The Co-op Alternative: 'Deconstructing Dinner' looks at community farming in BC
It's been a topic of discussion throughout many broadcasts of Deconstructing Dinner: while there is clearly a widespread interest in supporting more localized food systems, the bigger picture of how such systems can be physically, economically and politically sustained is a far more complicated and serious matter. As long as our food and farming continues to be built upon the same market-based systems of economics that govern all else, the preservation of and access to farmland in close proximity to urban centres will only become increasingly harder to maintain. In most parts of the country, agricultural land has become next to worthless for the production of food, and we now watch cities sprawl into the fertile soil. So what's the solution? One solution is a project currently being expanded upon by The Land Conservancy of British Columbia (TLC) and Vancouver-based FarmFolk/CityFolk. The program is called the Community Farms Program, first mentioned on Deconstructing Dinner on April 19, 2007. While specific to British Columbia, ths is a model that could be applied anywhere in North America.