To potential and new organic food growers:

The Sustainable Microfarm Forum is coming to Courtenay!

Reduce our community’s dependence on off coast food sources

Sunday November 16, 2008 9:30 - 4:00

Improve your ability to market garden at this all-day intensive workshop. Participants will leave feeling better equipped and supported, with clearer ideas of the challenges that face them, and with better tools for moving ahead as food providers.

Location and Cost: Filberg Centre, Courtney $95 includes vegetarian lunch and refreshments

Register early! Phone Beth Mowat (250) 337-1958 or emailmorefoodnow@gmail.com. Some subsidies available.

Topics include: Water conservation techniques, stretching your harvest season, using microclimates, value-added pros and cons, skill sharing and much more.

Facilitated by Robin Wheeler of the Sustainable Living Arts School, Roberts Creek (slas.ca), owner of Edible Landscapes (ediblelandscapes.ca) , founder of the One Straw Society (onestraw.ca) , author of Food Security for the Faint of Heart and Gardening for the Faint of Heart.

Our hosts for the upcoming root cellar learning party on November 1st (email:mcollATcommonroutes.com) chose this plan for us to work from.

Although I dream of a root cellar big enough to accommodate crocks of sauerkraut as well as crisp apples and crunchy carrots, this looks doable for the city. I’ll be coming with my questions about what to store where- don’t apples release some kind of gas? How tightly can you pack stuff?

Apparently my grandparents use to store vegetables in a pit lined with straw through the winter and the snow acted as insulator. I’m guessing that the challenging element for Vancouver will be site selection and that all important drainage ditch.

The essence of Fukuoka’s method is to reproduce natural conditions as closely as possible. There is no plowing, as the seed germinates quite happily on the surface if the right conditions are provided. There is also considerable emphasis on maintaining diversity. A ground cover of white clover grows under the grain plants to provide nitrogen. Weeds (and Daikons) are also considered part of the ecosystem, periodically cut and allowed to lie on the surface so the nutrients they contain are returned to the soil. Ducks are let into the grain plot, and specific insectivorous carp into the rice paddy at certain times of the year to eat slugs and other pests.The ground is always covered. As well as the clover and weeds, there is the straw from the previous crop, which is used as mulch, and each grain crop is sown before the previous one is harvested. This is done by broadcasting the seed among the standing crop…

Fukuoka’s method and philosophy is about small scale farming, yet he claims “With this kind of farming, which uses no machines, no prepared fertilizer and no chemicals, it is possible to attain a harvest equal to or greater than that of the average Japanese farm.” (The One-Straw Revolution) Masanobu Fukuoka

Chances are if you’ve been periodically tuning into the campaign to Save the UBC Farm your impression is that the university is acting reasonably and things are on their way to being resolved. The farm has gotten good press. UBC heavyweights have been quoted making positive noises. It is therefore, a distressing experience to give a close reading to the latest vision and options document put forward by the good folks from the office at  Campus and Community Planning (Look for the jauntily titled “Phase 4 Consultation Discussion Guide.”)

For those of you keeping score we are now at phase 4 of a 6  phase process underway at UBC comprised of  many feedback documents, workshops, open houses, presentations to the Board of Governor’s and doubtless 1000’s of meetings. The Board will vote on the final plan sometime in 2009.

Which I guess means we are 2/3 of the way to a plan being adopted to direct the next phase of development of the campus of our public university (barring total global economic collapse or something crazy like that).  But wait — how can that be? Not one of the 3 options put forward in this latest opus include the current 24 hectare farm in its current location.

That’s right: not one option actually “saves the farm”. That option has been eliminated.

So what message did the folks at Campus and Community Planning take from all the thousands of hours of volunteer time dedicated to saving the farm by folks in the community and at UBC, all the public education at events, the thousands of signatures on petitions, the press, the letters and yes, the meetings, dedicated to saving the farm?

Maybe an 8 hectare farm, not necessarily in its current location.  I suppose the idea here is that the fields (the productive part of the farm, one presumes) can be packed up on a truck and dropped in a new spot, minus unfortunately the forest, the hedgerows and the gathering and teaching places, indoor and outdoor, for humans.

I am experiencing cognitive dissonance. And so back to Fukuoka: what I think we meant was SAVE THE FARM! The whole shebang — the system, including the current land-base, wildlife, researchers, the most excellent staff, volunteers, interns and community folk alongside the birds, insects and weeds and the complex connections. Except we want the farm to be truly supported, with all the energy, your ideas, and your funds. That’s what we meant.

This is critical because the research and academic work that is done at the farm happens in a context. A context that includes the study of soil micro-organisms and the laughter of kids in the children’s garden. Researchers at the farm interact with aboriginal elders, folks from the Mayan community, farm apprentices, farmer’s market devotees.

This gives me great hope. It’s research in a context of inter-connected systems, of habitat, of community. It’s permaculture in action.

Paving over this paradise for condos is just so deeply boring. We’ve tried that — paved over and over. Let’s, as a community, let our public university know we’d like to try a different experiment: one where we nurture the complex patterns of interaction, and all the beings, who are part of our last farm in Vancouver, to see what we can learn for the future.

Be creative in expressing your understanding, hopes and expectations! You can of course sign the petition, write a letter to Stephen Toope (presidents.office@ubc.ca) or the Board of Governors, you can learn more about what needs to be done via the Save the UBC Farm listserv:  friendsoftheubcfarm@gmail.com, blog and weekly meeting (check in via the listserv).

Do check Rocks and Water for UBC Farm stories. They write and photograph with energy and zest.

One more quote for the road, from Fukuoka again:

..if modern agriculture continues to follow the path it’s on now, it’s finished. The food-growing situation may seem to be in good shape today, but that’s just an illusion based on the current availability of petroleum fuels. All the wheat, corn, and other crops that are produced on big American farms may be alive and growing, but they’re not products of real nature or real agriculture. They’re manufactured rather than grown. The earth isn’t producing those things… petroleum is!
Masanobu Fukuoka, Mother Earth News interview, 1982^[1]

Saturday, November 15, 2008 10am to 4pm

Location: Langara College, room to be announced. 100 West 49th Avenue, Vancouver, BC. Directions

Cost: $85 includes a delicious lunch with local and seasonal goodies

Register: In person or by phone 604-323-5322 with Langara College Continuing Studies. Course code: 70709

Please bring a simple map of the space you’re working with: your home garden or community garden.

Learn more about the practical applications of Permaculture – a design system based on mimicking natural ecosystems. Permaculture offers much for the busy urban gardener who wants to sustainably grow more food in a small space with minimal maintenance time. Students will design their own perennial food systems based on a simple site plan they bring to class.

Schedule for the day:

10-11:30: Introduction to Permaculture – Exploring the (hard to define) concept, its history and ethics.
11:30-12:30 Lunch provided- local, seasonal and delicious!
12:30-2:00 Defining permaculture design principles and discussing examples of their application in day-to-day life.
2-2:15 Break
2:15-3:45: Learn the basics of site assessment and apply them to your own space. Bring a basic site plan of the space you are working that includes a rough sketch of your space, including any permanent structures, cardinal directons and rough dimensions or we can provide one for you.
3:45: Wrap-up including final questions.

Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to:
* define permaculture and briefly discuss its history and ethics
* articulate permaculture design principles and the basics of site design
* design a low maintenance perennial food system for their own space

Teachers:
Heather Johnstone is the coordinator of the Edible Garden Project on Vancouver’s North Shore (www.ediblegardenproject.com). She has spent years learning with organic farmers on the west coast, and now teaches urban home gardeners to help them grow food. She teaches workshops ranging from Permaculture to cooking to seed saving.

Sheryl Webster is a landscape designer and permaculture teacher who has worked and studied in both Vancouver and San Francisco. She has worked in both the public and private sector as a project manager for various sustainability initiatives focusing on native and edible plants. Her design experience ranges in scale from garden beds to habitat corridors.

This 10 hour class will take place:
Saturday November 1st  12 noon - 5 pm
Sunday November 2nd  10 am - 3 pm

It will be rain or shine, taking place both inside and outside.
Taking place at the Sustainable Living Arts School in Robert’s Creek on the Sunshine Coast: the Heart Gardens.

The cost is $20 per person. Limited to 13 people .
Register and pay in advance to secure your space.

Design is Destiny.

As the seams of the corporate-military world begin to unravel, local organic food production, conscious relating and low impact living become increasingly important. Enhanced by technological toolsets, there is a
vitalfocus on sustainable community development on a bioregional and planetary level.

Permaculture is an emerging approach to designing relationships and landscapes based on the history of agriculture and social organization with its roots in the tribal wisdoms of our deeper past.

This autumn a small group will gather in the fabled elphinstone rainforest for a 10 hr course in permaculture. We will explore introductory level practical permaculture including organic gardening with native plants, sacred food plants of the Coastal First Peoples and dynamic composting strategies. In addition we will focus on permaculture principles, design concepts and mapping strategies. There will be an
exploration of advanced level permaculture including discussion about permaculture education and media in the context of local and global strategies launched from the Heart Gardens.

In effect this will be both a class in learning about permaculture and learning how to teach permaculture, covering a range of interest from introductory to advanced.