Click here for a 3:34 slideshow about Eileen Ailert’s campaign to kick-start urban agriculture.
Also: click here to order a used copy of Heather Flores’ book “Food Not Lawns”, a practical guide to home food growing. And click here to check out VPO resources on how to start growing your own food.
It’s a way to get back in touch with this Nature we keep hearing so much about, a way to start eating healthy organic food for practically nothing, and a political act - all rolled into one. Join in!
Innovative development will house 45 families, a farm, businesses
Brian Lewis, The Province
Published: Sunday, August 17, 2008
Original article
One of the Fraser Valley’s better kept secrets is the picturesque village of Yarrow, where even today it feels more appropriate to drive down its main street in nothing newer than a ‘56 Chevy.
However, just across from “Hank the Barber” on Yarrow Central Road, you’ll find a unique development project that’s capturing attention from as far away as Kansas and California. Read the complete Post.
The first organizer of the Vancouver Peak Oil Citizens Group, Max - a highly like-able young permaculturist and eco-activist - renounced the post allegedly, because he foresaw our powering-down and transitional efforts going to s***. I remember hearing this information from my predecessor, Steve. I was told that he was off, ‘walking the land,’ trying to find out ‘where it is at.’ As I began to Contemplate Max’s life-path, I also began to question more of my own plans for the future. Put it this way, if I am to use the folks at LATOC as a yardstick, I am woefully unprepared, ripe for the die-off. A secure home with crate-loads of ammo is the de rigeur minimum - or so the message boards would have us believe.
Read the complete Post.
I find myself trying to take account of a lot of different scenarios, ranging from a “soft landing” — where oil depletes gradually and price rises are the biggest problem we have to deal with — to a crash with both sturm and drang. In the soft landing scenario, I’d hope to stay in North Vancouver and help relocalize it into a fairly self-sufficient neighborhood, bearing in mind that that still requires preserving farmload to grow food for the whole metro area and so on. That’s why I’m eager to get the Peak Oil task force going, get the city council and the provincial government on board, and make Vancouver the first city in Canada to officially prepare for what’s coming. But I’m also thinking about what to do in a more severe scenario — I’d still need a village around me — but maybe somewhere farther from the city, like Nelson, or the Sunshine Coast? That kind of scenario brings with it a million questions: How do I make a living? What about family, here and elsewhere? Where are my best friends? How do I convince lots of people with Really Useful Skills to come live next to me and teach me everything I don’t know? No real answers yet, but I’m hoping 2008 will bring much more clarity. I’ll update this post when I know more.
Plans A, B & C are all in various stages of research and development:
Plan A - Stay in Vancouver - Plan A
- Continue to develop guerrilla and community gardens
- Create a non-profit to facilitate the creation of city sponsored community gardens
- Start an urban permaculture school to train low-income, disadvantaged, at risk populations alongside anyone interested in the subject
- Work with the city to create urban farms employing people who have graduated from the urban permaculture school
Plan B - Ecovillage in BC
- Looking at property in Lillooet with plenty of sun, long growing season and access to fresh water
- Work with city of Lillooet to create a methane digester facility for composting municipal food stuffs while generating electricity and fertilizer
- Purchase diesel vehicle and get a Plant Drive kit so I can run on used veggie oil, dino diesel and biodiesel
- Start building a huge garden & orchard - enough to be self-sufficient with a surplus to sell/trade
- Begin keeping livestock for meat and dairy
- Continue developing soap making skills
- Start a permaculture school within the next five years
- Continue to create micro-enterprise focused on relocalizing our economy
Plan C - Head for the Hills
- Retreat to Manitoulin Island - work with friends and family to build self-sufficient infrastructure there
