A little creative thinking can go a long way in overcoming obstacles to food self-sufficiency on the Coast, says the One Straw Society's new food security co-ordinator.
Nadi Fleschhut took on the part-time position in April, thanks in part to a $15,000 grant from Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) to the One Straw Society. Her challenge, she said, is to increase awareness of the need to grow and sell more food locally. "Not everyone has to go out and become a survivalist to increase their food security," Fleschhut said. With a full-time population of about 28,000 people and just six commercial food producers, the Sunshine Coast has little ability to feed itself should our ferry service be cut off. Her job is to "try to ensure we're holding space for increasing the potential of local growers," she said. One of her tasks is to help create a food policy council for the lower Sunshine Coast. The council's work will include goals like ensuring those who occupy local agricultural land reserve (ALR) land are actually using it for farming, she said. (Throughout southwestern B.C., about half the original ALR lands have been lost to urbanization since it was established in 1973.) Food security can also be attained by focusing on historical norms, not esoteric solutions, she said. Fleschhut uses grains and cereal crops as an example.
"People imagine more prairie agriculture, instead of seeing Coastal ecology supporting that," she said. "We've become very dependent on agriculture that's regionally-focused. We need to begin experimenting to find out what can be grown here."
One person doing that is 28-year-old Chris Hergesheimer. In the front yard of his property in Roberts Creek, he grows heritage wheat varieties like Red Fife and Marquis in two small plots, one three metres by three metres, and the other about 1.2 metres by 2.4 metres feet.
He mills about 12 kilograms of flour each week and sells it at the Sechelt Farmers Market in various mixes and blends for baking and hopes to ramp up to producing 40 kilograms a week after completing the thesis for his masters degree at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
"If we can't grow all the grain we need here, we can at least get into the value-added aspect," he said. "One hundred years ago, you would've had a mill in every community in B.C."
His business name, Rain Forest Flour, reflects the climate that Hergesheimer said can be a challenge for growing grain. Last summer's rain and cool weather resulted in the loss of his entire crop. But B.C. grains are not a new idea. Hergesheimer said Vancouver Island has eight to 10 grain farmers utilizing plots of about one hectare in size.
"Sometimes the bread-producing machine of the Prairies makes us forget this," he said. "You can buy a bag of [conventional] flour ground six months ago, or you can buy the fresh product, just hours old."
Hergesheimer and Fleschhut both emphasize the need to determine whether local food can be better sold through grocery stores or informal networks. People like the idea of the 100-mile diet, Hergesheimer said, but growers sometimes find there are too many uncertainties involved in getting their product to market.
Regardless of the marketing method used, local food is a good thing, said Dania Matiaton, community nutritionist for VCH. She lobbied the health authority for local food security funding and said the One Straw Society is "doing a great job on a shoestring budget." "Food security is now a core program in public health, and I'm just thrilled this is going ahead," she added.
Fleschhut encourages residents with food security concerns and input for a potential food policy council to contact her by email at [email protected], or phone 604-741-9859.
