The Food Circle

Warm days still elude us here on Lake Superior's North Shore. The days are sunny, but, the wind still carries Winter's chill. At least the ground is not frozen and I can begin doing some of the small earthworks that I have planned for the backyard. Over the years, I have made a number of references to planning and its importance. I do believe that old saying, "You don't plan to fail, you fail to plan." For a plan to work, we must understand what we are trying to achieve. In other words, our intentions must be clear. To ensure clear intentions we need a vision, a picture or image of where we want to go. This way we can create the map that will guide us there.

If we are to develop a plan for a city, we need to first create a vision of what that city should look like. All too often, as we develop this image, we pay Nature and ecological principles scant attention. We compound this oversight by not paying sufficient, if any, attention to food security issues. We do build an extensive and expensive network of roads and railways to transport food and other items into the City. We don't create a food infrastructure that will enable the city. Our visions does not include the planting apple or other fruit trees in public green spaces, such as parks.

Planning is carried out, as though, it was acceptable for people to go hungry or that it is perfectly acceptable for food to travel thousands of miles to reach our tables. If the planners were intent upon creating Healthy, Living Cities then they give some thought to incorporating community gardens, common spaces and livestock into the planning process. The living city is a sustainable one. All too often the decision makers' eyes are focussed so intently on the megaprojects that are often dangled before them that they can't see the alternatives surrounding them. The urban farmer can turn a city that is dependant for its food supply on far away producers into a self-reliant, thriving entity.

Urban farming is one part of an urban food circle. The Food Circle is a dynamic, community-based and regionally-integrated food systems concept/model/vision. In effect, it is a systems ecology. In contrast to the current linear production-consumption system, The Food Circle is a production-consumption-recycle model. A Food Circle is a new way of conceiving of and organizing our agricultural and food systems. It links the many people involved in food production together in interdependent, holistic ways.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic