Growing Food Security in Alberta (GFSA) has  come to understand food security as the satisfaction of five elements:

• Availability – sufficient supplies of food for all people at all times

• Accessibility – physical and economic access to food for all at all times

• Acceptability – culturally acceptable and appropriate food and distribution systems

• Adequacy – nutritional quality, safety, sustainability of available sources/methods of food supply

• Action – ensuring the social and economic infrastructures are in place to enable action that will ensure the previous four elements of food security.

(Adapted from the work of Rod MacRae)

Food Security includes the circle of:

Food Security means Equity and Choice at every point.

Motions were passed to ensure that mechanisms and strategies to preserve farmland within in Edmonton will be in place before any land can be planned, rezoned or developed.

This was GEA’s primary task from the beginning of the “This Land is our Land” Campaign launched in September of 2008. More than a year later it is now moving forward in the final version of the MDP to be voted on in February.

The biggest win came on the following motion:

2.2.1.7- Preparation of Area Structure Plans is authorized for the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest Urban Growth Areas and shall only be approved following council acceptance of, and adherence with the:

- Growth Coordination Strategy
- Integrated Infrastructure Plan: and
- City Wide Food and Agriculture Strategy

An amendment to delete the City Wide Food and Agriculture Strategy was made by Ward 3 Councilor Tony Caterina. This amendment was defeated in a 7-6 nail-biter.

Those councilors who voted for keeping the City Wide Food and Agriculture Strategy tied to the motion and any future planning and development were: Karen Lebovici, Ron Hayter, Don Iveson, Dave Theile, Ben Henderson, Kim Krushell, Linda Sloan.

Those who voted to remove the City Wide Food and Agriculture strategy from the motion were: Mayor Mandel, Tony Caterina, Ed Gibbons, Jane Batty, Bryan Anderson and Amarjeet Sohi.

The GEA extends their thanks to all of who helped out with the campaign.

This is a huge step forward for food security in Edmonton.

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Find out more by joining the facebook group.

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Sonja Myllymaki made a major career change this summer, from letter carrier to full-time farmer. And she didn’t leave the city to do it.

She didn’t have land of her own, but she found a way around that, too. She found vacant lots, she rented allotments and contracted space in friends’ backyards.

Myllymaki is pioneering SPIN gardening–Small Plot Intensive agriculture–a business model started in Saskatoon a few years ago. Bringing small-scale commercial gardening into the city is the latest development in the local food movement that is rapidly gaining momentum and sending shoots out in all directions.

The “eat local” campaign championed by restaurant chefs a few years ago has ballooned into a polyglot of urban farmers, average families looking for healthy food, environmentalists, social activists, provincial economists and urban planners with a new definition of a sustainable city.

On this blustery day in late June, Myllymaki digs at the inevitable weeds among the tomatoes, peas, lettuce and beans, using a backyard drip hose to water the crop. She figures she’s got 700 to 800 square metres of land, less than a half a hectare, but SPIN doesn’t require vast tracts of land.

There’s no farming in her family background and Myllymaki herself has a university degree in modern dance and occasionally performs.

But she says she’s typical of the new urban farmer–30-something, female, part idealist and pragmatic. She’s interested in eating healthy and reducing her environmental footprint, and that led her to gardening a few years ago, and then into this new venture.

Like most farmers, Myllymaki puts in long days, and it’s been back-breaking work to break up the grassy lots, get rid of the weeds and restore the soil before she could get to planting. In the SPIN model, there’s minimal mechanization and lots of hands-on work. It employs organic methods– no pesticides or chemical sprays.

She’s planning to market her produce through a new, small distribution system called Locavoria, an online network of about 20 families who buy directly from two area farmers who post their produce and families make their orders.

SPIN farming is catching on in other cities.

South of the border, Detroit started to grow vegetables on vacant lots using SPIN techniques, and some estimate they can produce more than 10 per cent of local food needs.

Edmonton could do a lot, she says, and there’s plenty of vacant land in Edmonton, in backyards, boulevards, parks and schoolyards where you could plant fruit trees and put in gardens.

Like many food activists, Myllymaki came to the local food movement via the environmental movement and concerns about food security and food safety.

Cities take their supply of imported food for granted, she says, but in a time of high energy costs that might not be a safe assumption.

“We think we’re immune to peak oil, but the global food system will be the first to feel the shortage of oil,” she says.

If those long supply lines from California or Mexico are disrupted, far better that Edmonton has a robust local supply of food, she says.

Also, the drought is already causing big headaches for farmers just outside. Part of the problem is that large-scale, export-driven agriculture is more vulnerable to a lack of rain, she says.

In fact, Camrose county in mid-June declared a state of agriculture disaster as canola and hay fields withered under the lack of rain.

Small-scale SPIN operations can store water in the soil more easily and withstand hard times, she says.

But while many environmentalists retreat to the countryside for a purer life, she says, that’s not helping to build healthy urban spaces.

“That’s just leaving the mess. We need to stay and change the way cities work, to make them sustainable. There’s plenty of vacant land for growing and the city should lease land to young urban farmers.”

SPIN gardening got started in Saskatoon. Farmer Wally Satzewich discovered he could make more money growing greens and salad crops in the city than on his rural land, mainly because he could grow three crops in a summer.

Contrary to expectations, an urban location offers many advantages for growing food–a more controlled environment, fewer pests, more warm days and instant access to market. Edmonton, with 140 frost-free days, compared to 110 outside the city, and its excellent Class 1 soil, holds great possibilities.

According to advocates, most SPINners are first-time farmers, but it also appeals to established farmers who want to diversify or downsize, as well as by part-time hobby farmers.
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal.

The Good Food Project is a non-profit pilot program to increase access to local food for citizens in the Edmonton region. They facilitate the weekly ordering and delivery of fresh local vegetables from area farms to select Edmonton residences via home delivery and pickup locations.The pilot project began with the intention of running a minimum of 6 weeks, starting last summer. They have expanded the project to include milk, protein and other locally processed items.

One of the goals is to make “Local” easy. The Good Food Box can deliver to your home, your office or your business.

The Good Food Project is a multi-farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). This CSA will buy produce from local farmers in NE Edmonton and, if required, from local farmers in the surrounding area. The Good Food Project is a social enterprise with a social purpose meaning that at least 10% of our revenue will be used to reduce the cost of a Good Food Box for low income families.

Sourcing is based on 100 km of Edmonton, and will work outward in concentric circles to find quality locally made and produced food.

They are currently doing a survey to improve the service and they need your help!