notice that 2016 was considered the year
of the ten-dollar cauliflower it’s
likely that a lot of you didn’t because
really that kind of information if
unless your vegetable forward just
really slides right under the radar
although you might have been aware of it
on some level in your grocery bill each
week by december of last year news media
we’re reporting how grocers were not
bringing in certain fruit and vegetable
items because the costs were too high
and shoppers simply weren’t buying them
seems a little unreal we’ve grown up
expecting to be able to go into a
grocery store and get anything anytime
anywhere but I want you to consider how
would you feel if tomorrow you walked
into the store and the shelves really
were mostly empty so you might be
thinking well how can that be let’s take
Venezuela as an example it’s a country
that depends on oil exports for its
economy it’s also a country that hasn’t
really developed its domestic food
supply so in 2014 when will coil prices
dropped suddenly Venezuela didn’t have
enough money to import enough food to
feed its citizens so to this day
Venezuelans are still facing long
grocery lineups food shortages and
astronomical prices for basic goods so
you might be thinking okay well that’s
them it’s not us for over a decade now
scientists have been warning us that
there have been massive die-offs of bee
colonies all around the world in Canada
in the United States these are at their
lowest population numbers in over half a
century one out of every three things
that we like to eat come from plants
that need bees in a few minutes we’re
going to be breaking for lunch and I
heard a lot of you clapping and cheering
for pizza early this morning so imagine
your meal
though bees there’s going to be no green
peppers on your slice there won’t be any
onions or garlic for flavor and there’s
definitely not going to be any tomato
sauce either for your pizza oh okay
we’ll take the crust we’re going to fold
it over the pepperoni and cheese we’re
going to call it a calzone and we can
still eat right not so fast because in
the Midwestern United States the largest
underground water source is called the
Ogallala Aquifer it supplies water to
eight states from South Dakota all the
way down to Texas this region produces
one-fifth of all the wheat and corn and
cattle in the United States if not North
America at the current rate of watering
the Ogallala is being predicted to run
out of water for growing crops in about
20 years so now imagine your lunch
without any pepperoni or cheese because
we don’t have enough crops to feed the
hogs and cattle and there’s likely no
crust either because wheat is simply too
expensive we’ve been getting groceries
off store shelves for decades with the
benefit of an abundant food supply and
selection so what’s changed well in the
beginning Norman Borlaug known as the
father of the Green Revolution he
dedicated his life to improving
agriculture so that he didn’t have to
watch people die from lack of food his
efforts were so revolutionary at the
time that he’s credited with saving over
a billion people from starvation and he
was awarded a nobel peace prize for his
scientific work what we didn’t expect
though is how this green revolution
would change our outlook on food food
plays a really powerful role in our
lives it’s a part of key memories that
we hold
our hearts it can even make us feel
loved and secure the very thing that
nourishes us and is critical to our
health and well-being we’ve actually
turned into big business today’s
agri-food industry relies on big farms
and big inputs and big production to be
economical because the goal of food has
become the profit margin so along the
way is our farms have gotten bigger and
bigger we’ve had to rely on heavy-duty
high-tech equipment in order to manage
the size of these farms well this kind
of conventional agriculture is eroding
soil let me use your thumb as an
illustration from the top of your thumb
to the first joint represents almost 500
years of biological soil building
activity in the last century most
farmland in North America has lost about
eight of these because of soil erosion
the system we constructed to feed us is
showing its weaknesses big inputs to get
big production means we’ve been using
chemicals to try and feed the world even
though we’re applying chemicals to a
biology system of plants and organisms
so since 2001 scientists have been
monitoring a dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico and this dead zone is roughly
half the size of Vancouver Island and
it’s mostly due to fertilizer runoff
that concentrates in outlet areas where
the streams and rivers meet the oceans
it’s only one of 450 known dead zones in
the oceans around the world so we can
keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing
or we can make a change how would you
feel if tomorrow you could walk over to
your local urban farm and get your fresh
local food really simply urban
agriculture is the art of using small
spaces in the hardest cities for growing
food in some cases like mine the farmer
uses a vacant lot in other setups a
farmer will convert lawns from people’s
yards and in Montreal one group is
building greenhouses on top of warehouse
spaces in order to cultivate produce in
the heart of the city all of us urban
farmers are trying to bring the country
into the city so we can grow food closer
to home urban agriculture is a type of
Renaissance which literally means
rebirth if you google urban farming
you’re going to get over 200,000 hits
popping up on your computer but long
before the internet in 1902 a fellow by
the name of Ebenezer Howard wrote about
the garden cities of tomorrow I really
like how that sounds so hopeful and
poetic and he was trying to promote the
combination of town and country saying
that it wasn’t just economic but it was
healthful as well and more recently at
the World Expo in Italy cities from all
over the globe signed a pact pledging to
coordinate urban food strategies urban
agriculture is a movement that is
literally gaining ground in cities all
over the world the main force driving
this trend at the government level is
that the World Health Organization
estimates that we have to increase
global food supply by seventy percent
over the next 30 years we’re facing some
of the same challenges that Norman
you live in a city that is the third
fastest growing in this province
your community is expected to grow by
over fifty percent in the same 30 year
time period the good news is you already
have your first urban farm when you get
your produce from an urban farm you’re
bringing home items that were harvested
within hours of your meal you can’t get
more farm-to-table than that at the
beginning of my efforts I took a poll
asking people what’s your favorite
memory of summer fresh produce maybe
some things come to mind for you that
are here tonight what I found was that
the most popular answer was carrots
fresh out of the ground with the dirt
still on them ultimately we seem to have
a collective awareness fresh food should
taste fresh and it’s no wonder we have
about 10,000 taste buds in her mouth
we’re meant to taste and enjoy what we
eat I have a lot of fun surprising
people what you can grow in an urban
farm last year we grew watermelons and
cantaloupes and the best one weighed in
at over seven and a half pounds as more
of us consume food grown within our
cities availability and price is only
going to get better growing produce in
the heart of a city doesn’t just bring
fresh food to the consumer it also makes
an environmental impact urban
agriculture reclaimed spaces in cities
and it creates mini zones where plants
take carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere and it helps reduce
greenhouse gases in cities bees and
pollinators have trouble getting enough
food but an urban farm gives them a
place to fuel up free from pesticides
and chemicals one of the best natural
resources found near in urban farm is
roof runoff on rainy days one of my
major goals for this season is to
establish rainwater harvest and storage
so that we can irrigate our fruit and
vegetables over the summer using the
collected rainwater instead of municipal
why I’ve been asked if it’s difficult
promoting urban agriculture here in the
Fraser Valley in the heart of one of
Canada’s best growing regions and the
answer really is not at all in fact what
I’m finding is that most people are
really excited and really enthusiastic
sometimes even more than me and my
biggest problem as an urban farmer is
that I’m so accessible to people passing
by my site that they always want to stop
and ask questions and talk and sometimes
talk and talk the best conversation I
had was with a young woman who lived and
worked in the area and she was on her
way home after work and she stopped by
just to tell me how much safer she was
feeling in the neighborhood because of
the changes made to the vacant lot a
very real side effect of urban
agriculture is how it softens the ash
fold in concrete in our cities I think
Audrey Hepburn said it really well to
plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow
we can keep doing things exactly the way
we’ve always been doing them or we can
make a change urban agriculture is like
a do-over for the Green Revolution
because we’re not just trying to supply
more food this time we’re trying to grow
local food security so that you can have
access to safe nutritious and affordable
food and when you choose to take this
opportunity to change the food system
you’re joining with people all over the
globe who are excited about urban
agriculture and this movement urban
agriculture is all of us together taking
part to solve the food challenges before
us and along the way the bonus is you’ll get to taste and see that it’s good