 per person at door

Location: Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway @Commercial Drive)

Ticket Info

• MilkWarTix@gmail.com (contact Noriko)

• White Rock, BC Ticket Location : Awakening Heart, 14899 Marine Drive, White Rock, British Columbia. V4B 1C2
(Phone: 604-535-6603 )

• North Vancouver, BC Ticket Location : Organics At Home, 1479 Hunter Street, North Van. V7J 1H3. (Thurs 2-6, Sat 9-4, Sun 10-2)
(Phone: 604-983-6657)

• Reflections Bookstore : 1111D Austin Ave., Coquitlam, BC V3K 3P4
(Phone: 604-939-6000)

e) People’s Co-op Bookstore : 1391 Commercial Dr. , Vancouver, BC V5L 3X5
(Phone : 604-253-6442)

I stumbled across this fascinating TED talk by Mycologist Paul Stamets, where he shares his research and theories on mycelium — and lists 6 ways that fungus can help save the world. Brilliant!

BONUS COMMENTARY: Dave Chapelle about mushrooms

COOL PRODUCT: Paul Stamets The Tree Life Box™, which contains a selection of tree seeds and their mycorrhizal fungal partners that have the potential to grow into a forest ecosystem.

~ PK

Details and trailer inside.

Vancouver Screening of “Milk War”

When? Feburary 6th, 2011 from 3-5 pm
Where? Rio Theatre (Commercial Drive at East Broadway)
Why? to raise funds for the Raw Milk Legal Defense Fund, protecting your right to nutritious food
Who? live music by David Blair and a talk with former raw dairy farmer, Alice Jongerden

Cost? advance tickets are $15 and will be $20 at the door

Email MilkWarTix@gmail.com