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Food and Drink

Who's minding the food store?

This week Whistler is awash with civic leaders as some 1,500 delegates gather for the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention.

As elected officials and senior staff from B.C.'s municipalities, regional districts and regional hospital districts - plus a sprinkling of provincial politicians - enjoy the good food and libations around town in between sessions, remember that whether they work at the local, provincial or federal level, it's government officials who are minding the food store.

Given they make some pretty important decisions regarding what you and I eat and drink, you couldn't ask for a better reason why it's good - very, very good - to be politically aware and engaged.

Policies impact everything from how much detail is in food labels to whether we can buy food at a farmers' market or find GMO products on our grocery shelves. And policy makers need to hear from us when it comes to shaping those policies.

Here are some examples. In each case, you don't have to be some helpless, hapless victim unless you want to be.

Engagement and influence in policy-making about food supply, and beyond, is more than possible, it's crucial in a democracy. If we aren't engaged in governing ourselves, we get what we deserve - a blah life of passivity spent eternally whinging about somebody else's self-interest and agenda. In short, a world that isn't ours.

 

Don't chicken out now

After a friend of mine moved from the Lower Mainland to Victoria years ago, she said she was so happy to live in such a civilized place, one where you could have chickens in your own backyard.

I think she hadn't yet discovered that Victoria still uncivilly dumps its raw sewage into the ocean. But it has never banned chickens within municipal boundaries.

Proper waste disposal aside, my friend and her partner were thrilled they could raise their own chickens for eggs, meat and cheap entertainment, and jumped right in with some Rhode Island Reds.

New Westminster, Burnaby, Gibsons and, more recently, Vancouver now allow residents to raise chickens in their backyards largely because people lobbied for it.

This year's PNE featured an exhibit on raising your own backyard chickens. In fact, it's getting to be quite the trend, with local groups hosting workshops on everything from how to build a proper coop to what kind of chickens to buy.

One such organization is Farm Folk City Folk ( http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/ ), a non-profit society that's been an excellent resource since the early 1990s for "cultivating" local, sustainable food supplies. Besides the chicken-raising workshops they hold, they're a good source for legal info, including a list of B.C. municipalities and their bylaws on raising small animals in your backyard.

But it all starts with local government. In fact, in many ways local government has more impact on our daily lives than do other levels of government.

So if you want to raise chickens in your backyard - legally - or build a community garden, or start any other local food initiative you think is a good idea and your community isn't engaged, get busy and contact your council members. That's what they're there for.

 

Cultivate your farmers' markets

Whistler is lucky that when a farmer's market was proposed in the early 1990s, local politicians and business people were all on board - heck, they were driving the train, which isn't always the case.

Some local councils and business communities stall farmers' markets or outright ban them, usually out of fear they'll compete with and detract from local businesses. Ironically, the exact opposite is true.

How big, or small, the welcome mat is for farmers' markets isn't just happenstance. Much lies in the hands of people like those at the UBCM. (Maybe some of them will stay until Sunday to experience the extravaganza of Whistler's farmers' market for themselves.)

But could your local farmers' market be even better, say, if policies made it easier or more efficient to operate? If you're a farmers' market fan, it's a question worth asking wherever you live.

For instance, Vancouver's city council recently passed bylaw amendments and initiatives that are farmers' market-friendly, such as allowing the markets on public lands and putting in permanent way-finding signage.

You don't need to be an expert on the ins and outs of farmers' markets, but if you hear of your local market needing help with policies or procedures, keep an eye on your council members in action and let them know your ideas.

 

Minding the bigger food store

Beyond the local level, government influences food supply in all kinds of ways. For instance, our provincial government makes far-ranging land use decisions, including maintaining the integrity of the Agricultural Land Reserve - or at least it's supposed to.

At the federal level, there are lots of chances to whet your political appetite and get involved. Canadians have been on the short end of imported food safety with 2008's scary melamine-in-food-from-China scandal, and just last week, an internal audit of Canada's Food Inspection Agency (CIFA) revealed the agency is severely lacking when it comes to ensuring imported food safety.

Labelling on food products, another area of weakness also in federal hands, is currently under review and could use some citizen scrutiny as officials seem to be asleep at the wheel. The OECD says that shortfalls in Canadian labelling contribute to obesity, plus the CIFA itself has found hundreds of cases of wrong or false information on food labels.

Even without the label lies, we are nowhere near the level of labelling info standards in Europe. For one, we still don't indicate genetically modified ingredients. And if you really want to dream, how about a rating system on food labels showing that product's carbon footprint so we consumers could make better choices?

When the Thirteen Colonies were first formed the average - repeat, average - citizen spent 12 hours a week on civic affairs.

Activism doesn't only happen at the gym and on the slopes. Even if you've never engaged with "politics," food is one of the most basic entry points into what some call citizen activism or community activism, but what I think of as simply being a good crew member on Spaceship Enterprise... I mean, Earth.

If each of us spent, say, one-tenth of the time our North American colonizing forefathers did on governance, we'd all reap the benefits and likely see events like the UBCM convention in a whole new light.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who admires the tradition of citizen engagement - and revolutions - in Europe.