Everyday Activist - Cultivating Calgary's Local Food Resiliency

Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2016 at 09:00 PM

Cultivating Calgary's Local Food Resiliency

Movie Review by Everyday Activist X CalgaryMovies.com

Hopefully the New Urban Farmers will forgive my tardiness. I reached out over two months ago to review this documentary when I saw it mentioned in Metro. Growing food in Calgary can be difficult, because of a short growing season and unpredictable weather. None of these factors deter Urban Farmers; a group not to be mistaken for community gardeners. They are real farmers that happen to be located in the city, selling their crops at markets for a profit. The idea that this is even possible still confounds me. A garden would have to have a lot of lettuce!

In many respects growing is the easy part. Finding a market is difficult. Nevertheless, through partnerships and group efforts such as yycgrowers, markets with local restaurants have blossomed. The produce is naturally more expensive given that it’s grown on a smaller scale. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. What consumers pay for is a vote for local economies, for people to connect to their food and to the people that grow it.

The Urban farmers also provide education to people in hopes that they will find a valuable career in using city land to grow food straight out of high school. Schools and community groups benefit as well from having people pass on farming knowledge and trade secrets. Food always brings people together, no matter age or race as we all need to eat. Even in my tiny garden, formed from a repurposed lawn, the neighbors would stop by to say how it warmed their hearts to see young people gardening.

From a social justice perspective, food security affects everyone. Around the globe climate change and poor food production policies have led to ecosystem devastation. If we all do a small part to meet the needs we have locally, we automatically reduce the stress on other places. People need to pay attention to how they live and the choices they make. Choosing food over lawns is the ultimate form of protest against injustice, especially towards our most vulnerable citizens. Instead of spending money on herbicides and fertilizers, urban farmers use seeds and elbow grease and reap harvests. What’s grown has many different avenues of distribution including charities and other NGOs as well as restaurants.

Hopefully, we’ll see Cultivating Calgary’s Local Food Resiliency at the City of Calgary’s next edition of Baconfest, a film festival celebrating urban planning. It adds a lot of food for thought ~ pun intended of course, to the discussion of urban land usage. Until then I have a link to the documentary that I hope everyone watches. http://www.nufp.ca/ 

Calgary Showtimes:  Cultivating Calgary's Local Food Resiliency >