Extreme local food: two case studies in assisted urban small plot intensive agriculture.

Abstract

As worries over the environmental impact of the industrial food system grow the idea of locally produced food is becoming increasingly popular. This includes a growing interest in the "ultimate zero carbon food" produced through urban growing. However, there are several barriers to an expansion of urban agriculture in North America; these include poor urban soils, a lack of knowledge, zoning restrictions, and personal time constraints that prohibit the investment needed to tend a small-plot intensive garden. This paper discusses two case studies (one in Portland, Oregon and the other in Vancouver, British Columbia) of assisted urban small-plot intensive farming. These initiatives involve entrepreneurs installing and tending small plots on participants' land. The crops produced are either sold at local farmers' markets or shared directly with the land owners. These efforts provide benefit in their own right but could also help speed the diffusion of urban agriculture; as examples of early "niche adaptation" both projects have strong educational components and are engaging a diverse demographic. In addition this approach with one urban farmer tending multiple plots could help address concerns over small plot carbon footprints that have been raised in the literature.

A mesure qu'augmentent les preoccupations a propos des consequences environnementales du systeme alimentaire industriel, l'idee de la production locale d'aliments devient de plus en plus populaire. Cela porte egalement sur un interet accru envers une [much less than] production alimentaire a emission de carbone nulle [much greater than] grace a la culture urbaine. Cependant, il existe plusieurs obstacles a I'expansion de I'agriculture urbaine en Amerique du Nord, notamment la pauvrete des sols urbains, un manque de connaissances, des restrictions de zonage, et des contraintes de temps personnelles qui empechent les investissements necessaires pour s'occuper d'un petit potager intensif. L'auteure de cet article analyse deux etudes de cas (I'une a Portland, Oregon et I'autre a Vancouver, Colombie-Britannique) de culture intensive urbaine assistee sur petite parcelle. Dans ces initiatives, des entrepreneurs installent de petites parcelles sur les terres des participants et s'en occupent. Les recoltes sont soit vendues dans les marches locaux ou partagees directement avec les proprietaires des terres. Ces initiatives sont benefiques en tant que telles, mais elles pourraient egalement contribuer a accelerer la diffusion de I'agriculture urbaine. Comme exemples de premieres [much less than] adaptations a un creneau [much greater than], les deux projets comptent d'importants elements educatifs et font appel a une diversite demographique. De plus, cette approche ou un fermier urbain s'occupe de plusieurs parcelles pourrait contribuer a rassurer quant aux preoccupations qui ont ete soulevees dans la documentation relativement au bilan carbone genere par les petites parcelles.

Keywords

Local food, urban agriculture, community agriculture, small plot, intensive agriculture, sustainable food

Introduction

The popularity of concepts such as Slow Food, and of books such as the "100 Mile Diet" (Smith and MacKinnon 2007) has propelled local food into mainstream consciousness. Local food has emerged amid a crisis of severe decline in local agriculture that has continued for at least a half century. For example the Chisan-chiso movement of Japan (see Kimera and Nishiyama 2008), a term that translates as locally produced, locally consumed, has arisen during a time of great contraction in domestic food production. The loss of local food options is framed as a threat to national culture and independence. Similarly the Slow Food movement in Europe arose in part to counter the destruction of local traditional food production and preparation techniques due to the onslaught of global food products. A renewed interest in local production has been spurred by environmental and health concerns, gourmets interested in preserving local varieties, and the remaining local farmers. Slow Food aims to preserve local varieties, cuisines, and what proponents called the "rhetoric of terroir" (Miele and Murdoch 2002). Founded in 1986 in Bra, a town in the Piedmont Region of Italy, the Slow Food movement seeks to position food as a key constituent in the development and maintenance of community (Pietrykowski 2004). Others argue for a broader theme of locality, claiming that complete neighbourhoods are those that meet daily needs locally (Leyden 2003). In North America, local food has emerged in concert with a general questioning of consumer lifestyles. Local food is emerging as an easily accessible site of personal engagement with environmental issues. Henderson (2000) argues that local food could become an important way to promote a more ecologically sustainable, socially equitable, and economically viable future for the food system.

As with any movement that achieves rapid publicity in the popular press, it is important to question whether empirical evidence supports the claims being made regarding local food systems and their role in promoting more sustainable consumption that minimizes environmental damage and encourages local economies to a greater degree than the industrial food system or mass-market organics (Seyfang 2007, Pollan 2006). Certainly some theorists believe this is true; DeLind (2006:121) claims "Local food and eating locally become both the symbol and substance for structural change from which flows enormous social and environmental benefit." Local food has also recently enjoyed a great increase in popularity in Canada, particularly after the publication of the "100 Mile Diet" (Smith and MacKinnon 2007) which strongly encourages local production as a way of achieving environmental and health benefits and as a building block of sustainable communities. Many advantages have been attributed to local food. It is viewed as superior to industrial food systems in terms of food safety (as local food is said to be handled more carefully), environmental effects (as less fossil fuels are used), food taste and freshness (as varieties do not have to be chosen for durability over long distances), and regional development (as local farm economies are preserved) (Van Hauwermeiren et al. 2007, Nichol 2003). DeLind (2006) echoes these advantages, arguing local food boosts local rural economy, is healthier and better tasting, reduces energy needs and fosters a sense of place. Flavour and variety are often highlighted (Stagl 2002), and a link is often made with the preservation of biodiversity through the consumption of local cultivars (Shiva 2000), as the local varieties being preserved are adapted to local conditions, and need fewer pesticides and fewer fertilizers to thrive.

The energy associated with transport of food is a major element of the local food movement. People worry about the shipping of food over long distances (Lockie, et al. 2002), and the environmental advantage of locally produced food is often discussed in terms of the distance that the product must travel from field to table. This issue is of some concern as studies show that the industrial food system is transporting food products over larger and larger distances (Wallgren 2006). For example, in his work "Insidious Distance", Borge (2001) notes that between 1970 and 1990 the average distance that food traveled doubled in Germany. It is argued that this is inefficient from an energetics point of view; a head of California lettuce containing fifty calories takes 400 calories to grow and 1,800 calories to ship to the east coast using industrial processes (Raeburn 1995). An early theoretical study suggested that a fifteen-fold savings in carbon emissions could be achieved through local production (Halweil 2002). However, more recent studies suggest that energy and emission savings are dependent on the growing method and most importantly on the efficiency of the transport to market.

A Swedish study showed that for a small scale market and for farm-gate sales, there was no energy saving over the industrial food system except for some varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables sold during their growing season (Wallgren 2006). European examples confirmed this puzzling result, demonstrating that energy use in the current system of small rural markets studied was about the same as energy used in the industrial system (Van Hauwermeiren et al. 2007). However, these studies reported clearly that the problem was the inefficiency of individual customers driving to the farm or to a rural market to pick up food, or in the urban cases with individual farmers transporting small amounts of food in private vehicles to urban markets. If urban markets become common and increase the volume of goods sold in this manner, significant energy savings could be realized as the amount of food being transported reaches levels where transport efficiencies begin to take effect (Van Hauwermeiren et al. 2007, Stagl 2002).

Although alternative methods of transport for local food are one solution to energy intensive local supply chains, there is another possibility. Studies have clearly identified the demand for local food is greatest in large urban areas (Selfa and Qazi 2005, Stagl 2002, llbery et al. 2006) However, the transport of small batches of gourmet product to urban niche markets from the rural hinterland is criticized as having a large environmental impact, despite the shorter supply chains. The logical next step is the return to a very old idea; the growing of "extreme local food" in which some of our food needs are met within the city itself. In fact, at present, 15% of the world's food needs are met through urban production (Katz 2006) although over the last fifty years in most of the industrial world the practice has been largely abandoned. Food has been exiled from the city; in fact Toynbee defined cities in terms of their lack of food production: "a settlement whose inhabitants cannot produce within the city limits all of the food for keeping them alive (1970, 8). The erasure of food from our cities was partly due to technology: urban food systems declined and became invisible due to transport and refrigeration (Pothukchi and Kaufman 1999). The noise and smell of food production also helped drive food processing out of urban areas, which led to a redefinition of farms as rural (Pothukchi and Kaufman 1999).

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